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would realize most. A few days' time in perfecting the crop may 

 determine its profit or loss. Then, too, buyers are critical and 

 their fancy forms the one standard which must control the grower. 

 To fit the market most completely, and not fight it in the least, 

 calls for a sharp and discriminating appreciation of the changing 

 tastes of consumers. The universal appreciation of this condition 

 and its liability to changes form one of the difficult problems the 

 grower is obliged to face, yet he who keeps in closest touch with 

 the palates of his customers and best pleases their epicurean tastes 

 will be the one to realize most out of his growing crops. Last, but 

 by no means least, in the consideration of this question, must be 

 reckoned the fertilizer item, and, whether one purchases the ele- 

 ments to combine himself or obtains his supply in the open market, 

 the labors of the manufacturer must be recognized. Dependent as 

 we so largely are upon the market for the supply of plant food, 

 the services of the scientist in fixing values and determining what 

 single or combined fertilizer promises to give the best results with 

 any given crop must be relied upon more and more by him who 

 studies the economies of the question and seeks to feed for most 

 complete results. The day has passed for blunderbuss methods 

 of fertilization, and skill and care are demanded in the selection 

 of the elements wanted for any given crop. 



Right here may well be enforced the old lesson of saving and 

 utilizing the natural accumulations about the barns, yards, cess- 

 pools and sink spouts. Thousands upon thousands of dollars are 

 lost yearly by the farmers of every State through failure to prop- 

 erly save the solids, and especially the liquids, from the stock, 

 protect from leaching under the eaves, and hold by the free use of 

 absorbents the accumulations everywhere, that out of all these we 

 very largely increase the crop-producing power of the land. The 

 most intelligent use of the combined fertilizer on the market will 

 be secured b}^ him who, through skill and economy, utilizes to the 

 utmost the wastes about the farm. 



One of the growing industries in New England, and one to be 

 fostered in every way, is that of poultry culture ; yet there is in 

 no field such neglect of the principles of economy as here. Men 

 forget that breeds are simply the result of the painstaking care and 

 skill of individual enthusiasts and that unless held to the level of 

 large production by the well-defined purpose of the breeder, they 

 revert rapidly to their natural state. The experiment lately made 

 at the Maine Experiment Station reveals the situation facing every 

 grower. By careful supervision it was found that while the best 

 layer in a flock of ten produced over two hundred eggs in a year, 

 the worst loafer produced but thirty-six. This suggests that fifty 



