t02 
February 14 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
BRIEF TALKS ABOUT FERTILIZERS. 
Difference Between Ammonia and Nitrogen. 
You talk about the nitrogen in fertilizers, while many 
of the analyses given by the manufacturers refer to 
“ammonia.” What is the difference? 
SEVERAL, READERS. 
Something o£ the difference between sugar and 
candy. Candy may be a mixture of sugar and butter. 
Nitrogen is a definite single substance. “Ammonia” 
is a combination of nitrogen and another substance 
known as hydrogen. A given volume of nitrogen 
weighs 14 times a.s much as the same volume of hy¬ 
drogen. “Ammonia” is one part of nitrogen with 
three parts of hydrogen, so that only 14-17 or 82.35 
per cent of a pound of ammonia is actual nitrogen. 
The manufacturers often state that their fertilizer 
contains so much “ammonia” partly because they 
make a larger showing by doing so and partly because 
the fertilizer trade is conducted on this basis. When¬ 
ever the word “ammonia” is used always understand 
that only 82.35 per cent of the amount claimed has 
any value as nitrogen. 
Fertilizer for Corn and Potatoes. 
I have purchased a small New England farm. It is 
rather stony and of a dark red loam soil, and while it 
has been neglected, is not worn out and not a wet soil, 
as it is undulating and well drained. This season I shall 
not have enough manure to go round. I shall have pos¬ 
sibly 30 good two-horse ioads, and 1 want to put in one 
acre of potatoes, two acres of corn, and two or three of 
fodder for silage. What 1 do plant 1 wish to do well (to 
use plenty of manure or fertilizers). Shall I use manure 
(well rotted) on potatoes, plowed in, or fertilizers? Dr. 
Jordan’s talk on chemical fertilizers hit me just right. I 
want to buy my materials and mix them myself. I wish 
to make my little farm produce all it can, and I realize 
that the land must be fed. 1 shall keep the cultivator go¬ 
ing all the time, when not too wet. 1 expect to raise as 
much on one acre as some of my neighbors do on three; 
that is, if manure, fertilizers and hard steady work will 
do it. 1 have a hay lot pretty well run out, but I thought 
of top-dressing for just this season. What should I use, 
or would I better plow up and sow something to take the 
place of hay? If so, what shall I sow and what should 
1 use with it for fertilizer? * h. 
West Medway, Mass. 
From what you say we advise using all the manure 
on the corn. Jf you plant five acres of corn on such 
soil you will have only six loads per acre, and you 
can well use 250 pounds per acre of your fertilizer in 
addition. We would use 1,000 or 1,200 pounds of ferti¬ 
lizer per acre on the potatoes. We prefer to use half 
of this broadcast after plowing and harrowing in, and 
the rest in the drill at planting. The mixture sug¬ 
gested by Dr. Jordan is a good one for all crops. This 
is the mixture suggested by Di*. Jordan: 
Pounds In One Ton: 
Nitro- 
Phos. 
Pot- 
gen. 
acid. 
ash. 
.. 32 
• • • 
« • • 
.. 60 
12 
• • • 
140 
• • • 
. 
... 
100 
152 
100 
200 pounds nitrate of soda. 
COO “ dried blood — 
1,000 “ acid phosphate. 
200 “ muriate of pota 
This means 4i^ per cent of nitrogen, pei’ cent 
of phosphoric acid and five per cent of potash. If 
tankage were used instead of blood the composition 
would be changed somewhat. You must remember 
that Dr. .Jordan gave this formula to fruit growers, 
mo.st of whom have heavy soil. You could make up 
a more complicated mixture which might give better 
results on potatoes, but this one will give fair results 
wherever you put it. We advise you not to tell the 
neighbors too much of what you are going to do be¬ 
fore the crops are harvested. Many of those old farm¬ 
ers have a way of coming out ahead in spite of their 
old-fashioned methods. You will have to use your 
judgment about that meadow. It may be too far gone 
to produce profitable grass. In that case we should 
plow it and plant corn. This crop has given us best 
results on an old sod. Use 400 pounds of your ferti¬ 
lizer mixture per acre. If you want to top-dress and 
try to get a hay crop, use 300 pounds of your mixture 
and 100 pounds nitrate of soda in addition per acre. 
You must remember that something besides fertilizer 
and labor will be needed to produce good crops—ex¬ 
perience and skill. 
Fertilizer to Start a Dairy Farm. 
We intend to start on a farm In the Connecticut Valley, 
southern Vermont, the tillable land of which, about 70 
acres, is on the “upper terrace” of the bottom land, con¬ 
sisting of a deep .sandy and gravelly deposit, covered 
with about 15 inches tillable soil, as smooth as a floor. 
