SOME GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 367 



largely insoluble, but finally gives good results, as will any other form of in- 

 soluble phosphoric acid finally in the soil. For ready and quick results the 

 dissolved superphosphate, or, as it is called, acid phosphate, should be used. 

 Some farmers have an exaggerated idea of the value of raw bone as a source 

 of phosphoric acid. A good and pure article of bone meal will have about 4 

 per cent, of nitrogen which will at once show for itself, while the phosphoric 

 acid in the bone is really very slow in becoming available. It is usually the 

 most costly form in which to buy phosphoric acid. 



19. Potash is found in wood ashes in a very available form, and the ashes 

 also usually contain a small percentage of phosphoric acid and a large per- 

 centage of lime, and where they can be had cheap enough are valuable. But 

 where potash is the thing sought, it can usually be had cheaper in the form 

 of the concentrated muriate. Near the seaboard it may, at times, pay to 

 buy the crude potash salts in the form of kainit, and kainit seems to have 

 a special value to the cotton grower as a preventive of blight in the leaves. 

 But where there is a distance to freight from the port of entry it is always 

 cheaper to buy the muriate or high grade sulphate, since they have 50 per 

 cent, or more of potash, while the kainit has but 12 per cent. For tobacco, 

 and for crops generally in which sugar content is desirable, the sulphate is 

 the best form. 



20. While in the hands of a judicious farmer the commercial fertilizers 

 are of immense value, the fact still remains that the growing of forage and the 

 breeding of live stock, and the saving, in the best manner, of all manurial 

 accumulations on the farm, lie at the very foundation of all rational farm 

 improvement and the maintenance of the fertility of our lands North or 

 South. So long as states like North and South Carolina raise three bales of 

 cotton for every cow raised the farmers will continue to be the agents of the 

 fertilizer trusts, and no real advancement will be made. Texas grows more 

 cotton than any other State, and yet Texas raises three cows to every bale 

 of cotton grown, and Texas is thriving more than most of her sister States of 

 the cotton growing section. 



21. The true office, then, of the chemical fertilizers is to aid in the 

 increase of the productiveness of the land in those crops that tend to the 

 improvement of the soil and furnish food for cattle at the same time. Used 

 in this way, the chemical fertilizers will gradually increase the amount of 

 home-made manure and render their own use less necessary, until finally 

 none of them need be used except an occasional replenishing of the phosphoric 

 acid and potash in the soil, and in many soils but one of these may ever 

 become deficient. 



22. No chemist can tell you what your soil lacks in the way of plant food. 



