HOME-MIXING OF FERTILIZERS 



pounds of potash, or 259 pounds. The content 

 of plant-food remains the same, but one half of 

 the nitrogen is only slowly available. The farmer 

 who buys unmixed materials will incline to use 

 only a few kinds, and at first he will confine him- 

 self chiefly to materials whose composition varies 

 little. In this way he quickly sees in a ton of the 

 material, not the whole bulk, but the definite num- 

 ber of pounds of nitrogen and other constituents 

 of plant-food contained in it, and the calculations 

 in home-mixing become simple. 



Materials that should not be Combined. The 

 advocate of factory-mixed goods warns the farmer 

 against the danger of making combinations of 

 materials that will cause loss by chemical action. 

 The danger is wholly imaginary if no form of lime, 

 wood-ashes, or basic slag is used in the home- 

 mixtures. As has been said, some materials will 

 harden, if permitted to absorb moisture, and if 

 the mixture must stand, a few hundred pounds 

 of muck or dry road dust should be added to each 

 ton as a drier, and a correspondingly larger amount 

 per acre should be applied. 



Making a Good Mixture. The process of 

 mixing is simple, and careful station tests have 

 shown that it is fully as effective as factory-mixing. 



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