78 FERTILIZEES. 



an over-good article. If the farmers of Maine will buy 

 Red Beach at $45 per ton, when the analysis shows a valua- 

 tion of but $26.19, and pass by Cumberland, which sells 

 $40.83 worth of fertilizers for $40, why, they are not as 

 shrewd Yankees as they have the credit of being. Here 

 naturally arises the question, why a fertilizer that by 

 analysis is shown to be of a low grade in value, sometimes 

 may give better returns than one of higher cost. It is 

 generally because it may have had more of one of the three 

 elements than the better fertilizer, and hence may have 

 been better adapted for some particular crop to which it 

 was applied ; whereas the more costly one would have 

 shown returns commensurate with its cost had it been 

 applied to the right crop. Where bone-black, ground 

 bone, or finely ground phosphatic rock is used, it will pay 

 farmers to make their own superphosphate when the pro- 

 cess of Dr. Nichols, and especially that of Professor 

 Stockhardt and Dr. Miiller, are followed, as given on p. 

 61. For the past three years I have made, more or less, 

 my own superphosphate. 



THE MANUFACTURERS OF FERTILIZERS. 



I have no war to wage against the manufacturers of 

 fertilizers. The degree of dishonesty and carelessness or 

 ignorance of former years is now rendered impossible in 

 many localities by State laws and the frequent reports of 

 the agricultural chemists. The manufacturer is a neces- 

 sity that we farmers cannot do without. He brings to the 

 business the knowledge and the capital necessary to handle 

 the various great wastes in the most economical manner to 

 get therefrom fertilizing materials. Most of them have 

 one, and some of them two, chemists constantly in their 

 employ ; and one, I know, has ten thousand dollars invested 

 in a building wholly devoted to the single department of 



