40 
“Ghe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 5, 191S 
Grow Big Crops by Using 
BRADLEY’S FERTILIZERS 
The World’s Best by Every Test 
WAR CROPS 
Owing to the enormous demand for food throughout the 
world, brought about by the war, the production of crops is 
second in importance to no other industry-—not even ex¬ 
cepting munitions of war. The Hoover Commission says: 
Food Will Win the War 
Prices for farm products are abnormally high and will 
remain so while the war lasts. Every wide-awake farmer 
will, consequently, try to produce maximum crops. 
The fertilizer industry goes hand in hand with agriculture. 
Only by the intelligent use of good fertilizers can the farmer 
secure maximum crops. As labor is scarce and high, aiery 
acre cultivated must be made to produce its maximum crop. 
Bradley’s Fertilizers 
will accomplish these results. They have stood the test for 
over fifty years on millions of acres all over the country. 
A /'e maintain an Agricultural Service Bureau under the direction of Dr. H. J. Wheeler 
(lor many years Director of the Rhode Island Mate Agricultural Experiment Station), 
whose crop bulletins, service, and advice are free to all farmers. 
BRADLfr FERIIUZER WORKS 
THE AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL CHEMICAL CO. 
92 STATE ST., BOSTON, or 2 RECTOR ST., NEW YORK 
Iranch Otllcls: PIIILADELPHI*. BALTIMORE, BUFFALO, DETROIT, CLEKELABO, CIHCIRIIATI 
Oaing to the abnormal demands upon the 
railroad facilities of the country, fertilizers 
should be ordered as early as possible, to allow for in¬ 
evitable congestion and delays in shipment. 
“REECO” SYSTEMS 
FOR CITY AND SUBURBAN USE 
Water supply systems embracing— 
Klectric Motor Driven Pumps 
Gasoline and Kerosene Pumpers 
Hot-Air Pumping Engines 
Gasoline and Kerosene Engines for Power 
Electric Lighting Plants 
Wood Sawing Outfits 
Tanks, Pneumatic and Gravity 
RIDER-ERICSSON ENGINE COMPANY 
Business Established 1842 
24 MURRAY STREET NEW YORK 
FREE I lOl 
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Books Worth Reading 
Animal Breeding, Shaw. 1.50 
Breeding Farm Animals, Marshall.. 1.50 
Principles of Breeding, Davenport.. 2.50 
Cheese Making, Van Slyke. 1,75 
Business of Dairying, Lane. 1.25 
Clean Milk, Winslow. 3.25 
Dairy Chemistry, Snyder. 1.00 
Dairy Farming. Michels. 1.00 
Handbook for Dairymen. Woll.1.50 
Milk and Its Products, Wing. 1.50 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
333 WEST 30th ST„ ' NEW YORK. 
Inventions perfected 
Patents proenred 
As engineers we can give special technical aid in 
developing an idea and making the 
result commercially practical. 
Send for circular. 
SAFETY SERVICE CORPORATION 
29 BROADWAY NEW YORK CITY 
! 
General Farm Topics 
Making Concentrated Lime-sulphur 
How is the poneentrated lime-sulphur 
mixture made for .spraying apple trees? 
Alabama. w. F. 
Homemade eoneentrated lime-sulphur is 
made by using -10 pounds stone lime, 30 
pounds sulphur, and 50 gallons of water. 
