1908. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
23 
A Straight Talk With Farmers 
on the Question of Fertilizing. 
Plants Like Horses Must Have 
the Proper Food. 
Farm teams could not do good work 
on an hour’s grazing at noontime. They 
merely need oats, cured hay, corn— 
something that makes muscle and 
energy. 
The oats, corn, hay, on which they are 
fed, must also have the right kind of 
food—cannot grow in large stalk, in full 
and solid grain, with rich nourishing 
qualities, from the little plant food that 
is left in an old worn soil. 
Soil Loses Its Best Plant-Food 
First. 
If the grocer allows customers to 
select fruits and vegetables from his 
open boxes, the first comers will take 
the finest. Nature compels plants to 
select the best food there is in the soil. 
They are all greedy for 
Nitrate of Soda 
for they thrive best on that; and when 
there is little of it left they dwindle, 
simply because they are starving. There 
is only one thing to do when the nitrate 
is exhausted: the soil must be supplied 
with more. 
There Are Three Ways of 
Supplying the Soil With 
Nitrate. 
T. You can do it by putting in razv 
nitrogen. You have the raw nitrogen in 
such common fertilizers as weeds, 
leaves, grasses, tankage, offal, dried 
blood or fish, or any kind of organic 
matter. 
There are disadvantages in this plan, 
however, which it is well to clearly 
understand. In the first place, plants 
cannot eat raw nitrogen any more than 
horses can eat cord wood. The plants 
must wait until Nature puts her forces 
to work and changes the raw nitrogen 
into nitrate of soda. This work is done 
by a certain kind of bacteria. These 
bacteria propagate in sufficient numbers 
only when the weather is favorable. 
With continuous warmth and frequent 
light rains, i. e., with perfect weather, a 
part of the work will be done in a 
month or two; but a great deal of the 
raw nitrogen will not be converted into 
nitrate for a much longer time. Low 
grade fertilizers require a year or two. 
You see that the plants will have but 
a small portion of the nitrate from raw 
nitrogen at the particular time when 
they need it. This fact will be referred 
to again. It is a vital fact. 
It is also a fact that much of the 
nitrogen is lost in gases during this 
process of conversion into nitrate. That 
is clear loss. 
Still another fact of special impor¬ 
tance is that in the change, from raw 
nirogen to nitrate there is often an acid 
by-product thrown out which sours the 
soil and seriously injures the quality of 
the crop. 
When these losses and hindrances are 
summed up, you will hud that all or¬ 
ganic fertilizers are needlessly expen- 
sive; and do not give you the crops you 
pay for putting in. 
Nitrate of Soda instead of souring a 
sweet soil will sweeten a sour soil. 
When all its nitrogen is used up the 
residue of soda is wholesome, as you 
well know. 
II. Nitrate of soda can also be sup¬ 
plied to the soil in “combination.” Now 
let us candidly examine this plan and 
see whether it is any better than the 
raw nitrogen plan. This plan is to use 
what are called “Complete Fertilizers.” 
which contain a certain per cent of soda. 
Now, if the per cent were really cer¬ 
tain —if it were not uncertain, both in 
amount and in quality—there would re¬ 
main but one objection. That objection 
is very practical. The “complete ferti¬ 
lizer” costs a great deal too much. 
Figures That Are Interesting. 
At the New Jersey Experiment Sta¬ 
tion 195 “complete fertilizers” were 
analyzed, and their prices tabulated, with 
the following results. The average 
price was $34.23 per ton. They con¬ 
tained, on the average, about 16^3 per 
cent of actual plant food. To get a 
ton of real plant food you must buy six 
tons of the “complete fertilizer,” at an 
expense of $205.38—for about 20 acres. 
Nitrate of soda, every ounce of which 
is the best possible plant-food, zvill 
cover your 20 acres zvith a bigger and 
finer crop for much less than HALF the 
motley. 
TTT. The right zvay to replenish a 
zoom soil zvith nitrate of soda is to put 
in nitrate of soda —the pure stuff, as it 
comes direct, under Government inspec¬ 
tion from the nitrate mines of Chili, 
where Nature completed her great 
chemical work ages ago. 
Nitrate of Soda Gives Plants 
the Essential 
“Good Start In Life.’’ 
You know that pigs and calves and 
colts must have a good start. If they 
are not well nourished during the first 
few weeks they become stunted, and 
never can make a full and fine growth. 
You know that is especially true of 
grains—a backward, dwindling start 
never can be made up. 
Plants require their richest nourishing 
when their fine spraying rootlets are 
new and tender. If they do not get it 
then the rootlets quickly harden to a 
small size, and will not expand or ex¬ 
tend sufficiently for the plants to get 
full nourishment later on. The loss 
cannot be made up. 
Nitrate of soda, all of it, as soon as 
you put it in the ground, is ready to be 
taken up by the tender rootlets, and 
assimilated into the fibre and fruit of the 
plant. 
With nitrate plants do not have to wait 
until Nature’s little cooks, the bacteria, 
get a late dinner ready—with the cooks 
often on a strike because the weather is 
bad. Ages and ages ago the work was all 
done—the wasted gases all thrown off— 
•and here is their pure and perfect food. 
These three plans—the use of Raw 
Nitrogen, the use of Complete Fertiliz¬ 
ers, the use of The Pure Product in 
Nature made Nitrate of Soda —only 
need this plain statement of facts to 
show you which is the proper method. 
