76 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



the same materials can in any other way. It is doubtful if 

 the purchase and home mixing of raw materials can be 

 done profitably by farmers who use each year only a few 

 hundred pounds of fertilizer. But there are hundreds of 

 farmers who buy commercial fertilizers by the ton, who, 

 either alone or in combination with their neighbors, can 

 richly aftbrd to adopt this most rational plan. It is high 

 time to stop buying tons of fertilizer and to begin to buy 

 pounds of the needed elements of plant food ; stop paying 

 a premium on names and trade-marks, and consider only 

 the necessities of the soil with which we have to deal. 



(6) And now, in conclusion, I exhort the farmers of 

 Massachusetts to remember that the amount of plant food 

 which they buy is small compared with that which they han- 

 dle, or which exists within the resources of their own farms. 

 If there is a farmer in this audience who annually produces 

 50 tons of hay, 150 tons of silage corn, 500 bushels of 

 oats, 15 tons of oat straw and 200 bushels of potatoes, he 

 is yearly storing in his barn and grain bins approximately 

 3,000 pounds of nitrogen, 1,200 pounds of phosphoric acid 

 and 2,400 pounds of potash, or 6,600 pounds in all. It 

 would take of the average superphosphate 50 tons to sup- 

 ply this nitrogen, 7^ tons to furnish the phosphoric acid 

 and 24 tons to replace the potash taken from the land by 

 these crops. If the farmer keeps live stock, his purchased 

 supply of fertilizer will scarcely exceed 2i tons, containing 

 about ^ of the total weight of plant food actually used. 

 The other | have been withdrawn from his soil supply. 

 These materials are a part of his stock in trade, plant- 

 building compounds which are travelling in that never- 

 ending round from the soil to the ]3lant and from the plant 

 to the soil. Of this 3^ tons of commercially and agricult- 

 urally valual)le compounds, what proportion will find their 

 way to the soil again ? A })art will be lost in the products 

 sold, — this can scarcely be avoided, — the extent of the 

 loss depending upon the Inisiness which the farmer is 

 doing. But what about the larger proportion of manurial 

 value which is stored in the barnyard or barn cellar ? How 

 fully is this preserved for use ? How great is the loss by 

 fermentation, by leaching, by failure to utilize to the best 



