134 MATXE STATE COLLEGE. 



The comments by the Connecticut Experiment Station on these 

 goods and on the lately much discussed value of soda as a substitute 

 for j)otash, are so entirely clear and sound that they are reproduced 

 here. 



"A mixture of 500 pounds of nitrate of soda, costing $12.50, 1200 

 pounds of basic slag- costing $11.40 and 300 pounds of dry carbonate 

 of soda, costing $6.00, total cost $29.90, would contain approximately 

 the same quantities of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and soda and would 

 hare at least as great a crop-producing power as these fertilizers 

 costing $50.00 per ton ($55.00 in Maine.) 



The only valuable fertilizing ingredients contained in these fertil- 

 izers, viz:, phosphoric acid could, however, be bought for not far 

 from $20.00, so that the plant food in these goods costs more than 

 twice as much as the farmer needs to pay for it. 



It is claimed that the soda existing in these fertilizers as car- 

 bonate and nitrate is an efficient substitute for potash in the plant 

 and in the soil. So far as the plant is concerned a large amount 

 of the most refined investigation would appear to demonstrate 

 conclusively that soda cannot in any sense or to any extent take 

 the place of potash in plant-nutrition. Plants growing in presence 

 of abundance of potash usually take up and contain more potash 

 than they really need. This accidental or unnecessary potash may 

 indeed be replaced by soda, but both may be withheld without 

 detriment to the plant. Even the salt-worts and seaweed which 

 usually grow in soils or water containing much sodium compounds, 

 flourish equally as well in absence of soda,but cannot exist in default 

 of potash. 



On the other hand, soda may sometimes or often take the place 

 of potash as a fertilizer. In such cases it operates indirectly, not 

 by entering itself into the crop as a needful food to the plants, 

 but by its action on the soil, making more rapidly available some 

 other ingredient of the soil, it may be potash, or lime or nitrogen, 

 which is there jDresent, but exists in a comparatively inert state. 

 It is well established that the use of soda as a fertilizer has often 

 increased crops, but experience shows that it is commonly an un- 

 certain and unsafe application to land. In any case it does not 

 enrich the soil or increase its stores of plant food, but simply 

 facilitates their solution, consumption, and it may easily be, their 

 Avaste. 



As a rule soils contain more soda than potash and the frequent 

 use of soda in fertilizers tends to exhaust and impoverish the 

 land. If soda is to be used it is most cheaply supplied in nitrate 

 of soda, which by its nitrogen may easily return its entire cost, 

 leaving its soda in the soil as carbonate, and if more alkali is use- 

 ful, lime is vastly cheaper than soda and not a whit less effica- 

 cious, is in fact, what soda is not, an essential element of plant- 

 nutrition, as well as the safest and surest means of fluxing the 



