Our Plants. 27 



that all the letters or elements are present and avail- 

 able except T, and that that letter represents potash 

 which can be bought in various forms for about 4 

 cents a pound. The soil being already abundant in 

 all other elements, the application of a complete fer- 

 tilizer is a most extravagant practice. You pay $30 

 to $40 per ton for a high-class complete fertilizer. 

 Apply it to the land in this case, and all the value 

 it has is the potash it contains, worth $4. Pay- 

 ing $35 a ton to get $4 worth of fertilizer is a rather 

 expensive luxury, to say the least. The nitrogen and 

 phosphoric acid are practically wasted, because the 

 soil has an abundance of these two elements already. 



Thus it often occurs that the application of a little 

 lime or land plaster, salt or wood ashes, produces 

 equally as good results side by side with fertilizer 

 costing $60 per ton. It is not because, as some 

 farmers suppose, that commercial fertilizers are 

 worthless, but because the soil already possesses all 

 the elements contained in the fertilizer except some 

 simple one that a much cheaper element can supply. 



I do not condemn commercial fertilizers, but they 

 are too expensive. I have experimented with them 

 several times, and have never but once or twice ob- 

 tained sufficient additional returns to justify the 

 outlay. I look at them as too much of a lottery, too 

 much guesswork. In a cold, backward season, I 

 have had good results ; in a hot, dry season, a posi* 

 tive damage. 



If I knew just what each of my fields was deficient 

 in, and could supply it without buying a lot of other 



