128 FERTILITY AND FERTILIZER HINTS 



that plant food is obtained at a lower price when the fertilizer 

 materials are purchased and mixed at home than when mixed 

 fertilizers are employed. Of course in using home mixtures, 

 freight on fillers is saved.* 



Home Mixing Acquaints the Farmer with the Materials Used. — 



When a farmer buys a factory mixed fertilizer he does not always 

 know just the sources of the nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash. 

 He may desire his potash wholly as sulphate ; he may want a part 

 of his nitrogen as nitrate and a part in the organic form from 

 dried blood. When he buys factory mixed fertilizers he has to 

 take the word of the agent or the manufacturer. Most manu- 

 facturers are honest men who give what is asked for but when 

 you mix at home you know just the amount and kind of materials 

 you are using. Again, when you mix your own fertilizer 

 materials you deal in the subject "plant food," that is, so much 

 nitrogen, so much available phosphoric acid and so much potash, 

 and you do away with your old bad habit of purchasing fertilizer 

 for a given amount per ton regardless of its plant food value. 



Home Mixing Does Away with the Purchase of Unnecessary 

 Constituents. — Manufacturers make many brands of fertilizers 

 but as previously said they cannot make one brand that will suit 

 the requirements of every individual farmer. For example, two 

 farmers in the same locality wish to purchase a mixed fertilizer 

 for their corn. One of these farmers may have applied farm 

 manure or he may have plowed under a leguminous crop, while 

 the other farmer has not supplied his soil with any organic matter 

 and his soil may be poor and in need of humus. The fertilizer 

 agent or merchant in this particular locality is selling a corn 

 fertilizer guaranteed to contain nitrogen, phosphoric acid and 

 potash in stipulated amounts. Is it reasonable to suppose that 

 this one brand of corn fertilizer is the best fertilizer for both soils 

 under the above conditions? The first farmer who has supplied 

 farm manure or plowed under a leguminous crop would be 

 wasting money in purchasing nitrogen, unless a little in the 

 form of nitrate, which may help to give the crop a start. The 

 other farmer would need a fertilizer containing both nitrogen as 



