440 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
FEB 46 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Hornet 
Conducted by 
ELBERT B. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. S4 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1889. 
CHANGE OF CLUBBING TERMS. 
The N. Y. Weelcly World and the 
R. N.-Y., $2.25. 
The Detroit Free Press and the R. N.- 
$2.25. 
The Courier-Journal and the R. N.-Y., 
$2.25. 
The Weekly Inter-Ocean and the R. N.- 
Y., one year, $2.50. 
The lowest possible clubbing rates 
with any journal in America will be given 
on application. Subscribe through the 
Rural New-Yorker. 
Good, responsible agents wanted. We 
are prepared to offer very liberal terms. 
Correspondence solicited. 
A Mighty “Combine” in which the 
farmer may trust is “ Potash, Phosphoric 
Acid and Nitrogen.” 
-^ i » ■» - 
The attention of the readers of the 
R. N.-Y. is called to our catalogue 
notices and reviews on page 111. They 
will be found of more than usual interest. 
With their permission the photographic 
portraits of those women who take the 
first ten premiums will be presented in the 
R. N.-Y. of November and December 
next. 
New readers may notice that there are 
four “ symposiums” in this week'sR. N.- 
Y. This is a feature inaugurated by us 
years ago. It has become more and more 
popular with our readers, for which 
reason we have made preparation to pre¬ 
sent several each week during the entire 
year. 
What's the use of all the experiment 
stations doing just the same woik in 
analyzing fertilizers? What a lot of time 
is in this way thrown away. Here is Ex¬ 
periment Station A. analyzing a sample 
of Mapes’s or Bowker’s or some o her 
brand. Here are Experiment Stations B., 
C., D ., doing the same thing. Who 
gains by this? 
Keep it before the people: A “ com¬ 
plete” fertilizer may be composed of only 
one per cent, of phosphoric acid, potash 
and nitrogen. The word “complete” is 
deceptive. A fertilizer may be “com¬ 
plete,” according to the accepted usage 
of the word, just the same if it contain 
the lowest per cent, of the three chief 
plant foods as if it contain the highest per 
cent. 
If side by side with other fertilizers 
bone, dissolved bone-black, kainit, wood 
ashes, fish, nitrogen in any form, plaster, 
lime or any other one-sided fertilizer will 
secure full crops, the farmer will be justi¬ 
fied in using such fertilizers. But it 
should always be borne in mind that 
while a one ingredient fertilizer is being 
used, the soil is all the while growing 
poorer in other plant constituents. It is 
merely a matter of time before the imper 
feet fertilizer will fail. 
No farmer has any right to condemn 
the efficacy of chemical fertilizers until 
he has tried what he knows to be a high-* 
grade “complete” fertilizer, i. e., one 
containing as much as four per cent, of 
ammonia, 10 per cent, of phosphoric acid 
and six per cent, of potash. If such a 
fertilizer produces no effect in a favorable 
season, then the farmer may conclude 
that his land does not, for the present, 
need any fertilizers; neither does it for 
the present need any manure of any kind. 
New subscribers occasionally write to 
us asking for prices of the R. N.-Y. 
potato No. 2. Some assume that we sell 
our hybrid wheats, shrubs, plants, etc. 
It therefore becomes necessary that the 
statement should be made from time to 
time that we have never iif any case sold 
anything whatever to our subscribers, ex¬ 
cept the R. N.-Y. itself, and it is not our 
intention ever to do so. We hold that 
the advice of a journal that advertises and 
sells its own wares through its own 
columns may fairly be regarded as some¬ 
what biased. 
- * ■ • • ■ » - 
A person (we may be obliged to men¬ 
tion his name later), has been indus¬ 
triously circulating the report that the 
Rural New-Yorker potato No. 2 is the 
same as a variety originated by him. 
Place a tuber of the potato in a light, 
warm place until it sprouts. If the 
sprouts be not of a dark-purple color 
inearly black), it is not the No. 2. There 
are other varieties which give dark- 
colored sprouts m tne light. But the 
sprouts of the variety above alluded to, 
are of the usual green color. 
Suppose you apply 1,000 pounds of 
bone flour to your land each year for 10 
years. Finding it of great service for 
five years, it is continued. But the 
farmer finds, later, that it does not in¬ 
crease his crops at all. He might natur¬ 
ally, though erroneously, call his land 
“bone-sick.” Now, let him apply pot¬ 
ash and the land responds at once, giving 
the finest crops ever raised upon the farm. 
The trouble was, not that the land had 
too much bone or phosphoric acid, 
but too 1 ttle potash. The crops had 
appropriated all the available pot¬ 
ash and could not live on bones 
alone. So, in like manner, land might 
seem to become “ potash-sick.” In such 
a case bone flour would prove a specific 
cure. Farmers should not overlook the 
fact that when an imperfect food alone 
is furnished to plants, they cannot thrive 
unless the soil supplies the constituents 
which the imperfect food does not supply. 
In the course of time the land yields up 
its present store and a perfect food must 
be supplied. 
