No. 4.] COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 41 



low price the other seven months. What has brought the 

 price of stable manure down to w4iere it is? It is because 

 we can buy a fertilizer that will raise just as good a crop for 

 a great deal less money. I use three kinds of fertilizer. I 

 raise potatoes, squash and cabbage on the three kinds. For 

 potatoes I use the Bradley fertilizer, which I consider a great 

 deal cheaper, and I can raise a great deal better potato than 

 I can with a liberal dose of stable manure. We used to 

 think Ave could not raise squash without two shovelfuls of 

 manure in the hill, but that is all folly. We can raise better 

 squash, and are more sure of a crop, with a fertilizer in the 

 hill than we can with stable manure. I used to apply ma- 

 nure for raising cabbage, cauliflower and celery, and I can 

 raise better cabbage with 1,500 pounds of fertilizer to the 

 acre than I can with ten cords of stable manure. 



Mr. George Cruickshanks (of Fitchburg). The gen- 

 tleman on my right makes the statement that he applies fer- 

 tilizer on grass, and he can see no benefit from it. The 

 essayist, upon inquiry, made answer that he used 700 pounds 

 of fertilizer to an acre. Am I right? 



Mr. Parker. Not on grass. Seven hundred pounds to 

 the acre on ensilage corn, but not on grass. 



Mr, Cruickshanks. I will quote to you Dr. Fisher, whom 

 a good many of you probably know. In a conversation that 

 I had with him last week he said that he had grass land that 

 has not been ploughed for over twenty years. After exper-. 

 imenting for several years he now applies fertilizer at an 

 expense only of $6.50 per acre, and gets from that field an 

 average of two tons to the acre.* 



* Mr. Cruickshanks, being asl^ed by a member of the audience for the formula 

 used by Dr. Fisher of Fitchburg, to which he had referred in his remarks, replied 

 that he could not give it verbatim, but thought the doctor would willingly give it to 

 anj' one who asked him for it. 



Information having come to this office that many requests had been made to Dr. 

 Fisher for liis formula since the Great Barrington meeting, he kindly volunteered, 

 through Mr. Cruickshanks, to furnish it, together with his reasons for its use, for 

 incorporation with this discussion. Dr. Fisher's communication is as follows ; — 



" Twenty and more years ago 1 was in the habit of buying farrow cows in the 

 fall to consume my surplus hay. I fed them well, made butter through the winter,, 

 and turned them off good beef in the spring. I felt that I was getting fully $20 a 

 ton for the hay, and still had the manure left. Fierce competition and the growth 

 of monopolies have so far changed the old conditions that now the only way to dis- 

 pose of surplus hay is to sell it as such in the market. We have always becE 



