1914. 
THE USE OF COMMERCIAL “HUMUS.” 
THE: RURAL NEW-YORKER 
627 
Utilize Your Own Supply. 
Part I. 
Bagging Dirt. —Some 25 years ago an 
Eastern man went to a Western State 
to talk on Eastern farming. lie saw 
what to him were wasteful methods of 
handling that rich and fertile black soil, 
lie told his hearers, among other things, 
that their soil was rich enough to be 
used as a fertilizer; that they might 
scoop it up and put it in bags, and sell 
it to Eastern farmers. This made a 
great uproar among his hearers. Then 
he went on to say that within 20 years 
this black soil would actually be scooped 
up, mixed with soluble chemicals, sent to 
the East, and used to produce more 
profitable crops of corn than the West¬ 
ern farmers could grow. Of course the 
audience laughed at him, and greatly en¬ 
joyed the joke. Then he went on to tell 
them that a Connecticut Yankee would 
buy a bushel of Illinois corn, feed that to 
hens in an apple orchard, save half of 
the manure in the henhouse, mix that 
manure with chemicals, and with the 
mixture raise another bushel of corn, 
which would be worth twice as much as 
the Western corn, while the other half 
of the manure would grow a bushel of 
apples, worth from two to three times 
as much as the original corn. Of course, 
those Western farmers put this man 
down as a blow-hard from Cape Cod, yet 
the time has come already when most of 
these things are being done. The Con¬ 
necticut Yankee and the hen are certain¬ 
ly going through this corn performance 
to a finish, and producing the corn and 
the apples as stated, with the eggs and 
then the fat hen thrown in for good 
measure. 
Selling Black Soil. —For the past 
half dozen years or more, black soil from 
the Western swamps has been scooped 
up and dried and used as a filler in the 
mixing of chemical fertilizers. More than 
this, within the last few years there has 
come upon the market in the East a 
number of forms of so-called “humus,” 
which are offered for sale as a substitute 
for manure, as a fertilizer or as 
absorbents to be used in stables. 
All these developments show how 
scientists and farmers alike, in the 
Eastern part of this country, are 
scouring every nook and corner for plant 
food, in their effort to provide suitable 
manure or fertilizers for farm and gar¬ 
den use. The introduction of these forms 
of humus complicates the fertilizer situ¬ 
ation considerably. It is possible for the 
dealers in this class of matter to tell 
very large stories, or at least make large 
suggestions about the value of their stuff. 
Our farmers have come to the point of 
buying their plant food on the basis of a 
chemical analysis, and most of them are 
familiar with the words nitrogen, potash, 
and phosphoric acid. 
Misleading Claims. —When therefore 
a fox-m of humus is offei-ed them, show¬ 
ing an analysis of three or four per cent, 
of nitrogen many of these farmers think 
at first that they are offered a great prize. 
When they are told that because a humus 
contains 3% of nitrogen it is four or five 
times as valuable as stable manure, they 
think they have a very plausible excuse 
for buying the new material. As a mat¬ 
ter of fact, there are 10,000 and more 
farmers in New England who have pond 
holes or muck swamps containing five 
acres or more. The black stuff to be 
found in these low places is in many 
cases richer in nitrogen than the humus 
which is offered for sale at a big price 
per ton. We do not hesitate to say that 
farmers who own these pond holes and 
swamps can haul this muck up to a dry 
place, mix it thoroughly with slaked lime, 
work it over once through the Winter, 
and at the end of six months have as 
high a quality of humus as is offered for 
sale by most of the leading companies. 
In Vermont, several samples of muck 
were found which contained over 4% of 
nitrogen, and such muck limed and sweet¬ 
ened as we have mentioned, would be 
worth more to a farmer ton for ton, than 
the black soil which is offered him in bags 
at a good price per ton. Yet any farmer 
who has used fertilizers freely would 
know that the 80 pounds of nitrogen 
found in a 4% ton of this swamp muck, 
would not give him anything like the re¬ 
sult to he obtained in 80 pounds of ni¬ 
trogen. in nitrate of soda, or di'ied blood; 
100 pounds of nitrate of soda, for ex¬ 
ample, will contain 16 pounds of nitro¬ 
gen. 
