72 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



class physical condition. For instance, if I put a valuable 

 fertilizer upon land which is saturated with water, and where, 

 as a matter of course, the roots of the plants are inactive and 

 dormant, what right have I to expect that those roots shall 

 penetrate the soil and gather up the fertilizers which I use ? 

 And if they cannot, then I have not learned much whether 

 my fertilizer is a good one or not. If, again, the soil is com- 

 pact and hard ; if it is bound together by any cement in the 

 form of lime, clay or hard-pan, so that the air cannot pene- 

 trate it, then experiments with fertilizers on such land are 

 absolutely valueless, because the air cannot enter to sweeten 

 the soil, and I do not know whether my fertilizer was adapted 

 to the plants or not. 



Now, gentlemen, there are two ideas in relation to experi- 

 ments with fertilizers, or the application of fertilizers or 

 manures, which the experimenter, and the farmer, too, should 

 have clearly in his mind, — never confound them, but always 

 act on them, each in its own line and own direction. Those 

 ideas are these : First, the application to the land of compar- 

 atively coarse, crude, cheap material (your ground phosphate 

 here is one), which is to be put into the soil, and there 

 gradually by decomposition and recombination, develop plant- 

 food, and slowly, gradually feed the plants. This is a cheap 

 operation, like the ploughing in of a green crop, like putting 

 into the land muck, like sowing upon it plaster, or this cheap, 

 crude phosphate. The other idea is that of giving to the 

 land costly but ready-prepared material, for the express pur- 

 pose of feeding the plants immediately. Those are the two 

 ideas. They are distinct, separate, and should always be 

 acted upon by the experimenter, as well as by the practical 

 farmer, from a separate standpoint. I know, gentlemen, that 

 when we manure the land we always feel as if we wanted a 

 return immediately. But take those ideas and act on them. 

 Never buy a South Carolina phosphate like that, and be jewed 

 into paying forty dollars a ton, with any expectation that you 

 are ever to get your money back so that you can know it. 

 When you pay a high price for fertilizers, get something that 

 will be food for your plants, something that they can take up 

 immediately, and then you will get your money back, with 

 good interest on the same. 



