1877.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
91 
Science Applied to Farming—XXVII. 
What Fertilizers to Use.-Farmers their 
own Experimenters. 
“ These experiments, it is true, are not easy; still they 
are within the power of every thinking husbandman. He 
Who accomplishes but one, of however limited applica¬ 
tion, and trikes care to report it. fnithiully, advances the 
science, and, consequently, the practice of agriculture, 
and acquires thereby a right to the gratitude of his fel¬ 
lows. and of those who come after. To make many such 
is beyond the power of most individuals, and cannot, 
therefore, be expected. Tile first care of all societies 
formed for the improvement of our science, should be to 
prepare the forms of such experiments, and to distribute 
the execution of these among their members.” 
Albrecht Thaer, Principles of national Agriculture. 
“ I have a piece of old land that has been som% 
what worn down by a number of years cropping. 
It is such and such a kind of soil, has been treated 
so and so, and I want to get such a crop, and at the 
same time bring it into good condition. My supply 
of stable manure is short. Will it pay for me to 
try guano, or superphosphate, or potash salts ? If 
so, how much shall I use ? ” 
This is a type of a great many inquiries I receive. 
I wish I could answer them, but I most certainly 
can not. Chemists can not prescribe for soils as 
doctors do for patients. It would of course be very 
easy to take the analysis of a given crop, and say, 
“this requires so many pounds of nitrogen, so 
many pounds of phosphoric acid, lime, potash, and 
bo on. These will he furnished by so much sul¬ 
phate of ammonia, superphosphate, and sulphate 
of potash.” But very likely the soil would supply 
enough potash of itself, and the sulphate of potash 
would not he needed. The crop may have the pow¬ 
er of making use of the compounds of nitrogen al¬ 
ready stored in the soil, o. supplied by the atmos¬ 
phere, so that at least part of the nitrogenous ma¬ 
terial will be superfluous; the application of gyp¬ 
sum is often an equivalent to the addition of pot¬ 
ash and magnesia, since gypsum tends to liberate 
these from their combinations in the soil, and thus 
render them available to plants. So likewise lime 
may often be applied instead of the guano or 
phosphates, with good results, and at but a frac¬ 
tion of the cost. The physical conditions of the 
soil may be such as to very materially affect for 
good or ill the action of the fertilizers, and thus the 
formula, fine as it would appear in theory, will 
be apt to be far from economical in fact. 
Stable manure is a complete fertilizer. It con¬ 
tains all the ingredients of plant-food, and its or¬ 
ganic matter improves the mechanical condition of 
the soil besides. It is a standard fertilizer, and 
useful everywhere. To learn by what artificial fer¬ 
tilizers this can best be supplemented, in any given 
case, is, as I have often insisted, a matter best set¬ 
tled by experience and experiment. 
For farmers who have not their own experience, 
or that of others" in like circumstances, to guide' 
them, the most sensible plan is. to try experiments 
on a small scale, with different trustworthy fertili¬ 
zers of high grade. The ones that prove most sat¬ 
isfactory, can then be used in large quantities 
with confidence. 
This idea is by no means original with me. I 
suppose that if any one versed in these matters 
were to mention the men generally conceded to be 
the leading authorities in agricultural chemistry at 
the present time, the first names would be, in Ger¬ 
many, Wolff, Stoeckhardt and Knop ; in France, 
Boussingault and Ville ; in England, Voelcker, and, 
in this country, Johnson. Now every one of these, 
except Boussingault, in whose works I do not recol¬ 
lect to have seen anything of the sort, not only 
recommends such experiments, but has given more 
or less specific directions for them. In a little book 
on fertilizers by Wolff, which I have at hand, no 
less than seven pages are devoted to plans for farm 
experiments with special fertilizers. 
Prof. Johnson says: “This method consists in 
observing the effects of each element of plant-food, 
or of each available fertilizer, applied by itself to a 
plot of suitably prepared ground, upon a crop or a 
succession of crops. For many ordinary purposes 
plots of small area—a square rod each—are suffi¬ 
cient, if the soil is uniform in quality and depth 
over a considerable surface, as shown by the uni¬ 
form stand of the crops in former years. It is bet¬ 
ter, however, to have a long and narrow plot of 
ten or fifteen square rods area, because the in- 
equalties of the soil are less likely to disturb the 
results. The ground being prepared for a crop, a 
number of the measured plots or strips are laid off, 
and different fertilizing matters are applied to 
them in appropriate quantities. On one, for ex¬ 
ample, use gypsum, on another fresh slacked lime, 
on another superphosphate, made from bone ash or 
bone black, and oil of vitriol; on another pulver¬ 
ized “ blood and meat scrap,” rich in nitrogen, but 
nearly free from phosphates ; on another sulphate 
of ammonia, on a sixth muriate of potash, on a 
seventh a nitrogenous phosphate, or a fish guano, 
on an eighth stable manure, etc. Two or three 
plots with no manure should intervene, to make a 
basis for comparison. The experiments should ex¬ 
tend over a series of three or four years, the same 
plots being each year treated with the same kinds 
and qualities of fertilizers, but cultivated with dif¬ 
ferent crops. 
