FERTILIZERS. SI 



them will keep working to the surface, where the hoe- 

 coming in contact with their tough substance, will be 

 bounced out of place, with the danger of cutting off the 

 plants among which you are at work. The only other 

 really profitable use of these scraps by farmers is for 

 covering over blind drains, to keep the soil from sifting 

 down among the stones or tile. I have used them in 

 covering miles of such drains, and know of nothing as 

 good, especially where the sole-leather waste is used. I 

 have one that was made nearly thirty years ago, where the 

 scraps over small stones, with tile below appear to be 

 as useful as at the first. 



SOME FACTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 



In using potash or phosphoric acid in any form, we will 

 not forget that it never wastes in the soil to any extent ; 

 and, if there is more applied than a crop needs, the next 

 crop will find it. " Fertilizers rich in ammonia, Peruvian 

 guano, sulphate of ammonia, etc., should be applied, a 

 little at a time, and often." Clayey soils do not, as a rule, 

 need so much potash or nitrogen as phosphoric acid. 

 Nitrogen tends to promote leaf-growth. Fertilizers ap- 

 plied to poor land produce more effect than when applied 

 to rich land. In twenty-five experiments with various fer- 

 tilizers, under the direction of Professor Atwater, it was 

 found that the most important factors in the growth of 

 the corn-crop were, first, the soil ; next, the season. It 

 was a sensible and suggestive remark of Mr. Bartholomew, 

 that, if the bone in the soil does not all decompose the first 

 year, the nitrogen contained in it goes over with it is 

 not wasted. If but one of the commercial fertilizers is to 

 be used, let it be bone. The finer the bone, and the finer 

 and dryer the fertilizer, the more valuable it is. " The 

 most profitable fertilizers," says Professor Atwater, "are 



