874 
DEC. 20 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
HOME-MIXED FERTILIZERS. 
DR. E. H. JENKINS. 
Do They PAT ?—Yes and no. Nothing pays that is not 
managed with intelligence. It is better to buy of a 
reputable firm, at a fair price, a standard brand of ferti¬ 
lizer than to buy a lot of coarse chemicals and nitrogenous 
waste and to mix them haphazard. It is probably cheaper 
in the rush of spring work to buy factory-mixed goods 
than to stop to order chemicals in small quantities and to 
mix them. In some places and at exceptional times 
factory-mixed goods may be sold at prices so low as to 
make it altogether more profitable to buy them than to 
buy and mix fertilizer chemicals. 
On the other hand, many farmers in this State and else¬ 
where find it much to their advantage to buy for cash the 
same fertilizer chemicals that are bought by manufactur¬ 
ers, and to mix them for themselves instead of buying for 
cash the factory-mixed goods. 
What are the Advantages Claimed for 
Home Mixing ? 
a. It is easier to prove the quality of separate chemicals 
than of the mixture of them. It is said that it is quite be- 
paid for just the same—under these conditions home-mix¬ 
ing has been found by many farmers in this State and else¬ 
where to pay a large profit. Farming can be successful 
only when business methods are used in every branch. The 
competition is close and the profits are small in New Eng¬ 
land farming, but so they are in every kind of business no 
less than in farming. The percent of really successful farm¬ 
ers is very small, but this is just as true of every other line 
of business. Careful study of the markets he buys and 
sells in and that he may buy and sell in will generally pay 
a farmer better than exclusive attention to the production 
of his crops. _ 
HINTS FOR HOME READING. 
Literature and Buying Books. 
J. W. NEWTON. 
Many young people and old people, too, have no fondness 
for reading. A boy comes into the house, sits down with 
empty hands, tilts back his chair and whistles to pass 
away time. Young people grow up in the country know¬ 
ing almost nothing of literature or history or poetry. Edu¬ 
cation is one of the great needs of the farmer to-day ; he 
will need it more in the future. It takes a good deal of a 
both from authors and critics. These three books would 
be of great value to young people in farm homes. Let 
them once get interested in literature and it will be a 
source of delight as well as profit. Money that once was 
wasted will be saved to buy books. Start a library and 
you will want to keep adding to it. 
Many young people lack training in language and ex¬ 
pression. As an aid to these, I would recommend Lock¬ 
wood’s Lessons m English, and The English Language by 
Meiklejohn. The first is the more simple and takes up 
language, composition, rhetoric and literature. It helps 
the student to bring his studies in literature to bear upon 
his own style. Meiklejohn’s work is a complete treatise 
on the English language, and is a valuable book for either 
study or reference. Its history of the English language is 
of special excellence. We must now pass from books 
about literature and language to the literature itself. 
The English Classic Series consists of 90 numbers of selec¬ 
tions from classic writers. There are biographical sketches 
of authors, and many notes. These are excellent for 
school and unexcelled for home study so far as they go. 
Classics for Children contain some good books for the 
study of literature, and have the advantage of being 
yond the chemist’s power to certainly detect inferior forms 
of nitrogen, for instance, in a mixed fertilizer, but it is 
certainly very easy to detect them in sulphate of ammonia, 
cotton seed meal, dried blood and the like. 
b. By mixing his own fertilizers the farmer can perfectly 
adapt his fertilizer to his idea of the requirements of his 
land and crop, and any intelligent farmer is the best or 
only judge of these requirements. That opinions differ 
greatly as to the best mixture for any special crop will be 
very evident to any one who compares the composition of 
the leading brands of fertilizers specially designed for the 
potato or the onion crop, for instance. The chance to vary 
his formula and note the differences that result on the 
man to make a successful farmer, and it will take more of 
a man to succeed if he is going into politics and law-mak¬ 
ing. There is a power which comes through education, 
through reading and study, which farmers need in order 
to cope successfully with the evils confronting them. 
