prepared for use it is Nitrate, hence Nitrate of Soda is in a Food for 

 class by itself, different from all other plant foods. 



There are a great many sources of Nitrogen, such as 

 dried fish, cotton-seed meal, dried blood, and tankage. But 

 none of these furnish Nitrogen in the Nitrate form in which 

 it is taken up by plants. This can only be furnished to 

 plants in the form of Nitrate of Soda. Nitrogen applied in 

 any other form must be first converted into Nitrate before it 

 can be used by plants at all. 



Nitrate of Soda contains the Nitrogen that is necessary 

 for the growth of plants. Nitrate of Soda is the best form 

 in which to furnish Nitrogen to plants. When we say the 

 best form we mean as well the best practical form. Nitrate 

 of Soda not only furnishes Nitrogen in its most available 

 form, but it furnishes it at a lower price than any other 

 source, because it is 100 per cent, available. 



How Nitrate Benefits the 

 Farmer. 



Nitrate of Soda, from the standpoint 

 of the Agricultural chemist, is a substance What Nitrate 

 formed by the union of nitric oxide and Looks Like; Its 

 soda. In appearance it resembles coarse ^ nemical 

 salt. In agriculture, it is valuable chiefly Pr P erties - 

 for its active Nitrogen, although it is also a soil sweetener 

 and is frequently capable of rendering available potash in the 

 soil. 



Commercially pure Nitrate contains . . 



about 15.65 of Nitrogen, equivalent to 19 W . !t l 

 per cent, of Ammonia, or 3 13 pounds of Agriculture. 



Nitrogen to the ton. 



Nitrate of Soda is found in vast quan- , 

 tities in Chile. The beds of Nitrate, or p . 

 "Caliche," as it is called in Chile before it is 

 refined, are several thousand feet above the sea, on a desert 

 plain extending for seventy-five miles north and south, and 

 about twenty miles wide, in a rainless region. The surface 

 of the desert is covered with earth or rock, called "costra," 

 which varies from three to ten or more feet in thickness. 



