THE RURAL 
superphosphate, or similar artificial manures 
containing a larger proportion of acid soluble 
phosphate of lime. 
The use of plaster upon potatoes raised in 
the poor-soil field of the Rural Grounds three 
successive seasons did not increase the crop... 
The term “phosphate of lime” includes the 
phosphate rocks found in South Carolina, 
Canada, etc., bone-meal, bone-flour, bone- 
black, bone-ash, superphosphate of lime, etc... 
Professor Storer says that many farmers 
in New England have found that mixtures of 
bone-meal and wood-ashes serve them an ex¬ 
cellent purpose when used as substitutes for 
barnyard manure. On good land apply 600 
pounds of bone-meal and 20 bushels of un¬ 
leached ashes. 
Professor Storer says, on page 246 of his 
splendid work so often alluded to in this de¬ 
partment of the present issue, that it may 
truly be said that very little knowledge and 
still less conscience have been displayed in 
past years in the manufacture of the nitro- 
genized superphosphates in this country. The 
fundamental idea of making them for sale is 
wrong, in so far as there cannot be much 
sense in carrying on at a manufactory any 
simple operation which the farmer can per¬ 
form for himself just as well or better. 
Now, it is not to be recommended, as a rule, 
that the farmer should attempt to decompose 
either raw bones or rock phosphates with sul¬ 
phuric acid upon his farm. It is a difficult 
operation, requiring chemical skill and manu¬ 
facturing appliances. 
But the mixing of the simple superphos¬ 
phate with a dry, harmless powder, like sul¬ 
phate of ammonia, nitrate of soda, or with a 
friable substance like dried ground fish, is an 
operation not beyond the capacity of an ordi¬ 
nary farm laborer. It is a mere matter of 
spreading out and shoveling over. 
The advantage to be derived from this home 
mixing is that nitrogenized manures, such as 
fish-scrap, oil-cake, nitrate of soda and sul¬ 
phate of ammonia, are, for the most part 
cheap merchantable articles of peculiar ap¬ 
pearance. Several of them are so easily 
recognized that it would be a difficult matter to 
adulterate them by themselves. But when 
once mixed with the superphosphate,the iden¬ 
tity of the nitrogen compound is lost. Even 
chemical analysis can scarcely tell how much 
one of the current ammoniated superphos¬ 
phates is worth, for there are many substances 
rich in nitrogen, such as leather scraps, which 
have no value as food for plants, and it is pos¬ 
sible to incorporate these things into a nitro¬ 
genized superphosphate so thoroughly that 
a mere analysis might make the mixture out 
to be worth far more than its intrinsic value. 
Dr. Pusey, of England, many years ago 
made some experiments to find out how great 
an amount of farm manure he could use with 
profit on liis land. To one lot superphosphate 
was added and here is the result: 
No manure, 15% tons mangolds. 
13 tons farmyard manure, 27% “ “ 
26 “ “ “ 28 % “ 
13 “ 
with two cwt of super¬ 
phosphate added. 36 “ “ 
This shows for the superphosphate and 13 
tons of manure an increase of 20% tons over 
the acre not manured. 
Large quantities of nitrate of soda are used 
though the soda is useless. The nitrogen is all 
that farmers want. In nitrate of potash, both 
ingredients are valuable. The trouble is that 
this costs too much. 
Whether plants prefer their nitrogen as 
nitrates or ammonia is a problem. Experi¬ 
ments seem to show that some plants prefer 
one, some another. Other experiments seem 
to show that plants are most benefited by ni¬ 
trates at one stage of growth and at another 
by ammonia. 
Very few soils there are that do not need 
bone or other substances containing phosphor¬ 
ic acid. It is one of the indispensable food 
constituent of the soil which is most likely to 
be exhausted. 
W hether the nitrogen of fertilizers is sup¬ 
plied by sulphate of ammonia or nitrate of 
soda, we may count that its effects will be ex¬ 
pended on the one crop to which it is applied. 
They have no “endurance” as Prof. Storer 
puts it, such as is almost always counted upon 
when farmyard manure is used. If both are 
used the nitrate acts first and the ammonia 
later, a fact in favor of using both. 
