THE USE OF COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 



BY FRED W. MORSE. 



It should always be borue in iiiiDcl that the success of a crop 

 depends on four other conditions besides that of the fertilizer 

 used to feed it. All farm crops require certain average 

 amounts of heat, light, air and water in order to develop an 

 average growth, and just the right amount of each for the 

 largest possible yield. 



Thus weather conditions may favor or hinder a crop to such 

 an extent that the fertilizer has apparently no effect, and these 

 facts have led more than one to the conclusion that fertilizers 

 were useless. On the contrary, since plants must have from 

 some source the elements found in fertilizers, it follows that 

 they should be of value, and a caj-eful study of fertilizer 

 experiments shows that fertilizers, whether commercial or in 

 barnyard manure, cause a smaller variation in yield between 

 good and bad seasons, by increasing the yields in bad seasons 

 while holding their own in exceptionally good seasons. 



Fertilizers cannot make good a lack of sunshine or rain, but 

 they can help the sunshine and rain to do their best ; therefore 

 when the weather is favorable they increase the profits and 

 when it is unfavorable they lessen the losses. 



The condition of the soil in its relation to air and water is of 

 the greatest importance in the profitable use of commercial 

 fertilizers. When a soil is too wet, it allows too little air to 

 reach the roots of plants, simply because the water crowds 

 it out. In average seasons some soils are too wet and others 

 are too dry for the following reasons : A crop of three tons of 

 hay, or one of fifteen tons of silage corn per acre, would result 

 in the removal from the soil of about eight hundred tons of 

 water. To supply this water there would need to be between 

 seven inches and eight inches of rainfall during the growing 

 season of each crop. At Durham, the average rainfall in 



