SOME PHASES OF MARKET GARDENING. 69 



make use of a good thing. This agent system of selling, how- 

 ever, is expensive. Then there are bad debts, and debts of long 

 standing, and interest on the investment and outstanding claims, 

 and a heavy expense in advertising, and other outlays and losses, 

 so that, taken altogether, the fertilizer men may have to charge 

 us the going rates for these plant foods in order to make their 

 old-time profits. But why should they not be satisfied with 

 smaller profits when we and all the rest of the tillers of the soil 

 are obliged to do this? 



Pertinent Queries. — I will add a few more pertinent questions : 

 Why shall we, who know what we are doing, and who try to do 

 a fair and square business on an economical basis, help to carry 

 the losses of poor sales when there is absolutely no necessity for 

 it ? Do we really need ready mixtures ? Do manufacturers pre- 

 tend to know more about the needs of our special crops in each 

 special case, or on our special soil, than we do ? Is one and the 

 same mixture just what is needed for any one crop under all cir- 

 cumstances ? Is it not absurd to talk about special onion manures, 

 special potato manures, special cabbage manures, etc., when the 

 conditions of the soil on which each individual crop is planted 

 vary so much ? Who will tell us whether a certain crop needs 

 exactly six or eight or ten per cent of potash ? Why will manu- 

 facturers sell their slightly differing mixtures of three simple 

 food elements, in slightly dilfering forms, under twelve hundred 

 different trade names? 



Home Mixtures. — I can see no necessity for using ready-made 

 mixtures in the garden, but the strongest reasons for avoiding 

 that course. Let us examine the fertilizer analyses as given, for 

 instance, in one of the latest bulletins issued by the New Jersey 

 Experiment Station (New Brunswick). The mixtures sent out 

 by our various firms as especially adapted for garden crops var}^ 

 in real value between $20 and $26 per ton, and sell at from $30 

 to $40. In other words, the purchaser is asked to pay the full 

 value of the article and an additional fifty per cent of its value 

 to make good expenses and losses of the seller, and to swell his 

 profits. Now if we buy the following ingredients : 



500 lbs. nitrate of soda, costing about .... $11 25 



1,200 '^ dissolved South Carolina rock, costing about . 6 00 



300 " muriate of potash . . . . . . 6 75 



.2,000 lbs.. $24 00 