We have before called attention to the ex¬ 
periments of Sir J. B. Lawes with ammonia 
salts. A plot received this alone for many 
years consecutively. An adjoining plot for 
the same length of time received no manure 
of any kind. The ammonia plot yielded for 
the first nine years about nine bushels to the 
acre of wheat more than the other. But the 
next 10 years the increase averaged only 
about seven bushels. An interesting part of 
this series of experiments was that a third 
plot received phosphates and potash only. 
These minerals produced little or no effect un¬ 
til a nitrogenous fertilizer was added when the 
yield per acre was often greater than that of 
land manured with farm manure. 
Several years ago, potash (kainit) and 
burnt bone were spread on a plot of the 
Rural Grounds planted to corn. On half of 
the plot nitrate of soda was also spread at the 
rate of 150 pounds to the acre. The yield of 
grain on the latter part was about double 
that on the other, while the difference in the 
color and vigor of the plants could be seen a 
long way off. Now last season a plot of 
sweet corn received at the rate of about 1,000 
pounds of a high-grade fertilizer, while half 
of it received in addition at the rate of about 
200 pounds to the acre of nitrate of soda. The 
yield of this half (additional nitrate) was no 
better than on the other. This leads one to in-r 
fer that the complete fertilizer furnished all 
the nitrogen needed. 
The results of Dr. Lawes’s experiments for 
40 years in growing wheat continuously with 
farm manure, without it; with mineral fer¬ 
tilizers alone and with complete fertilizers* 
may be summed up as follows: Without ma¬ 
nure the average yield for the 40 years was 
14 bushels. Mineral manures alone (no nitro¬ 
gen) scarcely increased the yield. Nitrogen¬ 
ized fertilizers alone increased the yield ma¬ 
terially for many years with, however, a 
gradual decline. Barnyard manure gave an 
average for the 40 years of 32% bushels. Com¬ 
plete fertilizers gave an average for 32 years 
of 32% bushels to the acre. 
Storer estimates 100 pounds of hen manure 
as worth between 30 and 40 cents. 
Mr. W. H. Bowker says that potatoes make 
the best part of their growth in 60 days; they 
must grow quickly and continuously to be 
good, and a potato fertilizer,therefore,must be 
an active one, containing plant-food ready to 
act not only at the start, but gradually 
throughout the season. 
He further says that potato fertilizer excels 
manure for potatoes because it is more soluble, 
and, furthermore, there is no decaying organic 
matter as in manure to foster the growth of 
parasitic germs which appear as rot, rust or 
blight; and in a dry season (being soluble) it 
requires less moisture to make it ready for the 
growing crop. 
Professor S. W. Johnson analyzed some 
30 different specimens of peat and muck, air- 
dried, finding that the average amount of ni¬ 
trogen was 1.5 per cent. This is, as Professor 
Storer remarks, more than three times as 
much as is contained in ordinary barnyard 
manure. 
In some of the above samples the amount of 
nitrogen was as high as 2.5 per cent. If we 
value this as low as five cents a pound, a ton 
would be worth (air-dried) about $2.50 for the 
nitrogen alone, to say nothing of the other 
useful qualities of peat, which depend upon 
the humus contained in it. 
waste of the costly material by leaching in 
solution through the soil. It loses no 
strength by evaporation, but by leach- 
-Again Mr. Mapes says : “ The use 
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$500.in Gold for General Superiority at the 
Cincinnati Industrial Exposition after full 
trial and expert test. 
DIRECT. 
mg. - 
on some soils of so highly a concentrated 
superphosphate as dissolved bone-black (con¬ 
taining 18 per cent, of the soluble phosphor¬ 
ic acid), without mixing with some mater¬ 
ials which would reduce or neutralize its 
acidity, would be very risky, inasmuch as 
damage is frequently done in the use, on very 
light soils , of fertilizers, rich in soluble phos¬ 
phoric acid, when coming in contact 
with roots of young plants. When the 
soil contains a fair quantity of lime 
this danger is not so great.”-Massa¬ 
chusetts Station Report: “The state of 
moisture in a fertilizer exerts a no less im¬ 
portant influence on the pecuniary value, in 
case of one and the same kind of substance. 
