202 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



And in another paper he says, '* Even the peculiar form 

 in which potash, etc., has been applied, is known to exert 

 a decided influence on the production of one or more organic 

 constituents of plants." 



The tobacco growers of this country, especially those in 

 the Connecticut valley, have found that not only certain 

 ingredients, like salt, must not be applied to tobacco, but 

 that certain forms of potash, like the sulphate, are essential 

 to the production of a good leaf, and that the form of the 

 ammonia also has an influence upon the crop. Touching 

 this subject, Professor Johnson of Connecticut, in his annual 

 report for 1884, says : — 



" It would be o;oiniT too far to assert that the use of chlo- 

 rides (muriates) of fish or slaughter-house fertilizers must 

 invariably produce tobacco of inferior quality . . . The 

 tobacco growers will, however, do well to avoid the use of 

 the above-named fertilizers, which experience in all countries 

 agrees in indicating to be, as a rule, likely to injure the 

 burning quality of the leaf;" which means that certain forms 

 of plant food are probably better adapted to tobacco than are 

 other forms. 



Twelve years ago I was requested by some of the farm- 

 ers of the Connecticut valley, notably the late Mr. Hurd of 

 North Hadley, who was one of the most intelligent tobacco 

 raisers in the State, to manufacture a tobacco fertilizer. I 

 was then fresh from the instruction of Professors Goessmann 

 and Stockbridge, and having little experience in business 

 and knowing nothing of costs, I set to work to make this 

 compound. I made it of two ingredients, nitrate of potash 

 and dissolved bone. The nitrate of potash furnished the 

 nitrogen as well as the potash, and the bone the phos- 

 phoric acid. It cost $100 a ton, for saltpetre was then 

 worth $160 per ton in gold, and bone $50 per ton. As you 

 may imagine, I sold but little, for in announcing its cost I 

 almost paralyzed the farmers. However, Mr. Hurd and 

 several other progressive men were determined to try it. 

 The result was entirely satisfactory, and I think as long as 

 Mr. Hurd lived he used this mixture, raising a leaf that 

 brought the highest price in the market. This fertilizer, 

 however, was doomed to failure on account of its cost, yet 



