POTASH ESSENTIAL TO PLANTS. 357 



No. III. Ton, = 2.210 lbs £2 10s. 



" III. (a) " " 2 5 



"V. " " 6 15 



" VI. " 10 10 



" VII. " " 1 15 



1 German thaler — $ 0.72, gold. 

 1 English shilling = $0.2261, gold. 

 1 pound, sterling, — $1.86.66, " 



"The percentage of potassium oxide mentioned in reference 

 to various salines is in every case guaranteed. Each bag, if 

 desired, will receive the factory brand, stating the quality of 

 its contents. The bags usually contain two hundred pounds, 

 and an extra charge of from fifteen to twenty-four cents each 

 is made, according to the quality of the material they are 

 made of. The freight from Hamburg to New York by steamer 

 is at present from eight to twelve shillings per ten, in lots of 

 fifty tons." 



These statements, coming as they do from leading manu- 

 facturing companies in Germany, give us some more definite 

 ideas regarding the first cost of the higher and lower grades 

 of these fertilizers, and may thus aid us to consider their 

 importation from a mere pecuniary commercial stand-point. 

 However valuable this kind of information may be to dealers 

 in fertilizers, it ought to be to the farmer of but secondary 

 importance, for he ought to select them with reference to their 

 peculiar agricultural character. 



Whether potash fertilizers are useful for agricultural pur- 

 poses has never been seriously questioned, since we have 

 learned, by careful investigation, that potassa is one of the 

 esseutial or indispensable articles of plant-food. The unu- 

 sually large amount of potassa which most of our ordinary 

 farm-crops abstract from the soil renders an additional supply 

 of potash fertilizers to our cultivated lands in many instances, 

 on general principles, judicious. The application of potash 

 fertilizers to our farm-lands in their present state of cultiva- 

 tion may, therefore, be urged with the same propriety as that 

 of the various phosphates. We have for years successfully 

 used fertilizers containing phosphoric acid, bestowing but 

 little attention to a supply of potassa, although most of our 

 farm-crops — the industrial, as tobacco, etc., in particular — 