Two samples of fish fertilizer, although 
equally pure, may differ from 50 to 100 per 
cent, in commercial value, on account of mere 
difference in moisture.”-Prof. Storer : 
“Spent tan is poor in everything, and is prac¬ 
tically useless except as a mulch, or for alter¬ 
ing the texture of soil.... Sawdust does not 
contain enough fertilizing matter to make it 
valuable as manure, being distinctly inferior 
to straw, leaves, sods, or peat as material for 
composts.-Agriculture, page 220: “The 
old practice of bone-grinding is not only 
likely to persist, but to be greatly extended, 
and it will probably come to pass finally that 
only the mineral phosphates and spent bone, 
black will be used for making superphosphate- 
and that all bones procurable will be applied 
to the land in the form of fine powder. ”- 
“The old notion that those manures are best 
which make themselves felt through a long 
series of years, is now recognized to be an 
error. A just proportion of food, properly 
prepared, is the point to be aimed at always. 
It may be said that an enduring manure is 
enduring only in so far as it is inaccessible to 
the crops, excluding, of course, the case where 
so much manure has been applied that the 
crops cannot possibly consume the whole of it. 
Just as it is the part of prudence in household 
and maritime economy to abstain from laying 
in at any one time more provisions than can 
be properly disposed of in a year or during a 
voyage, so should the farmer refrain from 
bringing to the land an unnecessary excess of 
plant-food.”-“In the vicinity of many 
large cities spent bone-black may perhaps be 
regarded as the cheapest source of phosphoric 
acid for the farmer. This substance is pre¬ 
pared in enormous quantities for the use 
of sugar refiners.”-Storer, page 235: 
“Almost the whole of the enormous quantity 
of superphosphate now used is made, not from 
bones, but from mineral phosphates. ”- 
Prof. Atwater in R. N.-Y. of Sep. 12, 1885: 
‘Farmers cannot afford to use commercial 
fertilizers at random, and it istime they under¬ 
stood the reason why.”--“The right mate¬ 
rials in the right places bring large profits. 
Artificial fertilizers, rightly used, must prove 
among the most potent means for the restora¬ 
tion of our agriculture.”-“The only way 
to find what a soil wants is to study it by 
careful observation and experiments. ”- 
Donald Mitchell: “Any bumpkin may 
rear a crop which shall keep him from starv¬ 
ing. But to develop the utmost economic ca¬ 
pacity of a given soil by fertilizing applian¬ 
ces, or by those of tillage, is the work of a 
wiser man than belongs to our day.”- 
Agriculture: “American fish scrap is an ex¬ 
tremely cheap manure. It can usually be 
bought at wholesale for $12 or $15 the ton and 
seldom or never costs more than $18.”- 
“Any blood that happens to be at the farm¬ 
er’s disposal, either from animals slaughtered 
at the farm or as obtained from a neighboring 
butcher, may be put to use directly for com¬ 
post making, or, perhaps better, it may be 
preserved by means of lime as follows: the 
blood is thoroughly mixed in a shallow box 
with four or five per cent, its weight of dry, 
freshly-slaked lime; the mixture is cov¬ 
ered with a thin layer of the lime and 
left to itself to dry. The dry mixture 
may be kept for a long while without 
change. It may be applied to the land 
as it is, or added to a compost heap.”- 
Agriculture : “It is evident that gypsum 
must be moist if it is to be of use as an ab¬ 
sorbent of ammonia to enter in the soil or upon 
the dung-heap ”-“ Though perhaps not to 
be recommended as a direct addition to the 
manure heap, it is none the less true that gyp¬ 
sum scattered on moist places in horse stables 
and cow stalls may do excellent service by 
checking the fermentation of the urine, and 
by absorbing some of the odors which arise 
from it.”-“ Bone-meal in conjunction 
with stable manure will naturally do 
well.”-C. V. Mapes: “The use of nitrate 
of soda alone as a source of nitrogen on a light 
soil is very injudicious, as it requires very 
favorable circumstances to prevent a rapid 
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