Vol. XLIV. No. 1860. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 19, 1885. 
PRICE FIVE CBNT9. 
$2.00 PER TEAK. 
(Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1885, by the Rural New-Yorker in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
FERTILIZER 
SPECIAL! 
CONTIIVTJED. 
PROFIT ON FERTILIZERS. 
SEC. T. S. COLD. 
The question is asked, “What is the profit 
of fertilizer manufacturers whose fertilizers 
analyze to be worth as much as their selling 
price?’’ 
Various kinds of materials, the waste of 
manufacturing processes, are either thrown 
away, or sold for a very small sum. Some of 
these articles are utilized by the fertilizer men, 
the valuable ingredients in them^-nitrogen, 
phosphoric acid, or potash—costing much lees 
than in a commercial form. 
The perishable nature of the article, diffi¬ 
culty of distant transportation, and its un¬ 
certain and irregular composition Interfere 
with its becoming an article of commerce. 
Hence it costs the fertilizer man little or 
nothing. The irregular composition of some 
goods, and the inferior character of others, 
depeud upon the use of some of these unre¬ 
liable waste products. 
When the fertilizer business first began, 
Prof. .Vlapea took advantage of a most impor¬ 
tant waste product—the spent bone charcoal 
of the sugar refineries. It contained all its 
phosphoric acid, but was very slow in decom¬ 
position, so that the farmers could see in it 
nothing but black sand. A large sugar 
refiner in New York told me that they used to 
give it away to any one who would take it; 
but that at that time. Prof. Mapes had a con¬ 
tract at a low price for their eutire product. 
The experiment stations have helped the fer¬ 
tilizer business by showing the value of many 
of these waste products; at the same time ’.they 
have guarded the farmers against uu inferior 
article. They have shown that some of these 
waste products are extremely valuable, and 
others worthless. Self-interest will warp the 
views of men, so that they will overlook the 
decisions of science, unless they are backed by 
authority; but such is the standing of these 
stations that their statements are so accepted 
as to have the force of law, eveu more imper¬ 
ative than any statute. They operate to aid 
both producer and consumer—the producer to 
make a genuine article at the lowest price, 
and to give to the consumer such confidence 
in what he buys as largely to increase its con¬ 
sumption. 
Litchfield Co., Conn. 
FERTILIZERS AND SOILS. 
W. O. DEVEREAUX. 
The practical farmer ordinarily cares little 
about the chemical constitution of plant foods; 
but wheu u crop springs forward and gives an 
extra yield from the use of commercial fer¬ 
tilizers, his attention and interest are aroused, 
and iu many instances ho inquires further, 
and gets an insight into the chemistry of crop 
requirements. Commercial fertilizers are 
regarded t»y mauy as beneficial plant foods; 
by others as starters or quickeners, or even 
stimulants; and by others as dangerous mat¬ 
ters, liable to burn the soil, and in time ruin 
the land. 
But reasou aud long trials declare that in¬ 
stead of harm, good alone comes from the 
wise use of carefully formed fertilizers. Quan¬ 
tities, soils, aud seasons make great differences. 
Some one has said that plauts have uo nerves, 
and hence they cannot be stimulated: but 
stimulation is truly an arousing to action, and 
very often fertilizers seem to arouse plants to 
very active work in cell-building, and the 
manufacture from crude material of an en¬ 
larged support for succeeding plants and all 
animated life. 
Common salt, which most people do not 
consider a plant food, is commended as an 
agent for breaking up and reducing element¬ 
holding soils. It may be a stimulant, and. 
like lime, cause exhaustion of the soil. Many 
times I have sown salt broadcast after sowing 
barley, and the usual results have been whit 
ened straw and grain and earlier maturity by 
a week. The yield, though not exactly tested, 
seemed to be no better. To me there has been 
an indication of plant poisoning from its use. 
Mixed with plaster, it is commended by some 
as a cheap fertilizer; by others as the most 
valuable soil solvent. As yet I have not 
THE BEST OP THE RURAL SEEDLING STRAWBERRIES. Fig. 405. (See p. 628.) 
gained any thing by its use. In handling and 
drilling it is an improvement on gypsum alone, 
and I wish it might succeed. Some add 25 
per cent, of salt to a complete fertizer; I 
would rather add the same weight of clay or 
mack. *Why sow “soil solvents,” when most 
of the acids and alkali salts, well known to be 
elements of plant growth, and important por¬ 
tions of fertilizers, act as decomposing agents 
of the soil and its contents? Moreover, the 
roots of many plants have acids of their own 
—a sort of saliva—to break up soil elements 
from which they select their food. 
Complete commercial fertilizers have nearly 
always, in my farm practice, made a gratify¬ 
ing showing when sown in a soil of a nature 
to husband its substances. It is moisture that 
starts and keeps up the nourishing process. 
Then the best soil conditions to bring oat the 
full profit of commercial fertilizers are found 
in some clays, clay loams and even many 
ferruginous sands, and cobbly loams. On 
white, light and blue sands, and gravelly soils, 
the use of fertilizers is nearly profitless, unless 
irrigated. 
Over and over again I have seen fertilizers 
applied on gravelly and stony land suffering 
from drought, and there have never been any 
signs of benefit from the three, four or more 
dollars per acre invested in the application. 
It seems strange that no sign of the fertilizer 
could be found in the crops. Drilled in, or 
sown broadcast on the surface, it seems to 
have been lost. Barnyard manure on the 
same soil is less effective in dry years than in 
wet. Soils that give good returns from fer¬ 
tilizers owe their ability to do so to the clay 
and humus they contain, which are so nicely 
fitted to retain the water from rains and 
snows, to gather moisture from the air and to 
pump it up from the lower depths of soil, and 
thus keep up a regular supply under all cir¬ 
cumstances. Under such conditions fertili¬ 
zers are dissolved, and chemical changes be¬ 
come easy and opportune, and, moreover, 
evaporation of the soil moisture proceeds in a 
great degree through the plants. With its 
freight of plant food, it goes gradually up 
through the roots and stems and out through 
the leaves to the atmosphere, instead of going, 
as in gravelly or light, sandy laud, quickly 
and at ouce from the soil to the air. 
This water absorbing and retaining pro¬ 
perty of clay is also shared by humus and less 
reduced vegetable matters, and hence farm¬ 
yard manure has this advantage and sure 
dependence. It is true that many gravelly 
and stony soils are strong, retentive of fertil¬ 
ity and productive, but their cry is “Water; 
give us water!” though their comparatively 
greater ueed of water is somewhat compen¬ 
sated for by the greater depth to which they 
can be tilled. It is also true that soils having 
too great a percentage of clay become too re¬ 
tentive of water and are often filled with bot¬ 
tom water, and in many cases fail to show any 
good effects from fertilizers. 
The drill fertilizer attachment, as now 
made, distributes evenly, is easily regulated 
to quantities, aud covers with more or less 
soil. I prefer it to broadcasting for all fertil¬ 
izers on hilled or drilled crops, A friend uses 
it for applying fertilizers to potatoes, allowing 
three tubes to run the fertilizer to each row, 
after planting. He applied 400 pounds to the 
acre on one part of the field and $00 pounds 
on another; the former shows a very marked 
improvement in growth over a part that re¬ 
ceived no fertilizer; but the part that got the 
$00 pounds shows only the slightest improve¬ 
ment over that on which 400 pounds were ap¬ 
plied. 
For the farmer who giv68 time and thought 
to the composition of fertilizers and the re¬ 
quirements of the soils of his farm, I believe 
it is a good policy to buy the ingredients at 
