54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



pork will alwa^^s sell at three cents a pound, or cheese at 

 six and one-half cents, as has been the case in New York 

 during a portion of the past year, there is little prospect of 

 a return to the prices which have been regarded as mortgage 

 lifters. If this prophecy proves true, nothing remains to 

 the American farmer but to adjust his business to the new 

 conditions. He must carefully scrutinize his methods and 

 determine where expenditures may be reduced, and in some 

 way lower the cost of production. 



In such a study of his liusiness there are very many 

 things for the farmer to consider, prominent among which 

 is the matter of plant food. Here is a problem of funda- 

 mental importance. Crop production imperatively demands 

 raw materials, which we call plant food, and which must be 

 secured from some source or other. Until within the last 

 half-century the ftirm was the exclusive source. With the 

 exception of market gardeners, in close proximity to cities 

 and large villages, every farmer depended upon his soil and 

 the atmosphere to furnish him with the necessary materials 

 out of which to build plants. The words nitrogen, phos- 

 phoric acid and potash, as used in a commercial sense, were 

 not in his vocabulary ; in fact, very few farmers realized any 

 of the great truths concerning plant nutrition which are 

 now so generally understood. But all this has been 

 changed. Theories of plant nutrition are abroad. Plant 

 food is in the market. The farmer purchases raw material 

 for his business, just as does the manufacturer of shoes or 

 of any other commodity. 



The commercial fertilizer trade has become one of the 

 important ones in this country. It reaches out in all direc- 

 tions. It has caused the utilization of vast quantities of 

 refuse materials which otherwise would have been thrown 

 away. It has moved the prospector to carefully and per- 

 sistently search for mineral deposits which otherwise would 

 have been ignored ; and because of the demands made by 

 this trade, we have imported vast quantities of materials from 

 subterranean deposits which exist across the water. 



The miner, the chemist, the engineer, have all been 

 enlisted in this tremendous eftbrt to transform the contents 

 of nature's great storehouses into mixtures that make possible 



