198 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



wholly soluble in water, the manufacturers going so far in 

 this direction that their goods are usually wet and in poor 

 mechanical condition. You would not buy them here, for 

 you could not use them in machines, and you would think 

 you were getting too much water. 



There may be places where insoluble phosphates can be 

 advantageously applied, as upon lands covered with fruit 

 trees or devoted to grass. Perennial plants, like grasses 

 and trees, no doubt extract phosphoric acid more readily 

 than annual plants, owing to their numerous and well-devel- 

 oped roots, which, as in the case of trees, not only run deeper, 

 but are ready at the beginning of the growing season to draw 

 nutriment from a large mass of soil. Winter grains, espe- 

 cially wheat, from the long time it occupies the ground and 

 its growth in the fall, may also be benefited by an insoluble 

 or partially insoluble phosphate. If these latter crops are 

 grown in the spring, when the rapid-growing conditions of 

 heat and moisture exist, then it will be found that these inert 

 compounds are too slow. So, on the whole, we must conclude 

 that for most crops it is much better to have the phosphates, 

 at least, of our fertilizers in a soluble condition. The 

 quantities of plant food which we apply are so infinitesimal, 

 and the time so short for growing most crops, that it must 

 follow that the more finely the phosphate of lime is subdi- 

 vided, the surer and more profitable will be its application. 

 In fact, availability is so essential a condition that the wise 

 husbandman will not overlook it, especially in the growing 

 of quick crops. 



While there may be some latitude allowed touching the 

 availability of the phosphoric acid that we apply, there is 

 certainly no question but that the ammonia and potash should 

 be in active forms. Chemical salts, such as sulphate of am- 

 monia and nitrate of soda, also blood, meat and fish, are all 

 more or less active ammoniates, the chemicals especially so, 

 and particularly essential where nitric acid is wanted in the 

 first stages of growth, I mentioned the application of one 

 hundred pounds of nitrate of soda to an acre of grass land, 

 giving only fifteen pounds of nitrogen to the whole acre. 

 Now you may apply to an adjoining acre one hundred 

 pounds of leather waste, containing the same amount of 



