THE USE OF MIXED FERTILIZERS. 
DR. LAWKS'S OPINION UPON 8EVHRAL IMPORTANT FER¬ 
TILIZER QUESTIONS. 
The R N.-Y. asked the following questions of Sir 
J. R. Lawes of Rothamsted, England; Some ferti¬ 
lizer firms hold that their goods are superior to 
other goods because they use nitrogen and phos¬ 
phoric acid in varied forms, thus giving to plants 
the foods they need as needed. For instance, phos¬ 
phoric acid is given in bone flour, in bone superphos¬ 
phate and guano—no rock. Nitrogen is given in 
nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia, tankage, etc. 
Do you think 
there is any 
decided advan¬ 
tage in this ? 
Would it not 
be as well to 
use fine bone, 
sulphate of 
potash, or un¬ 
leached ashes 
or muriate of 
potash for 
most crops, 
and enough 
nitrate of soda 
to give more 
nitrogen than 
the bone fur¬ 
nishes? The 
question i s, 
would not 
farmers do bet¬ 
ter to buy bone 
flour, nitrate 
of soda, etc. 
separately and 
spread them ? 
REPLY. 
I can quite 
understand a 
manure maker 
preferring to 
sell a com- 
pound manure 
and he is able 
to make a large 
profit. The 
prices o f ni¬ 
trate of soda, 
bone flour and 
rock super¬ 
phosphate are 
well known, 
and a farmer 
can mix them 
in the propor¬ 
tion he re- 
quires with 
much less cost 
than he can 
purchase the 
mixture. The 
same holds 
good in food. 
We have any 
amount of cat¬ 
tle cakes in the 
market. A 
man goes into 
the market, 
purchases va¬ 
rious grains, 
etc., grinds 
them, calls the substance a cake and charges about 
£2 or £3 per ton above the cost of 4)he raw sub¬ 
stance. To call a thing a cake, does not increase 
its feeding properties. I once wrote a paper on the 
subiect pointing out that cotton cake and linseed cake 
were the refuse of the production of oil, and that they 
would still be made even if farmers did not purchase 
them. So they sell exactly for the price that farmers 
think it worth while to pay for them and no more. I 
have known linseed cake to sell at £14 per ton, while 
cotton cake would only make £5, and now one sells 
for £7 and the other not much less. With reference to 
farmers purchasing their own manure, it may be said 
generally that for grain crops bone is hardly used at 
all *, for wheat, if autumn sown, only nitrate of soda 
is used ; for spring sown grain crops mineral super¬ 
phosphate and nitrate of soda. Fine ground bone is 
used upon some kinds of soil for turnips, and it is also 
used for pasture land. In my opinion, bones act too 
slowly to be used for annual crops, but they are of 
great value as an ingredient in compound manures for 
sugar-cane, coffee, tea, etc. 
My fifty-first crop of wheat which I am now cutting, 
has been much damaged by the heavy rains; if we 
had had a dry July, I think I would have grown over 
50 bushels per acre upon the highest manured land ; 
but some of 
the less highly 
manured crops 
will yield well, 
and taking 
England alto¬ 
gether, I con¬ 
sider it to be a 
year of great 
aibundance. 
Every crop is 
good, some re¬ 
markably so. 
A short time 
ago I called at¬ 
tention to the 
fact that all 
the years in 
my experience 
ending with a 
4—34, 44, 54, 
04,74,84—have 
had large 
wheat crops. I 
think I might 
say now that 
94 will add to 
the number. 
A REMARKABLE PEAR. (See Page 573.) Fio. 145. 
R. N.-Y.-“The 
same may be 
said of food,” 
says Dr. Lawes 
The food for 
plants and an¬ 
imals is pre¬ 
cisely the same 
For plants, 
what the soil 
does not sup¬ 
ply, the air 
does supply. 
For animals, 
what plants do 
not supply,the 
air supplies. 
Instead of buy¬ 
ing meat, veg¬ 
etables, milk, 
etc., at the 
usual price,we 
may choose 
prepared foods 
containing 
precisely the 
same consti- 
tuents, and 
pay five times 
as much for 
them. We pay 
others a profit 
for mixing 
foods which 
we are unwill¬ 
ing to mix 
k 
