240 SOILS 



business to buy only such an element or elements as you 

 need. The real fault is yours : you are slow in ascer- 

 taining just what you need. 



The elements are now sold in nearly every sort of pro- 

 portion, and they are supplied in materials of many kinds 

 and names. And it is with regret that one is forced to say 

 that fertilizers are not compounded in accordance with 

 any principle of scientific importance. There seems to be 

 no rational explanation, either, of the proportions as now 

 used in the preparation of goods by the average manu- 

 facturing concern. I doubt if there has been any phase 

 of American agriculture that has come into practice more 

 irrationally than that dealing with the compounding and 

 use of chemical manures. 



When a farmer wishes to fertilize his land, he usually 

 buys some fertilizer without any knowledge of its effect, 

 without any knowledge that his soil will profit by it, 

 without any knowledge as to whether the yield will be 

 increased. He uses fertilizers solely on the theory that 

 they may pay. He guesses about the matter and then 

 hopes it will be all right. But this is not good business ; 

 and it is not good farming. Any other kind of business 

 would be wrecked in a very short time by such 

 methods. 



We must get out of the way of adopting fertilizers 

 simply because they have high-sounding names. Just re- 

 member that a fertilizer is valuable only in proportion to 

 the amount of plant food it contains. You should be 

 guided in buying factory-mixed goods by the guaranteed 

 analysis, and not by any particular name or brand. Nor 

 is the special brand any better. There is no merit in a 

 special crop fertilizer for any and every kind of soil. It 

 is absurd to believe it to be so. The name is worth 

 nothing. 