Some time ago a farmer was telling me of a case 
quite in point here. A farm near his own, which 
had been cropped until it was pretty well run down, 
came into the possession of a well to do gentleman, 
who had noticed a good deal of the working of 
commercial fertilizers, and made up his mind that 
he could bring the old farm back into good condi¬ 
tion by a liberal use of these articles. • So the first 
season after he took hold of it, he applied some 
four or five hundred dollars worth of phosphates 
and guano. The effect was perceptible, but not 
very satisfactory. The next year this was repeated, 
but with scarcely any return. Now, comparing the 
soil and management in this case, as described, with 
some other cases which I have known, J am strong¬ 
ly inclined to suspect—of course, there is no cer¬ 
tainty about the matter—that the soil was deficient 
in available potash, which the guano and super¬ 
phosphates almost entirely failed to supply. Their 
stimulating action enabled it to furnish a little of 
the other needful materials, but by this effort its 
already exhausted condition was made still weaker, 
and it could bear but little more. If such were the 
case, then a proper application of potash salts in 
the place of part, at least, of the guano and phos¬ 
phates, would probably have turned the result the 
other way, and given a profitable yield. 
If, instead of making such investments in fer¬ 
tilizers, of the good effect of which he was by no 
means assured, the proprietor of that farm had 
spent, say ten dollars, in different kinds of fertiliz¬ 
ing materials, as above suggested, and a few dollars 
more in experimenting with them, and had added a 
moderate amount of thought and trouble to make 
the experiments accurate, and had thus learned 
what materials would bring profitable results, 
would it not have been money in his pocket ’ And 
would not the knowledge thus gained have been 
worth something too, on its own account, for him¬ 
self and others to whom it might have been com¬ 
municated ? 
At the late meeting of our State Board of Agri¬ 
culture, . some experiments, such as have been 
spoken of, conducted last season on a farm near 
our Experiment Station, were reported. The re¬ 
sults were quite interesting. Some small bags of 
fertilizers, put up for the purpose—containing dif¬ 
ferent fertilizing materials, the set of six or eight 
to cost some four or five dollars, were exhibited at 
the meeting. No less than thirty of these sets were 
requested by the farmers present, who desired to 
try experiments with them the coming season. 
Since then a number more have been requested, 
and the idea seems to be exciting a good deal of in¬ 
terest. It is possible that some of the readers of 
these articles may be inclined to study their soils 
and the effects of fertilizers on their crops in this 
way. I will give, next month, directions for ob¬ 
taining the materials, and making the experi¬ 
ments. W. 0. Atwater, 
Ogden Farm Papers—No. 85. 
BY GEORGE E. WARING, JR. 
A correspondent asks for a minute description of 
the box that we use for marketing our butter, and 
he offers to compensate me for private information 
on the subject. It will cost him less than any fee 
I should charge, to subscribe for the American 
Agriculturist for several years back. In June, 1870, 
I gave a full description with ample illustrations, 
of the whole concern.* 
The Keport read at the recent annual meeting of 
the Onondaga Dairymen’s Association, shows a suc¬ 
cess in a direction that is open to general adoption 
in the neighborhood of all towns, large or small, 
where farmers deliver their milk to private custom¬ 
ers. The full history of the Association is not given, 
but I infer from the report that the dairy farmers 
in the neighborhood of Syracuse, and perhaps with¬ 
in reach of it by rail, have combined to systematize 
and cheapen the delivery of milk to their customers. 
The Association produced nearly 3,000,000 quarts of 
milk, and bought over 60,000 quarts in addition. 
The sales cm the street not consuming the whole 
quantity, what was not so sold was manufactured 
into about 33 tons of cheese and seven tons of but¬ 
ter, while between 3,000 and 4,000 quarts of cream 
were sold to private families or confectioners. The 
Association runs 30 delivery wagons, which cover 
38 original milk routes. The systematizing of the 
labor, and the greater economy of running a full 
wagon, which supplies the whole of its route, over 
the old farmers’ system of peddling milk—three or 
four wagons sometimes delivering in the same 
street—have resulted in a. great saving of expense, 
to say nothing of the very important item, which it 
is difficult to estimate in dollars and cents, that the 
farmer, instead of being compelled to leave home 
for a number of the best hours of every day, to go 
peddling milk about the streets, is enabled to stay 
at home and manage his own work, instead of en¬ 
trusting it to his hired men. Obviously, it costs 
less to transport 500 quarts of milk with one horse 
and wagon, and to distribute it by the labor of one 
man, than to have the same work done by three or 
four men and teams. While a skillful and trained 
milkman will do the same amount of work more 
economically than will the average farmer, who has 
much else to attend to. The nominal returns that 
come to the small farmer from the retailing of milk, 
are subject to more drawbacks than the realizes. 
Horse-shoeing, harness-mending, repairs and re¬ 
placing of wagons and cans, are all items which as 
his account are usually kept, fail to get “ added 
up,” but any one who will keep a careful account 
of these out-goes, for two or three years together, 
will find their yearly average is a very serious draw¬ 
back on the aggregate returns. Where ten or a 
dozen cows are kept, it would often be better to 
sell the milk at the farm for one-half its retail 
price, than to peddle it out. It is only near very 
large towns that any such*extent of business can 
be done, as at Syracuse, but there are thousands of 
smaller towns all over the country, where an asso¬ 
ciation of farmers, with an arrangement by which 
some one from each'neighborhood should carry the 
whole product to a central station, from which the 
retail wagon or wagons should start, would effect 
a saving that would make an important item at 
the end of the year. 
“ My soil is stiff, yellow clay, with close, hard 
sub-soil. After under-draining my land, would it 
be advantageous to use a sub-soiler, considering 
cost of plow and labor—and, again, will it pay to 
sub-soil clay land that is not under-drained ? 'The 
last question- can be very decidedly answered in 
the negative; concerning the first I can not say 
that I am disposed to recommend the process. 
Theoretically it is advisable. Practically, very few 
do it. I do not do it myself, nor have I for many 
years. It would not exactly he true that it was 
given up in my case, or that it is neglected in the 
* [The Publishers can always supply any back numbers 
desired for 31 years past. Price 15c. each, post-paid.— Ed.] 