-- 
One of the things that a gardener can 
get ready during the leisure of -winter for 
the busy summer time is the coal-oil but¬ 
ter, or kerosene emulsion that is so ser¬ 
viceable against many insects, and so 
easily applied. Prof. Trelease recom¬ 
mends milk, and sour milk in preference, 
as it does not ferment further, but soap is 
preferred by some. About twice as much 
oil as milk is used, and they are churned 
violently together for 15 to 45 minutes, or 
until the liquid suddenly thickens into a 
glistening butter quite homogeneous,mix¬ 
ing completely and readily with water, if 
applied a little at a time while stirring, 
and keeping any length of time in a closed 
can, no free oil appearing in it. A pint or 
less of the emulsion may be used in a 
pail of water, mixing only as wanted. A 
force-pump is best to do the churning, 
and may be used in applying the dilution. 
To destroy aphides which cluster on the 
ends of young growing shoots, we carry a 
basin of the dilution in one hand and 
bend the shoots into it with the other, 
shaking them to secure complete wetting. 
THE DIFFERENCE. 
T HE R. N.-Y. does not approve of the 
farmer’s buying commercial fertil¬ 
izers; neither does it approve of his buy¬ 
ing cow or horse manure or any 
other manure, if he can manufacture 
enough manure at home to keep 
up the fertility of his soil. Can the fer¬ 
tility of a soil be kept up by the use of 
commercial fertilizers alone? Yes, read¬ 
ers, there is not the shadow of a doubt 
about it. The fact that farmer A. or 
farmer B. has used fertilizers without any 
increase in his crops is no argument 
against their use. Did you ever use farm 
manure without any increase in the 
crops? Do not forget—no living soul 
can controvert the statement—that chemi¬ 
cal analyses show—prove positively— 
that farm manure is but a different form 
ot home-produced commercial fertilizer. 
Concentrate your farm manure by slowly 
rotting it for many years and the pro¬ 
duct is precisely the same as the commer 
cial article in substance. It has been con¬ 
clusively shown that any soil which is 
deficient in any one of the important con¬ 
stituents of which plants are composed, 
cannot produce a maximum crop, no mat¬ 
ter how well it is prepared and cultivated; 
no matter how favorable the season. The 
crop will fall short just in proportion as 
the soil fails to give to the plant a full and 
complete ration of food. Tillage is ma¬ 
nure only in so far as tillage can render 
available the food already in the soil. 
Tillage alone, like lime, will help the 
lather but impoverish the son. 
The farmer who asserts that fertilizers 
have no effect upon his soil, might just 
as well state that horse manure or any 
other animal manure has no effect upon 
his land. If animal manure, whether 
from birds, sheep, cattle, or horses, will 
give an increase of crop; if turning under 
clover or any other leguminous plant or 
any grass of any kind will give an in¬ 
crease of crop, so will commercial ferti¬ 
lizers if they are composed of the same 
food ingredients. That animal or veg¬ 
etable manure containing the same quan¬ 
tity of potash, phosphoric acid and 
nitrogen, used in the same quantity, will 
give a larger crop than chemicals, the 
R. N.-Y. has never doubted, for the 
simple and only reason that they exert a 
mechanical influence upon the soil, and 
that the food they supply may exist in a 
more varied and acceptable form. This, 
however, only holds for the present 
season. In a series of years there is no 
difference; there can be no difference 
(except as to mechanical condition) 
whether the phosphoric acid, potash, 
nitrogen, lime, magnesia, etc., come from 
barn manure or chemicals. 
GOLD DOLLARS FOR FIFTY CENTS. 
£ 6 T CAN’T afford to pay $40, or $45 
for a ton of fertilizer,” said a fine- 
looking, intelligent farmer in this office a 
few days since; “20 or 30 dollars are the 
most I can afford to pay.” 
The farmer wants plant food , does he 
not? Suppose he gets twice the amount of 
plant food in the $40-fertilizer that he 
gets in the $20-fertilizer; which is the 
cheaper artie’e? Why pay for the freight 
and double-handling of two tons if he 
can get the same food value in one? 
“ I will,” says the plausible agent, “sell 
you 10 tons of my ‘Hifalutin’ brand for 
$200, that will bring you as large crops 
as the fertilizer you have been using—10 
tons of which cost you $400.” 
It is greatly to be deplored that such 
reasoning has weight with many frugal, 
hard-working farmers. Such statements 
are false, friends. The food constituents in 
fertilizers have a fixed value,and any firm 
that can make them for less would not 
find it necessary to send out agents to 
solicit trade. O.her dealers would be 
only too glad to secure the entire stock. 
You cannot buy 20-cent loaves of bread 
for 10 cents, and if there were any one 
who, through a new discovery, could, by 
protecting his secret or by letters patent, 
do so, he would at once monopolize the 
entire trade. 
Again, another point which the Rural 
New -Yorker has earnestly tried to im¬ 
press upon its readers (in this, as in the 
above case, without any support from its 
esteemed contemporaries) is that a fertil¬ 
izer which costs the farmer $20 per ton 
and is found by analysis to be worth $15, 
is dearer than the fertilizer which costs 
$40 per ton and analyzes to be worth $85. 