This farm has not been worked for a dozen or moie 
ye.ars; the buildings are good and the hillside pastures 
fair. All tillable land is now in grass, but it is so nearly 
run out that it hardly pays for harvesting. A good deal 
of sorrel has come in, showing that the land is getting 
sour. We intend this place for a dairy farm, beginning 
by selling milk to Boston, but shall as soon as possible 
work it into a butter farm, and raise our own cattle 
from native cows by a pure-bred Guernsey sire, aiming 
for a high-grade Guernsey herd in time. The question 
is this: What commercial fertilizer shall we use the first 
year for com, potatoes, oats, green feed, etc., on this 
soil? For the second and following years we know how 
to make manure, when we have cattle and pigs to make 
it with. Would yon approve the following fertilizer, a 
proportion consisting of 500 pounds Canada unlcached 
wood ashes, giving about 150 pounds lime. 25 pounds pot¬ 
ash, eight pounds phosphoric acid, and 100 pounds nitrate 
of soda, giving about 15 pounds nitrogen? I choose 
wood ashes for the lime contained in them to sweeten 
and loosen the soil. Are these 600 pounds ashes and ni¬ 
trate sufficient for an acre, or would you advise using 
either more of this quality per acre, or using in addi¬ 
tion to these 600 pounds, say 200 or 300 pounds complete 
high-grade feitilizer per acre? Plea.se bear in mind that 
1 have to economize as much as possible. We propose 
the following crop rotation: First year, plant corn on 
sod ground with barnyard manure (that is, after we 
have manure), sow Winter rye after corn is off. Second 
year, cut rye green for fodder, plow under stubble, plant 
potatoes with commercial fertilizer, after harvesting po¬ 
tatoes, sow Winter rye or wheat. Third year, harvest 
rye or wheat for grain and straw, or cut green early, 
plow and sow to oats for grain and straw, after harvest¬ 
ing grain, sow to grass, and leave it in grass for several 
years. Besides this legular rotation, we would use sev¬ 
eral acres for oats and peas, Hungarian grass, green 
corn, etc., for soiling crops. We expect to try Alfalfa 
and cow peas and shall have a silo. c. G. 
Webster, Mass. 
This plan of u.sing fertilizers to start a dairy farm 
is sensible. We have seen it worked out successfully 
on poor soil which could not naturally produce enough 
HOLSTEIN OOW NANNETTE 3ri) PLEDGE 2ni) 39518. Flo. 39. 
food for stock. By using fertilizers liberally the first 
year a fair quantity of fodder and grain can be se¬ 
cured. This fed to stock with purchased grain and 
the manure carefully saved and applied will keep up 
the farm. We would not use the combination of 
wood ashes and nitrate of soda for several good rea¬ 
sons. It is not the cheapest form of plant food unless 
you have a special I’ate on wood ashes. The potash 
in your 500 pounds of ashes will cost about $1.15 in 
the form of muriate and the eight pounds of phos¬ 
phoric acid about 40. What can you buy the ashes 
for? If they cost $10 a ton and you can buy the phos¬ 
phoric acid and potash at the figures named you pay 
95 cents for 150 pounds of lime or over $12.50 per ton! 
THE TWO PAILS. 
A glance at the picture Who carries the milk 
Will show very clear. And who carries the beer. 
—The Rani’s Horn. 
Before you buy wood ashes obtain figures on muriate 
of potash, acid phosphate and lime and see if you can¬ 
not buy your plant food cheaper in these materials. 
Another objection to the use of nitrate of soda alone 
for such crops is that it gives only one form of nitro¬ 
gen, and that of the most soluble kind. A part of 
your nitrogen may w’ell be taken from nitrate, but 
there should also be organic nitrogen (see page 89 
last week) or your crops will fail in Summer. Again, 
your mixture of 600 pounds contains only 2^4: per cent 
of nitrogen, four of potash and a little over one per 
cent of phosphoric acid. This may be enough nitro¬ 
gen for your crops, but you should have at least six 
per cent of potash and eight of phosphoric acid. On 
the average dairy or grass farm there is greater need 
of phosphoric acid than of other fertilizing substan¬ 
ces. Your mixture is very weak in this respect. If 
your land is very sour the application of 150 pounds 
of lime will do it but little good. On such soils 1,000 
pounds of lime per acre will be about the smallest 
amount that will give permanent results. For these 
reasons we think it will pay you better to buy lime 
alone and use a mixture of nitrate of soda, tankage, 
acid phosphate and muriate of potash. It is pos¬ 
sible that a dressing of lime alone or with a small 
quantity of nitrate on some of those old meadow’s 
will give at least one good crop of forage. 
How to Huy Fertilizers. 
I can buy for spot cash, off the car, any of the follow¬ 
ing mixtures named below at the following prices: 
Ammonia. 
Phos. Acid. 
Potash. 
