NEED OF COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS 



cannot have any interest for him. If the land is 

 producing some crops for market, there is reduc- 

 tion in its mineral store. It is the rule that the 

 boundary of profitable use of commercial ferti- 

 lizers pushes westward from the older and natu- 

 rally poorer seaboard states about one generation 

 after need shows in the crop yields. Lack of 

 knowledge, the association of the use of commer- 

 cial fertilizers with poor land, and some observa- 

 tion of the unwise use of fertilizers, combine to 

 create a lively prejudice. They are viewed as 

 stimulants only, and costly ones at that. 



Are Fertilizers Stimulants ? Some words carry 

 with them their own popular condemnation. We 

 are accustomed to draw a sharp line between 

 foods and stimulants, and to condemn the latter. 

 To stimulate is to rouse to activity. Tillage does 

 not add one pound of plant-food to the soil, and 

 its office is to enable plants to draw material out 

 of the soil. It makes activities possible that con- 

 vert soil material into crops. Fertilizers add plant- 

 food directly to the soil, and it is also to their 

 credit that their judicious use favors increased 

 availability in some of the compounds already in 

 the soil. The greater part of the labor put on land 

 is designed to make plant-food available, either by 

 M [161] 



