I 62 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
March 11 
remark: “ If we had been giving the farmers poor 
fertilizers we never could have built up this place !” 
It is a fact that you can't cheat a farmer on fertilizers 
more than two years in succession. The best evidence 
of a good quality in fertilizers is the continued success 
of the m mufacturer and the fact that the crops con¬ 
vince the farmer that he is getting his money’s worth 
so that he wants more of the same goo Is, year after 
year. 
Putting a Dinner into Shape. 
In a city restaurant’s kitchen you find butter from 
Vermont, eggs from Massa¬ 
chusetts, sugar from Cuba, 
coffee from Java, fruit 
from California, flour from 
Dakota, tea from Japan 
spice from Asia, beef from 
Colorado and vegetables 
from New Jersey. Nearly 
every pirt of the world 
has contributed the crude 
materials. The cook mixes 
and cooks them and turns 
out a “squire meal’’ which 
„ satisfies the human 
boarder So in this “plant 
restaurant” at North Wey¬ 
mouth all the corners of 
the earth have contributed 
different forms of nitrogen, 
po tasli, phosphoric acid 
to furnish a “square 
meal” for the farmers’ 'plant 
boarders. Here we found 
great piles of dried blood 
and meat from Chicago, 
Omaha and other packing 
centers, bones from all over 
the world, nitrate of soda 
and meat meal from South 
America, sulphur ore from 
Newfoundland, fish scrap from Atlantic ports, potash 
salts frim Gcrminy, boneblack and sulphate of am¬ 
monia from England and America, and so on. Here 
are the raw materials—how are they put together ? 
A restaurant keeper who served you for dinner a 
piece of boiled bone, a chunk of gristle, a small quan¬ 
tity of stirclx and some lard would never get any 
more of your money. Yet a chemical analysis of these 
m iterials would show that they supplied all the food 
constituents you need to sustain life. But the chemist 
deals only with the wants of the stomach—he does not 
consider the needs of eye, nose 
and tongue. You don’t patron¬ 
ize the boarding-house that 
shows only a chemist’s certi¬ 
ficate of the analysis of a din¬ 
ner— you go where the boarders 
are fat, healthy and happy. 1 n 
the same way you ought to go 
to a “plant restaurant” that is 
responsible for big and happy 
crops and does not rest content 
with a good “ station report .” 
The business at a fertilizer fac¬ 
tory is to make plant food 
available and then to mix it so 
that a small fraction will be a 
fair sample of the whole. For 
example, a plant cannot eat a 
piece of crude phosphate It 
must be cooked before the 
phosphoric acid in it can be 
used by the plant. The cook 
uses heat to make your pota¬ 
toes digestible, and for a simi¬ 
lar purpose the fertilizer man¬ 
ufacturer uses sulphuric acid 
on his insoluble materials. 
Consequently the apparatus 
for making and storing sul¬ 
phuric acid is as important to 
a fertilizer factory as is the 
stove to the cook's kitchen. 
Few people know just what 
su’phuric acid or oil of vitriol 
is. In striking an old-fash¬ 
ioned sulphur match you notice 
a thick, yellowish vapor—very 
sharp and unpleasant when it gets into the nose. 
That gas in concentrated form and mixed with water 
makes sulphuric acid and the way it burns 'your nose 
is not a circumstance compared with the way it 
attacks nearly all substances except glass and lead. 
“ Phosphates,” combinations of phosphoric acid which 
are not soluble in water, are completely changed when 
treated with this acid. 
I have said that sulphuric acid is the strong sulphur 
gas that we obtain in striking a match, mixed with 
water. For mixing and holding this powerful acid 
a series of great boxes or chambers are required built 
of sheet lead—about the only metallic substance the 
acid will not eat up. Connected with these chambers 
are great furnaces where the sulphur fumes are gener¬ 
ated by burning sulphur or a combination of iron and 
sulphur, called a sulphite or iron pyrites, as shown at 
Fig. 71. This gives the gas we find in the burning 
match and this gas is conducted into the lead chambers 
where it mixes with steam, air and the vapor of 
nitric acid in definite proportions. The steam and air 
are admitted through pipes and openings in chambers 
Materials in a Fertilizer Factory. Fig. 70. 
and furnaces in the proportions needed for mixing 
with the gases. The nitric acid vapors are obtained 
by heating a mixture of sulphuric acid and nitrate of 
soda. This sends off a vapor which unites with the 
sulphur gases as they pass into the lead chambers. 
