HOMCEOPATHY IN AGRICULTURE. 197 



the ear turns yellow and sere, — 100 days from the time it 

 is planted. The question is, will the phosphate rock or the 

 ground apatite furnish the phosphoric acid that is needed in 

 the 100 days as rapidly as the plants require it? This really, 

 then, is the practical problem. No doubt, for the oak tree 

 or century plant sufficient phosphoric acid would become 

 available, but for the corn plant, the rock or the apatite 

 would be a failure. On the other hand, with bone it might 

 be a success. If the season happens to be early and moist, 

 and the bone very finely ground and very highly digested 

 with steam, you may succeed, but if the bone is raw, or 

 coarsely ground, or the season dry, you will make a fail- 

 ure ; and how many failures you can afford to make by 

 adhering to the plan of applying insoluble phosphates to the 

 corn crop, whether in the form of bone or rock, will depend 

 upon the length of your purse. 



Early potatoes are planted on the first of May and har- 

 vested on the first of August, — ninety days, — needing 

 phosphoric acid every day of their growth ; and every prac- 

 tical farmer knows that a potato must grow quickly and con- 

 tinuously to be a success. It is possible that on moist soil, 

 and in a wet season, which is at best an unfavorable one for 

 potatoes, you would get fair results with the application of 

 ground bone, but never a great success ; and as to planting 

 potatoes on raw, undissolved phosphate rock, I have yet to 

 hear of a successful crop being grown ; and I can't believe 

 it is possible, even under the most favorable conditions. 

 There is no quick-growing crop that can safely be planted on 

 insoluble fertilizers, and the man who advises it reasons from 

 the side of expense, and not from the side of common-sense 

 and practice. It is true, it is less expensive at the start to 

 apply them in their crude state, but in the end the results 

 will be found uncertain and unprofitable. 



England, as a whole, possesses a moist soil and a humid 

 climate, but her chemists think so little of insoluble phos- 

 phoric acid and reverted phospiioric acid, that they put no 

 value upon them. They even go so far as not to make a test 

 for reverted phosphoric acid, l)elieving that it is so uncertain 

 a compound that its manufacture should be discouraged. Con- 

 sequently you will find the English phosphates to be almost 



