250 HANDT-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY. 



out of buttons and grogram, and be obliged to throw up his contract, 

 .and to expend the last dollar of his substance in compounding with 

 his hands, with whom he is not able to keep his engagements. It 

 would be as just to blame the cloth for ruining the tailor as it is 

 to blame Peruvian guano for exhausting the land. It is very well 

 to have a large amount of the purely stimulating elements of ma- 

 nure, but, unless the farmer keeps a sharp eye to the " buttons and 

 grogram," he will wish that he had never seen any thing but the 

 "good old stuff" of the barnyard, and had been content with the 

 ordinary retail trade on which he was making a comfortable 

 living. 



But, on the other hand, it is as easy for him to procure what is 

 necessary to keep up the balance of his stock in trade as it would 

 be for the tailor ; and he would make a grave mistake, if, by 

 reason of any bugbear of exhaustion, he neglected to use every 

 available fertilizer which, by any means, might add to the bulk and 

 value of his productions. 



Concerning the importance of phosphoric acid, so much has 

 been said, incidentally, in treating of the use of night-soil and 

 stable manure, that it is not worth while to give more space to its 

 consideration here. 



It is a capital manure in whatever form it may offer itself; and 

 it is, furthermore, the manure of which all grain and meat produ- 

 cing farms stand in the greatest need. Its importance to the 

 agriculture of the country may be safely assumed to exceed that 

 of all the other elements of imported or of home-made fertilizers — 

 that is, if we take into consideration, not the results of a few years, 

 but the prosperity of the country for generations. 



Potash. — Second in importance among the earthy ingredients of 

 plants stands the article which is familiar to every one as " potash." 

 This is known to us all as the chief constituent of the lye which 

 results from the leaching of wood ashes ; and, even as we find it 

 to a greater or less extent in the ashes of all wood burned for fuel, 

 so in the laboratory the chemist finds it as a more or less important 

 constituent of every crop grown on the farm. Its proportion as 



