COMMERCIAL FERTILISERS 365 



Changed Economic Conditions. The rapid 

 growth of the fertiliser trade is not necessarily an 

 indication that American farmers have preferred 

 artificial fertilisers to farm manures. Since 1865 

 we have passed through great economic and social 

 changes which have favoured the use of artificial 

 fertilisers. The most important of these, as related 

 to agriculture, is the rapid growth of cities. This 

 has developed the great market- garden, fruit and 

 trucking interests which are the chief users of 

 commercial fertilisers. Market-garden and truck 

 farmers, many of whom are, of necessity, located 

 near cities on high-priced land, often find it im- 

 practicable to keep stock or give up the use of their 

 expensive land for green-manuring, even for a short 

 season. They must keep a money-crop growing 

 upon it every day of the season. With them, the 

 soil is merely the medium for transforming the 

 plant food which they spread upon it into merchant- 

 able crops. The modern market garden near a 

 large city more nearly resembles a manufacturing 

 establishment than a farm. Under such con- 

 ditions, the use of artificial fertilisers, as well as 

 purchased manures, is probably the most prac- 

 ticable course to pursue. There are also many 

 instances where artificial fertilisers are seemingly 

 almost indispensable as, for example, in the cul- 

 ture of pineapples on the almost barren sands of 

 eastern Florida. 



The staple-crop farmer, however, has not these 

 peculiar economic conditions to contend with. 

 The time-honoured methods of maintaining soil 

 fertility by green-manuring, by a rotation of crops 

 and by the use of animal manures he can use if he 

 chooses. Unquestionably commercial fertilisers 

 will be used more and more extensively in market 



