86 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. [Pub. Doc. 



Sir John Lawes of England has been quoted here to-day. 

 I have visited his place twice. He has a soil composed 

 very largely of a disintegrated rock, rich in potash. It has 

 been cultivated for a long time, and each year furnishes 

 sufficient potash for his crops. But Dr. Lawes is the 

 founder of one of the largest fertilizer manufactories in the 

 world, perhaps the largest, known as the Lawes Chemical 

 Manure Company. What is the practice of this com- 

 pany? If you take their catalogue, you will find there 

 listed special manures. I asked the manager why he man- 

 ufactured special manures, and his reply was that the aver- 

 age farmer throughout Great Britain cannot determine what 

 his soil lacks, and as a matter of l)usiness policy it is safer 

 and more satisfactory to supply complete and well-balanced 

 fertilizers for difi'erent crops or classes of crops. 



Another point : it is probably known to you that, if you 

 apply a ton of fertilizer to the acre, by no chemical test 

 can you find where that fertilizer was applied, the quantity 

 being so small, as compared with the great ])ulk of soil with 

 which it is mixed, that our means of analysis are not deli- 

 cate enough to discover it ; and yet we know that when we 

 apply even so small a quantity as two hundred pounds, it 

 will, if applied at the right time, turn an apparent failure 

 into a success. Hence, when we find that so small a 

 quantity will turn the scale, it seems to me rational that we 

 should take the crop, the living thing, and not the dead 

 soil, as our guide, using a special and well-balanced 

 manure. The toljacco farmers who are here to-day would 

 not think of raising tol)acco except l)y a special mixture, 

 specially prepared. The asparagus growers of Concord 

 know that a certain mixture, prepared according to the 

 analysis of the plant and its habits and conditions of 

 growth, will give them better results than a general fer- 

 tilizer. Mr. Shaw of Raynham knows that is true of 

 asparagus. 



Mr. Shaw. Yes, sir. 



Mr. BowKER. And he is one of the most successful 

 asparagus growers in the State. 



I have had experience in the fertilizer business for nearly 

 twenty-five years, and I want to tell Professor Jordan that 



