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to an acre, they secure with the $1.76 increase in the corn crop 

 worth $3.09, with $3.25 of phosphoric acid $6.69 of increase, 

 with potash $3.20, increase worth $7.05. The phosphoric acid 

 increased the value of oats crop $7.68 per acre, while the increase 

 in wheat amounted to for nitrogen $6.54, for phosphoric acid 

 $8.67, for potash $7.39. The values for increase are based upon 

 Illinois prices for the several grains . 



This is practical chemistry on the farm. 



The figures are interesting and enticing. To increase the 

 wheat crop $7.39 per acre, with no additional work and only 

 $3.41 cost, is in every way desirable. But this was produced 

 where the crop was 14.3 bushels per acre, when the corn 

 yielded 20 bushels and the oats 20 bushels. Where the product 

 of Illinois is so low there these principles should be applied and 

 the manure from the stable first of all, then lime and land plaster 

 and finally the waste products of the packing-houses of the 

 stock yards of Chicago and elsewhere should be used to supple- 

 ment the supplies of plant food of the soil where it has been 

 determined which of these is wanting. The hog and cattle ton- 

 nage of the packing-houses supply very cheap and valuable 

 forms of N. and P 3 O5; while the potash salts imported from 

 Germany supply the needed potash. 



We have here an indication of some of the applications of 

 chemistry in the farm labratory. We might extend our 

 applications to the feeding stable and the dairy, but I 

 promised not to punish our worthy chairman too severely. 

 There is probably no line of agricultural work in which so great 

 economy can be effected as in the intelligent application of the 

 principles of the great science of chemistry to the feeding of 

 farm animals either for meat or milk. And the intelligent 

 farmer cannot better inform himself in this line than by carefully 

 reading Prof. Armsby's valuable book entitled "Cattle Feeding." 

 Farmers as a rule are afraid of books, but they are as ready as 

 any one to acknowledge that one cannot be too old to learn, and 

 they must also acknowledge that few things are as valuable as 

 a good book. To gather from such sources the applications of 



