241 FERTILIZERS 
the manurial values of these, which will be sent 
upon application, and is well worth the reading. 
The farmer should remember that commercial 
fertilizers are only to be used to supplement 
manure, not to take its place, and that when he 
buys any, it must be the best. He cannot 
afford anything else. The man who says, “I 
know my land needs potash, but I cannot afford 
to buy it,” is making a mistake. Suppose he 
should say “I know my children need bread, 
but I cannot afford to buy flour!’ His neigh- 
bors would think he had gone crazy. 
It is just as foolish to deny his land what it 
needs. He should get whatever it needs; for 
if a soil needs any certain ingredient, whether 
potash, phosphoric acid or nitrogen, it is cheap 
at a high price, while anything else is dear at 
a low price. Your soil must be fed as surely as 
your children must. You can get credit at the 
store or at the bank to buy fertilizer, when you 
could not get it to buy an automobile. 
Potash is really one of the cheapest fertilizer 
elements on the market, but farmers get the 
idea that it is high because it is present in large 
quantities in all high-grade fertilizers, and al- 
most absent from cheap grades. Just asa man’s 
wages cannot be estimated by the number of 
dollars he gets each week, but rather by the 
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