Nitrate of Soda May Be Used 
Alone or With Manures. 
On naturally good soils, nitrate of 
soda alone is frequently sufficient. If 
the soil is badly worn, use 100 
pounds to the acre. If but partly de¬ 
teriorated 75 pounds will give splendid 
results. 
Results in Cash of Nitrate of 
Soda Alone. 
A large number of experiments on 
Timothy have been made by farmers all 
over the country and reported to Pro¬ 
fessor Myers, at 71 Nassau Street, New 
York. Those experiments show that the 
use of 100 pounds of nitrate of soda to 
the acre produced an 
Average Increase 
of 2,775 pounds of field-cured hay over 
the plot where nitrate was not used. 
The nitrate of soda cost at the time 
the experiments were made $2.75. You 
know what you can get for 2,775 pounds 
of the finest, cleanest, richest, field- 
cured Timothy. You make from 150% 
to 200 % on your investment in three or 
four months. 
Potatoes, Beets, Cabbages, 
Carrots, Oats. 
Similar experiments—by scores of 
farmers throughout the country, using 
100 pounds of nitrate of soda (alone) 
to the acre—show average increase per 
acre of 
Potatoes . 
lbs. 
Beets . 
<< 
Cabbages . 
a 
Carrots . 
. 7,S00 
u 
Oats . 
(i 
Figure it up yourself and see what an 
enormous profit you have on the sim'I 
outlay necessary for 100 pounds of ni¬ 
trate of soda per acre. 
Nitrate of Soda is a Magic for 
All Early Crops. 
Peas, beets, lettuce, onions, radishes, 
beans, sweet corn, all truck gardening 
that you want early, with a rapid and 
luscious growth, will get the proper 
nourishment from nitrate of soda, which 
is a perfect plant food ready for them 
on the instant. 
The Only Plant Food That 
Can Be Used Week By Week. 
Blackberries, gooseberries, raspberries, 
currants, as every gardener knows, 
should not make a rush growth, but a 
steady and even growth, which means 
that they must be fed little and often. 
A sprinkling of nitrate of soda every 
week or ten days will show surprisingly 
fine results. 
Nitrate of soda is the only fertilizer 
that will feed them instantly whenever 
they require special nourishing. 
For Planting in Succession and 
Ripening of Garden Truck. 
Nitrate of soda is the perfect ferti¬ 
lizer. It is always ready for assimila¬ 
tion. With a trifling outlay for 100 
pounds to the acre you have fresh, rich 
“early vegetables” in September—just as 
luscious as in June. 
The Need of Common Busi¬ 
ness Care in Farming. 
If railroad men and manufacturers 
neglected their rolling stock and machin¬ 
ery as many farmers neglect their soils, 
they would go bankrupt in a year. With 
ordinary care in keeping up the soil, 
farming becomes a splendid business— 
the profits doubling and trebling. 
Free Literature on Nitrate of 
Soda. 
To a limited number of farmers 
who will make experiments under our 
directions, we will send the bulletins 
containing results of Agricultural Sta¬ 
tion work, which give actual data of 
trial fertilizing with nitrate of soda. We 
will also send our handsomely illustrat¬ 
ed book of 230 pages on “Food for 
Plants.” It is brim full of such useful 
and money-making facts as every 
farmer ought to be familiar with. 
We want your word that you will 
meet our proposition candidly, and con¬ 
duct an experiment with nitrate of seda 
carefully and give us the exact results. 
The offer, of course, is limited. 
Try it for yourself, and learn how 
much money there is in just a little 
science properly applied to farming. 
If you do not care to make the ex¬ 
periment, or if too many have applied 
ahead of you, and you still want a lot 
of general information on this matter 
of raising big crops, The Nitrate Propa¬ 
ganda, 71 Nassau Street, New York, 
will give this valuable free information. 
MORE. THAN TWICE 
THREE OR FOUR TIMES 
fr 
THE CROP —THE PROFIT 
5- 
f JJWs* // 
1 V if. J?/v & / / 
That is the story your Timothy will tell 
when you cut it, if you fertilize with 
•S 
We have arranged to send, free, to a 
number of Timothy growers, enough Nitrate 
of Soda to make a thorough test on a good- 
sized plot—first come, first served, as long 
as our trial supply lasts. 
To each one of the twenty-five farmers who 
get the best results, 
we will present a copy 
of Professor Voorhees’ 
great book, “ Fer¬ 
tilizers ”—a money¬ 
making volume of 
327 fact-full pages for 
every progressive farmer 
(also “Grass Growing for 
Profit,” another valuable 
book) if paper is mentioned 
in which this advertise¬ 
ment was seen. 
We shall ask you to use the fertil¬ 
iser on a plot of ground, the exact 
dimen -ions of which we will give you. 
We shall ask that you select that part 
of a field, of wheat or oats or tim¬ 
othy or truck, which has given an 
average crop. At the harvest you 
are to measure and weigh the yield 
of the experiment plot and the yield 
of a plot of exactly the same size right 
by the side of it, which has no fertil¬ 
izer of any kind ; and give us, very 
accurately, the yield of the two plots. 
Send namt and complete address on 
post card. 
WILLIAM S. MYERS. Director 
4 