Once put together, the gases, steam and air unite and 
form sulphuric acid which condenses and falls to the 
bottom of the chambers and is drawn off as required. 
This sulphuric acid changes the crude, insoluble phos¬ 
phate into the soluble superphosphate, all ready to 
nourish the plant. The phosphate may be likened to 
Making Sulphuric Acid in A Fertilizer Factory. Fig. 71. 
a dry, hard crust of bread—so tough and hard that 
ordinary teeth cannot chew it. When mixed with 
milk, eggs, etc., and subjected to the heat of the oven, 
it becomes bread pudding and is easily digested food, 
to which the superphosphate may be compared. 
(To be Continued.) 
One cent will carry this paper to your friend in 
any part of North America after you have written 
your name on the corner to show whom it is from. 
A PROFIT IN PIG PORK. 
A SUCCESSFUL OHIO BREEDER TALKS ; SOME VALUABLE 
“ TRADE SECRETS.” 
How He Gets Two Crops a Year. 
Thinking the readers of The Rural might enjoy 
s imething a little out of the usual lines in pig grow¬ 
ing, I spent a short time in conversation with Mr. O. A. 
Cory of Ross County, Ohio, learning his methods and 
system of feeding. 
“ How long have you been growing swine ?” I asked. 
“ I have made it a spe¬ 
cialty for 17 years” said he, 
“ but have given it partic¬ 
ular attention for only 
eight years, more partic¬ 
ularly as to the adaptation 
of foods and getting two 
crops a year.” 
“ Did you ever try to 
work in more than two 
crops a year ?” 
“I tided once to bring in 
litters a little closer. My 
pigs had been coming in 
May, and I wished to breed 
so that I could get early 
fall pigs. To do this I 
must breed while the pigs 
were suckling, but found it 
was not a success.” 
“When do you wish to 
have them come?” 
“ Between March 20 and 
April 10 as a rule; to be 
exact, in the last week in 
March. I have had them 
come in February and 
towards the last of April, 
but these dates do not serve 
my purpose so well.” 
“ Why do you prefer the dates named ?” 
“ For three reasons: 1 . The pigs are ready to go 
into grass by the time it will do, which, as a general 
thing, will be about weaning time when they are 10 
weeks old. 2. 1 can fatten them out early in the fall 
before cold weather; when they are from six to seven 
months old, during October, and feed them on grass. 
3. In this way I can breed for a second litter and have 
them come in the fir-t half of September. I want the 
sow to rest about three weeks after the pigs are weaned 
before she is bred again. Pigs coming early in Sep¬ 
tember get a good start on 
grass before cold weather sets 
in. I feed the fall litter off in 
April or early in May. I never 
run over 10 days in May. After 
that time I never wait for a 
rise in the market. Again, 
they are ready for market in 
the fall before the packing 
season commences and before 
prices have been crowded down 
and in spring they sell after 
the packing season is over, 
when there is a demand for 
prime block hogs, and packers 
are'pushing the market up for 
their stocks. Until last fall I 
always got the highest prices 
of the year in this way. A great 
item in this arrangement is 
having grass to grow both 
crops with. I make prepara¬ 
tions for fa’l and winter past¬ 
ure for the winter feeding, and 
aim to have good, No. 1 past¬ 
ure. If my farm were large 
and I could have Blue grass 
for early spring pasture, I 
would prefer it.” 
Pastures and Starting the Pigs. 
“What kind of pasture do 
you use ?” 
“It is clover and Timothy. 
Heretofore in one field my 
pasture has been Alsike clover 
and Timothy, which make a 
better growth than the common Red. In this field 
I feed off my fall pigs. In a box at the outlet of a 
tile drain they get water that never freezes ex¬ 
cept in very cold weather. I also avoid any con¬ 
tagious disease by watering them in this way. On 
the stream that flows through my farm my stock are 
often exposed to disease from hogs dying above my 
place. My pastures in the main are Timothy, Alsike, 
and common Red clover—the two clovers in about 
equal quantities ” 
“How do you start the pigs ?” 