A command of good English is one of the essentials of a 
farmer’s education, and this is best obtained by reading 
the best English works. Children learn to read, but often 
all the suitable reading they get is the reading-book at 
school. They do not form the habit of reading, do not love 
it, and lose the benefits to be gained from books. There 
are many who love to read, who do not know how to 
choose the best books. So many books are issued, what 
bound. Their great value lies in the fact that they are a 
series of carefully edited and graded classics, introducing 
children and young people to the best classes of literature. 
They are far better for reading than the ordinary reading 
books with their scrappy contents. 
Another very valuable series is the Riverside Literature 
Series. Many of these beautiful volumes are well adapted 
to the Fourth Reader grade, the rest are suitable for higher 
grades and for the study of literature. If children and 
young people learn to love such reading they will not be 
likely to form a habit of reading bad books. By books a 
mind may be weakened and ruined, by books a mind may 
be cultured and fitted for noble life work. These books 
ARKANSAS BEAUTY. Fig. 4 30. 
ARKANSAS SEEDLING. Fig. 43 1. 
same field in the same year is worth not a little to any 
man who manages his farm “ with ancient sinew and with 
modern art ” 
c. It is easier for farmers whose land and crops are dif¬ 
ferent to club together and make an order for fertilizer 
chemicals large enough to secure wholesale rates than it 
iB to agree on one or two brands of factory-mixed goods 
which they will order in considerable quantities. 
d. Commercial fertilizers on most farms are not a sub¬ 
stitute for manure, but a supplement to it, and it is often 
profitable to add to the dressing of manure only a single 
fertilizing ingredient, e.g., nitrogen to give an earlier start 
phosphoric acid to favor early ripening, or potash to sup¬ 
ply a known deficiency of the soil. This can be done with 
fertilizer chemicals, not with ready-mixed fertilizers. 
e. With ordinary business care in searching the market, 
buying for cash, buying early before the usual sharp rise 
in chemicals takes place with the opening of the spring 
trade, mixing the chemicals on the days when out-of-door 
work cannot be done, while the help on the farm muBt be 
shall we select ? The best way to solve this problem is to 
take up the study of English literature. Once get inter¬ 
ested in this, and a long step ahead is taken. 
This is written especially for young people living on 
farms, but may be of use to others. First, get one or more 
good works on literature. One of the best is English Lit¬ 
erature for Young People—First Steps with American and 
British Authors. It contains many excellent selections, 
and its directions for study are just what those for whom 
I write, need. A more advanced work by the same author, 
Study of the English Classics, would be a great help to 
home students, and is invaluable to teachers of literature. 
These two books aid in studying the works of classic 
writers, but do not connect their writings with history. 
A very excellent work for this purpose is Kellogg’s Eng¬ 
lish Literature. It is a beautiful book in its mechanical 
execution; beginning with the earliest period of English 
literature, it follows the course of literature down to the 
present time, giving a brief but ample account of the 
bearings of history upon literature, with copious extracts 
are by the best American authors, cost but a trifle, and 
should be in every farm home. 
It is not necessary to have complete writings of an 
author in order to study his works with advantage. It is 
better, as a rule, to have a library made up of the choicest 
works of a number of the best writers, than to have the 
complete works of a few. In Modern Classics we have just 
such a library as young people on farms need in order to 
study literature to the best advantage. The volumes of 
this series contain complete essays and poems, not mere 
extracts and scraps. The writers number about 50 and in¬ 
clude American, English and Continental authors. The 
school edition is the one to purchase, it is well bound in 
cloth, finely printed in good plain type, and illustrated. I 
would advise young people and also parents to get cata¬ 
logues of these different series of books, then order samples 
and purchase as required. 
There are a few other books and additions which I will 
mention. It is best of course to get the poems of Long¬ 
fellow, Whittier, etc. By all means get the household edi- 
