40 MODERN HIGH FARMING. 



this, a good mixture of about equal parts of cheap cotton-seed cake 

 dust and well made superphosphate, containing about 14 per cent, 

 of soluble phosphoric acid with the addition of, say, one-fifth of 

 their combined weight of muriate of potash. 



This mixture, well plowed in and thoroughly mixed, with a heavy 

 top-dressing of slaked lime in fine powder, would not have failed to 

 produce excellent results considering the poverty of the ground. 



An analysis of the manure actually used showed it to chiefly con- 

 sist of valueless alkaline salts, sand, and earthy matters (probably a 

 mixture of common poudrctte and sand), minute quantities of nitro- 

 gen, and about ten per cent, of phosphate of lime ; the whole with a 

 very foetid odor, to mislead the farmer, who has somehow an idea 

 that no manure is manure unless it has a strong and characteristic 

 smell. 



This worthless mixture, foisted upon an ignorant man by a smooth- 

 tongued rascal, was sold to him as phospho-guano, at the price of 

 thirty dollars per ton, in bags delivered at his farm, and would have 

 been dear at one-sixth of that price ! 



If agriculture is to remain the basis of the wealth of this coun- 

 try ; if the United States are to ultimately become the greatest food 

 producers for the world's teeming millions, there must be no such 

 thing as exhaustion of the soil, or poverty in the crops. 



The preventive remedies are known to us, and it rests entirely 

 with ourselves to acquire them with certainty. On the one hand 

 we know that an acre of fertile land should contain a certain per- 

 centage of phosphoric acid. On the other hand we have discovered 

 that our own soil falls considerably short of the quantity required 

 by the crops we desire to grow. We base our estimates upon the 

 deficiency, and introduce a given quantity of superphosphate of 

 lime. 



The law says that, every trader in manures shall guarantee the 

 genuineness of his wares by the test of chemical analysis. In other 

 words, if superphosphate be sold as containing 12 per cent, of 

 phosphoric acid, and be found to contain only half that quantity, the 

 seller is deemed guilty of fraud and is liable to punishment. JJut 



