WHERE CHEMICALS COME IN. 163 



it would accomplish ; that it could be used in this promiscu- 

 ous way, as we use other manures and other fertilizers, and 

 every man could take his material for fifty bushels of corn 

 and apply it to his land, and invariably, without regard to the 

 vicissitudes of the season or the character of the land, get his 

 fifty or seventy-Jive bushels of corn to the acre. I never 

 made the statement that any man could do any such thing. 

 I have said that with the chemical fertilizers, compounded in 

 a certain way, applied in certain quantities, such a crop, or 

 approximately such a crop, could be depended upon. I never 

 anticipated, when I said* "Put on the material for fifty 

 bushels to the acre beyond the natural yield, aud you will get 

 fifty bushels to the acre more than the natural yield," that 

 anybody would come within an eighth of a bushel, as Dr. 

 Sturtevant did in his experiment. I believe that was the 

 extent. I did not want anybody to think that was strictly 

 according to scientific principles. The idea is this : that 

 here are commercial fertilizers, — I do not mean the Stock- 

 bridge fertilizers ; I do not care anything about the Stock- 

 bridge fertilizers, any more than I do about Bradley's fertil- 

 izers ; that is a matter of no account, — here are chemicals, 

 that, when barn-yard manure is exhausted, when all the 

 ordinary means of fertilizing your farms are used up, can be 

 compounded on certain principles, which any man can com- 

 prehend, and you can grow crops and improve your land ; 

 that you can take poor land and gradually bring it up, when 

 your barn-yard manure is gone ; that in an extraordinarily 

 wet or dry season, it is a safer material than the crude, 

 coarse, raw materials which we call barn-yard manure; and 

 that, on the whole, during a period of ten years, you can rely 

 on getting just about so much corn, so much grass, so many 

 bushels of potatoes, on the average, according to the quantity 

 of material you apply. You may give these fertilizers or 

 chemicals any name you please ; I do not care what you call 

 them; but this is the fact, that nitrogen, potash, phosphoric 

 acid, lime, and magnesia, for certain crops, compounded on 

 certain principles, in a soluble form, will manure your land, 

 make it rich and fertile, and you need not keep cattle on your 

 farms for the express purpose of making barn-yard manure. 

 But do not understand me as saying that I advise you first to 



