No. 4.] CHEMICAL AND FARM MANURES. 165 



experiment stations of soils most truly representative of dif- 

 ferent sections, to ascertain, taking into account losses by 

 drainage and the ingredients removed by crops, what quan- 

 tities of the various manurial ingredients must be applied 

 annually or at other intervals to most economically maintain 

 maximum crops and normal soil conditions. Such work on 

 the part of the stations requires, as previously stated, con- 

 tinuity of efibrt, and involves some reasonable assurance of 

 tenure of office ; for otherwise we shall continue to have the 

 lamentable picture of station workers undertaking only ex- 

 periments which they can reasonably hope to complete in a 

 short time, — a policy to w^hich there are now too few excep- 

 tions, particularly in those States where the advancement of 

 science and the promotion of public interests are subserved 

 to seeking party spoils. 



He who has been an observing student of the fertilizer 

 problem from the birth of the Stockbridge formulas until 

 the present day cannot deny that the fertilizer manufacturer 

 has rendered an important service to agriculture in calling 

 attention to the beneficial action of chemical manures, since, 

 had he not sent his commercial missionary, the travelling 

 salesman, to practically every farmer in the laud, the knowl- 

 edge and use of fertilizers would probably have become far 

 less general. Admitting that many farmers through lazi- 

 ness and lack of business enterprise have bought fertilizers 

 recklessly, yet much good seed has been sown. 



The question that comes home to the Massachusetts farmer 

 to-day is this : Is it the best economy to employ ready- 

 mixed fertilizers without more definite knowledge of the 

 materials employed in compounding them, particularly in 

 view of the difference in the specific action of the various 

 ingredients upon special soils and crops? In Germany, 

 thanks to the use of the facilities for agricultural education, 

 the progressive agriculturist does not doctor his land by the 

 employment of universal panaceas containing a mixture of 

 all of the medicines given in the agricultural pharmacopoeia, 

 but employs the materials and doses to suit the individual 

 requirements of the particular case in hand. To be sure, 

 mixtures of superj^hosphate and sulfate of ammonia, as well 

 as nitrate of soda with superphosphate in definitely stated 



