™E 242 



GARDEN YARD ^^ 



amount of the necessities of life that he can buy 

 in return for the number of hours he has worked; 

 so the price of fertihzer must be judged by the 

 amount of plant food it contains, rather than by 

 the money cost per ton. That is what makes 

 high-grade fertilizer really cheaper than the low 

 grades which cost less money. 



For example, take the most popular of the 

 $25 a ton fertihzer, "2-8-2." This contains 

 12 per cent, of plant food, or 240 pounds to the 

 ton, made up as follows : two per cent, nitrogen, 

 eight per cent, phosphoric acid, and two per 

 cent, of potash. This brings the cost of this 

 cheap fertilizer to lOJ cents per pound of plant 

 food to the ton. Now if the farmer bought a 

 ton of plain muriate of potash, it would cost 

 him $50 per ton, but he would get 50 per cent, 

 of plant food, thus making the actual cost only 

 five cents per pound of plant food, less than 

 half the plant food price of " 2-8-2." 



Few farmers want to buy the potash sepa- 

 rately, and they complain that the manufac- 

 turer charges high for it in fertilizer where it is 

 present in large quantities. But a little in- 

 vestigation will prove that this is not so. Take 

 for example, the "2-8-10" grade which sells 

 generally for $30 per ton. Here you have 20 

 per cent., or 400 pounds, of plant food to the 