The difference in either case is but $5 a 
ton. But in the case of the high-priced 
fertilizer the amount of difference be¬ 
tween the actual value and the selling 
price is 14)^ per cent., while in the case 
of the low-priced fertilizer it is 33)^ per 
cent. The farmer actually pays 19 per 
cent more for the “ cheap” fertilizer than 
he does for the high-priced one. In other 
words, he loses 19 per cent., besides paying 
the same f reight, while the cost of distribu¬ 
tion upon his fields is just the same in the 
one case as in the other. That is to say, 
it costs just as much to distribute $15 
worth of plant food as it does to dis¬ 
tribute $35 worth. 
Does the Rural New-Yokrer con¬ 
demn low-priced fertilizers? By no 
means. What we desire to impress upon 
our readers is that the services of a faith¬ 
ful laborer for a full day are worth more 
than the services of a less faithful laborer 
for half a-day; that, if a man’s health 
and strength can not be maintained on a 
full loaf, it cannot be maintained on less 
than half a loaf. 
A $20 fertilizer may be worth half as 
much as a $40 fertilizer. But if so, it 
must contain more than half as much 
plant food m order to pay for the differ¬ 
ence in freight and cost of distribution. 
Is this sound reasoning, friends? If not, 
why not? 
BREVITIES. 
Suggestive. 
To the Rescue. 
Two interesting' symposiums will be found 
on page 117. 
The three conservators: Potash, Phosphoric 
Acid, Nitrogen. 
Go back upon the Triumvirate as you may, 
you will pay homage later. 
There are lots of farmers on the look-out 
for gold dollars at 50 cents. 
Let us have in our commercial fetilizers, 
plant food in all its varied forms. 
Don’t buy chemical fertilizers if 'you can 
raise maximum crops without them. 
The R. N.-Y. presumes that the first-page 
cartoon to appear two weeks hence will cause 
the reader to “ smile out loud.” 
Owing to the considerable snace given to 
fertilizer topics, the Domestic Economy Dep’t 
is curtailed and that “For Women” left out 
entirely. 
Have any of our readers ever experimented 
with Alfalfa as silage? We shall be glad to 
know how Alfalfa compares with clover as an 
ensilage plant. 
The series of articles “New Legislation 
Needed Concerning Monopolies,” by W. I. 
Chamberlain, president of the Iowa Ag 
College, will commence next week. 
A Number of carefully conducted experi¬ 
ments made in England show that the use of 
sulphate of iron reduced the crops, thus 
corroborating the R. N.-Y’s experiments 
made two years ago. 
Fresh stable manure contains in every ton 
about 1,970 pounds of organic matter and 
water. The remaining 30 pounds are plant 
food—virtually potash, nitrogen and phos¬ 
phoric acid. These are just what you get in 
chemical fertilizers. 
The extensive use of rock,etc., for phosphoric 
acid is what keeps the price of bone down to 
its present low figure. Should all the fertili¬ 
zer-makers in the country decide to use bone 
instead of rock, the price of bone in less than 
a year would be $100 or more per ton. 
The R. N.-Y. wants its readers to use or 
not to use commercial fertilizers as they are 
or are not profitable. But it wants them to 
be positive about it. We know of no more 
economical way of finding this out than by 
using them upon a small area experimentally. 
Those who have fertilizers to buy will find 
the announcements of our best fertilizer firms 
in our advertising columns. Only two or 
three fertilizer catalogues have bepn received 
up to date, reviews of which will be found 
under, “Catalogues, Etc., Received,” on 
page 111. 
“ Whole ” would bo a good prefix to those 
fertilizers that contain a high per cent, of the 
triumvirate, potash, phosphoric acid and 
nitrogen. “ Complete ’’mightstill beretained 
for fertilizers containing a certain per cent, 
of all three. But a “complete” might not 
necessarily be “ whole.” 
Nitrogen in the most serviceable form 
costs 16 cents a pound: phosphoric acid 8 
cents; potash 5 cents. You can’t get them 
for less unless you buy them from a thief or a 
fool. If you prefer your nitrogen in hair; 
your phosphoric acid in S. C. rock: your pot¬ 
ash as muriate, that is a different matter. 
Even fertilizer men admit that farm man¬ 
ure is more serviceable, all things considered, 
than chemical fertilizers. Did you ever use a 
liberal quantity upon a field and yet fail to 
get fine crops? Was it the fault of the barn 
manure? “No, it was a bad, droughty 
season.” Had chemical fertilizers been used, 
would you have been equally charitable? 
If the farmer finds, after a fair trial of a 
well-proportioned fertilizer, supplying a high 
percent, of the chief food ingredients, that 
the crops are not materially increased, let him 
not be fooled into trying any of the cheaper 
fertilizers that are found in the market under 
fancy names, such as Azotized bone. Excelsior, 
Equitable Special Esmeialda. 99-oent fertili 
zer,Champion, Planet Brand.etc. There are no 
secrets in compounding fertilizers, and if the 
preparations of reputable firms fail to increase 
the crops, it may be safely concluded that the 
land will give you full crops without fertil¬ 
izers. 