Per ton. 
4 
6 
10 
$30.60 
21/2 
8 
G 
24.40 
2 
8 
4 
22.60 
1 
4 
8 
21.50 
1 
8 
4 
20.25 
1 
7 
1 
17.60 
The above is the guaranteed analysis, llow much 
cheaper could I buy the raw material and mix it myself 
of each of the above mixtures? Would one of the above 
mixtures be just as cheap for me as another; that is, is 
the difference between the cost and the selling price of 
each mixture the same, and if not, which mixtures do 
the manufacturers make the most on, and which the 
least? s. A. s. 
Ephrata, Pa. 
You w’lll have to figure this for yourself, obtaining 
prices for raw chemicals delivered at your railroad 
station. Do we understand that these figures repre¬ 
sent the lowest guarantee of the manufactures? That 
is the safest basis for figuring. You say the first 
named mixture is guaranteed to contain four per cent 
or 80 pounds in the ton of ammonia. Of course you 
understand that these mean only 66 pounds of actual 
nitrogen. We consider it safer to figure the nitrogen 
in a fertilizer instead of the ammonia (see the an¬ 
swer to another question). The manufacturers like 
to use the latter because it makes a bigger showing. 
See what you can buy the following chemicals for: 
Pounds In One Ton: 
Nitro- Phos. Pot- 
gen. acid. ash. 
Muriate of potash. ... 1,00(1 
Nitrate of soda. :t20 
Dried blood . 200 40 
Tankage . 119 280 
Ground bone . 70 500 
Acid phosphate . 280 
Dry ground fish. 170 180 
From this table you will see that 200 pounds ol 
nitrate of soda and 350 pounds of dried blood will 
give 67 pounds of nitrogen. With the phosphoric 
acid in the dried blood 850 pounds of acid phosphate 
will provide the six per cent guaranteed in the first- 
mentioned fertilizer, while 400 pounds of muriate of 
pota.sh will give the 10 per cent in that brand. There 
you have 1,800 pounds of chemicals supplying all that 
the ton of fertilizer guarantees. These can be bought 
in New York for about $25. You would have to pay 
in addition the cost of freight and mixing, but you 
will know just what you have in your mixture. You 
can figure the other brands in the same way, but you 
cannot tell what forms of nitrogen they contain. Ni¬ 
trate and dried blood cost more than tankage or 
ground fish, because the nitrogen they contain is 
worth more, being quickly available for crops. When 
you go to a restaurant and order a piece of sirloin 
roast you are willing to pay a fair price for it, because 
you know it will be what you order. Suppose the 
proprietor offered a “beef roast” at the same price, 
and when it came you found that the beef was a tough 
piece from the shoulder. You would rightly feel that 
you were cheated, because you know that shoulder is 
not equal to sirloin. The manufacturer may have put 
fish or tankage into the fertilizer when you need ni¬ 
trate and blood, and are willing to pay for them. You 
cannot tell what form the nitrogen is in, but your 
crops can, just as you tell the difference in the beef. 
You cannot tell which of these mixtures is most pro¬ 
fitable to the manufacturers without knowing what 
the mixture contains. Your figures will probably 
.show that there is the widest margin of profit on the 
brands which contain the least nitrogen and potash. 
There is probably most money for the manufacturer 
in selling phosphoric acid and the lower grades of 
nitrogen like tankage or fish scrap. If a ton of ferti¬ 
lizer contains 40 pounds of nitrogen it will naturally 
make a difference in the cost whether the nitrogen is 
obtained from nitrate of soda or tankage. It is safe 
to assume that all low-grade fertilizers contain the 
poorest form of nitrogen. Take the cheapest ferti¬ 
lizer in your list. Take 150 pounds nitrate of soda, 
900 pounds acid phosphate, and 50 pounds muriate of 
potash, and you have more plant food than is guar¬ 
anteed for it. These chemicals can be bought here 
for $10.50. Another mixture of 350 pounds of tankage, 
750 pounds acid phosphate and 50 pounds of muriate 
will give more plant food than the guaranteed analy¬ 
sis, and cost a little over $9! This will show where 
the profit on low-grade goods comes in. You get the 
cheapest nitrogen and pay freight on dead matter or 
worthless “filler.” 
BEER OR MILK.—Fig. 40 needs little comment. A 
sharper contrast can scarcely be imagined than the 
well-dressed child and the beer carrier, with ragged 
clothes, no coat, bare hands and feet and pinched 
face. The saloon steals from its patrons and their 
families character, prosperity and home comfort. It 
causes hunger, rags and ruin. The wares of the 
grocer, butcher, shoemaker or dry goods man do just 
the opposite, contributing to the prosperity and com¬ 
fort of buyer, seller and producer. The more rum, 
the less money for food and clothes! 
