fertilizers: — agricultural, intellectual, etc. 171 



soil ma}' do for preparing food for the plant from the raw mate- 

 rial, there is a constant call for other help, and in no one direc- 

 tion has the progress of the age been more marked, and perhaps 

 more promoted, than b}' the application of scientific methods to 

 the preparation of food for plants. And not their preparation 

 onl}', but their nice adaptation to the special wants of individual 

 classes of plants. Each plant is delicately consulted as to the 

 food which it would prefer ; next, the place where it is to make its 

 home is carefully examined to see whether just that kind of food 

 can be found there and in abundant supply ; and in case it is not 

 found the caterers emploj^ed by Mr. Bowker or Mr. Mapes 

 immediately furnish it. Literally, the appetite of each plant or 

 each family of plants is consulted with almost the care and success 

 with which a hospitable host would seek delicately to inform 

 himself of what might be the favorite dish of his guest. 



It is wonderful and instructive to see to what nice shadings of 

 adaptation this preparation of food for plants has been carried. 

 In^jtructive and interesting not merely to the horticulturist, as of 

 practical utility, but to every one who watches with interest the 

 varied agencies and evidences of the world's advancement. Here 

 is a soil rich in organic matter on which we wish to raise a crop of 

 grain, but because of the ver\' abundance of organic matter there 

 will be an overgrowth of straw and root, — a splendid show of 

 green but little of grain. We ask, through the chemist, what the 

 trouble is. He shows us that phosphoric acid enters largely into 

 the formation of the kernel of grain, and the kernel is what we 

 are after. So we give the stalks food containing ten or twelve 

 pel cent, of soluble phosphoric acid with a liberal amount of 

 potash. And the plant gratefully thanks us for our thoughtful 

 kindness in asking it what food it needed or preferred, and so, 

 bowing low its head in acknowledgement, it waves to us in autumn, 

 whenever we pass that way, its golden banners, promising to bring 

 to us its golden grain. 



And here we might recite a long list of various fertilizers spec- 

 ially adapted, with the nicest balancing of the chemist's scales, to 

 special families of plants ; in each fertilizer essentially the same 

 ingredients used, but in every possible variety of proportion, 

 according, as I have implied or said, to the recognized nature of 

 the plant whose food it is to be. 



For corn, tubers, wheat, turnips, grass, lentils, garden vines, 

 rose bushes, — for each one its own package is duly labelled, — in 



