No. 4.] C0:MMERCIAL plant food. 73 



of potash at $40 per ton. Now, what shall I purchase for 

 my nitrogen supply?" Before replying to him, I had cal- 

 culated that his phosphoric acid would cost him only 4 cents 

 per pound and his potash 4 cents, plus a small increase for 

 freight. I said to him : "If you can get cotton-seed meal 

 at $20 per ton, buy that. Allowing fair prices for the 

 phosphoric acid and potash it contains, the nitrogen in it 

 will cost you 12 cents per pound." I might have said, fur- 

 ther, that at the prices he gave me for $19 he could mix a 

 fertilizer similar to the average one sold in New York for 

 $29, leaving him a margin of $10 to pay the freight from a 

 not very distant point. 



Not long since I was at Riverhead, on the eastern end of 

 Long Island, and was informed that the farmer's club of 

 that section had contracted with a manufacturer to make 

 and deliver a mixture containing 4 per cent of nitrogen, 

 8 per cent available phosphoric acid and 10 per cent of 

 potash, for either $26.50 or $27 per ton. This was at the 

 rate approximately of 4J cents per pound for phosphoric 

 acid, the same for potash, and 13 cents for nitrogen. At 

 the average rates ruling in the retail trade, the cost would 

 have been not less than $36, or $10 more. 



During the past few years the experiment stations of 

 Connecticut and New Jersey have not ceased to advise the 

 farmers of those States that it is economy for them to buy 

 the unmixed raw materials, and make their own plant-food 

 mixtures. Upon consulting the reports of these stations 

 for 1895, I iind the following facts : In Connecticut the sta- 

 tions analyzed 15 samples of home-mixed goods. Throwing 

 out cases of special contract, it was found that in 11 in- 

 stances the home mixtures cost, exclusive of mixing, only 90 

 cents per ton more than the station valuation. The mixing 

 can be done at from $1 to $1.50 per ton. It appears that in 

 the same year 151 factory-mixed brands, sold in the ordi- 

 nary manner, cost an average of $34.80 per ton, which was 

 $9.30 per ton more than the station valuation. 



In New Jersey the station looked up the data of 9 cases 

 of home mixing, and found that the cost to the farmers, 

 after allowing for freight and mixing, was $3.06 per ton 

 less than the station valuation of these mixtures. On the 