Plant Food Value. —What farmer 
would be so foolish as to imagine that a 
ton of the dried muck soil, or humus, 
would give the returns on his crop which 
500 pounds of nitrate of soda will surely 
give? Yet in offering these brands of 
humus to the public, the manufacturers 
seek to have it understood that a pound 
of their nitrogen is worth as much as a 
pound in manure or chemicals. They 
will deny making any such claim, yet if 
we read their literature we will see that 
the avei’age buyer gets the impression 
that their material is thi-ee or four times 
as strong as manure, which is the stand¬ 
ard that most farmers have for the pur¬ 
chase of plant food. During the past 
few years our experiment stations have 
recognized the weakness of confining the 
analysis of a fertilizer to only one form 
of nitrogen. There was a time when the 
experiment stations in their reports sim¬ 
ply stated that a fertilizer carried two 
or four per cent, of nitrogen as the case 
might be, making no distinction what¬ 
ever with regard to the quality or solu¬ 
bility of that nitrogen. Now, however, 
by common consent, and by law, they 
give not only the total nitrogen, but they 
state the different forms in which this 
nitrogen appears. Thus they state the 
amount px-esent as nitrates; also the 
amount as ammonia, and they divide the 
organic nitrogen into two or three dif¬ 
ferent classes, and they carefully tell 
farmers that whenever the so-called in¬ 
active organic niti'ogen represents one- 
half of the total, it is not good economy 
to buy the material. This we consider 
sound advice, and it should be taken in 
the purchase of the black soil or humus 
now offex-ed for sale. 
An Old Man’s Tree Planting. 
On page 355 I have read with much 
pleasure the remai'ks of I. K. under the 
head of “Fruit Planting at Three-Score.” 
It moves me to give some of my exper¬ 
ience. I always had a love for fruit 
growing since I was old enough to love 
fruit to eat, but was not so conditioned 
that I could indulge my desires that way, 
except in a very small way, until I had 
reached the age of 65 years. Then I 
planted a peach orchard of several bun¬ 
dled trees. These trees grew up, did their 
duty and died of disease, old age and the 
ax; the ground they occupied has now 
another orchard on it of apples and peach 
set in 1906. The peaches are fillers and 
are in their prime. The apples are Bald¬ 
wins, and many trees—they are stand¬ 
ards—began bearing in 1912—a few 
fruits. Last year quite a number of 
bai'rels of very fine Baldwin ap¬ 
ples were gathered in the orchard. 
These apple trees wei - e set when 
I was 78 years old. I had set some ap¬ 
ple trees when I was 73 years old—or 
young—and was told, and I thought most 
likely true, that I could not expect to 
eat of their fruit. But these trees have 
borne—some of them—three full crops of 
fruit, two to four barrels per tree. I 
said when told that I should never eat 
of their fruit, that I ate apples when a 
boy, from trees that some other man had 
set, and I wanted to set trees for some 
other boys to eat the apples. I have been 
fully repaid for my labor in the pleasui'e 
and recitation of caring for and seeing 
the trees grow, and I have been paid 
again in the bountiful harvests some of 
them yielded. Two years ago—I was 
then 84—I set a four-aci’e orchard of 
apple and peach. It is doing finely and 
I think someone—some boy perhaps—- 
will have the pleasure of eating fruit 
from it. Yes, I will say to those of three 
score or more, do not hesitate to set fruit 
trees, peach, apple or other kinds, from 
fear that you may not eat of the fruit. 
And do not confine your settings to 
dwarfs; standards are better. Somebody 
set trees to bear apples for you to eat 
when a boy, and it is only fair that you 
provide for pleasux-e of other boys after 
you. If you love trees you will get full 
pay for your work in the pleasux-e of the 
work and imagining some boy smacking 
lips when biting into the luscious fruits. 
Massachusetts. monroe morse. 
The Maple Sugar Season. 
Look over the maple sugar making 
outfit now. See the pails are all right, 
see the pans are in good condition, and 
the bricks are all in place in the arch, 
and the evaporator is x’eady for business. 
Some sugar makers will wait until the 
last minute, then hurry to the hai-dwai-e 
man or the tinner for new equipment or 
for repairing. A hardware man told me 
that if he could have the possible busi¬ 
ness in repairing a month eai’lier than 
the maple sugar season, he could do 
more efficient work, and the producers 
would save dollars by not having to 
wait their turn. 
If you must secure new equipment this 
year, secure good. Good tin is best for 
buckets, I am told, and also for pans, 
but be sure it is good, and it costs. The 
best is none too good however. I am 
told that there is a certain chemical 
action in a galvanized pail which is ex¬ 
erted between the galvanizing and the 
sap, which might be injurious particular¬ 
ly to the life of the pail. That is why 
some declare a tin pail is better. Any¬ 
how be ready for the run which will come 
in a week or two in some localities and in 
others perhaps a month yet. w. j. 
of your methods of drain¬ 
age and tillage and of your 
growing crops — with and 
without fertilizers. Such 
a record will enable you to 
study and improve the con¬ 
ditions governing their 
growth and will help you 
to better profits next year. 
Let the Kodak at $6.00 
and up, or the Brownie 
from $1.00 to $12.00 keep 
the record. 
Your dealer has them. Ask for a catalogue , 
or we will send it free by mail. 
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