The lime is plaeed in the cooking kettle 
or vat and .started slaking. The suliihur 
is mixed into a thin pa.ste with water and 
added to the lime as the slaking process 
begins. As soon as the slaking is com¬ 
plete enough water is added to bring the 
whole volume up to 50 gallon.s. This 
amount can be conveniently added by hav¬ 
ing previously notched a stick at the 
height of 50 gallons in the boiler. The 
1 .stick is placed in the center of the boiling 
vessel and the water brought up to the 
notch. The mixture should boil steadily 
from 45 minutes to one hour, according 
to the amount of heat used. During this 
boiling the solution should he held to the 
50-gallon mark by adding water (i)refer- 
<ably hot) each ten minutes. If steam is 
u.sed in cooking, little water will be re¬ 
quired, but if the solution is cooked in an 
open kettle over a fire the addition of 
water is important. It .should be stirred 
almost constantly to iirovent caking and 
burning on the sides and bottom of the 
kettle. An old hoe is excellent for this 
jFurpose. After .solution is cooked it should 
he stored in airUght barrels, and each 
barrel should he filled full and stopp'.'i-ed 
tightly. It is of no advantage to allow 
the sediment to enter the barrel with the 
solution, but will do no harm, excejTt that 
it will become very hard after the solu¬ 
tion is di-awn off. When the solution is 
taken from the barrel and jilaced in the 
spray tank, care must be taken that all 
sediment which would clog the nozzles is 
strained out. The .solution should be 
tested with a Baume's hydrometer, and 
when diluted for use a dilution table 
should he consulted. You can doubtless 
secure same from your State experiment 
station. h. f. j. 
Buying Wood Ashes 
We have many questions about the 
value of wood ashes. There is no doubt 
about the benefit from using a pure uii- 
leached ash. We doubt if any combina¬ 
tion of lime, potash and phosphoric acid 
can he put together which will give as 
good results as equal parts of these ele¬ 
ments in a pure ash. This very fact and 
the present high price of potash has iire- 
sented a great temptation to dealers in 
ashes, and we have not found a sample of 
commercial ashes which fully equals the 
I old-time product. Still some of the brand.s 
now on the market would make a good 
bargain if we could be sure of the analy¬ 
sis. The trouble is that .some farmers buy 
these ashes supposing the analysis is guar- 
ianteed, only to find that tl 're was no 
legal agreement. Then if the analysis 
runs low they have no redress. In one 
case a farmer received a letter in which 
the following appears : ' 
“If I were you I would tell your neigh¬ 
bors that they test three per cent of pure 
potash, one of phosph(u-ic acid, and 30 per 
cent wood lime. It is always better to 
tell them less than they really test. Now 
the last two cars that were tested, one 
tested 31/4 per cent potash and the other 
4% per cent potash. This potash is ab¬ 
solutely pure, and is an article not for 
sale, blit is only a chemical analysis, and 
a chemist told me that ash s that tested 
three per cent potash really had six per 
cent of potash siudi as you buy. If 31/^ 
per cent was tested of this pure potash 
I your ashes would have to have seven per 
cent of crude potash to give that test.” 
Now this farmer thought he had a guar¬ 
anteed analysis in that, when legally it 
amounted to nothing—only an opinion. 
If such ashes tested only two per cent he 
would have no redress. A “pure” ash 
with less than five per cent potash has 
usually been partly leached or mixed 
with sand or coal ashes. The ashes here 
mentioned were offered at .$20 jx'r ton. If 
they really contained 3i/4 per cent potash 
there would be TO pounds, at a cost, in¬ 
cluding freight, of about .$24, or nearly 35 
cents a pound. 
A “Fake” Mineral Scheme 
Our soldiers at the front are preparing 
to put up a good fight, and we shall hear 
much about their work. At home, too, 
the business of raising funds for war pur¬ 
poses. and the manufacturing of necessi¬ 
ties is also going on, and much will be 
said about it. In other lines important 
work is also being wrought out, although 
silently and without great parade. The 
U. S. Geological Survey does not get into 
the limelight very much, but none the less 
its work is necessary. The geologists are 
hunting the country over for deposits of 
oil and minerals. There must be an 
increased production of oil, petroleum, 
potash, nitrate, platinum and many other 
of the war minerals; that is. elements 
needed in producing war necessitie.s. The 
work with potash has been carried on 
steadily, and several large deposits have 
been found. It may be said that there is 
potash enough now in sight, but that thi' 
difficulty comes in preparing it for use. 
Of course, in work of this kind there 
are ftikes and frauds who will rush in 
to try and take advantage of conditions. 
For example, there is a great shortage of 
platinum at the present time, and the 
price_ of the metal is high. Geologists are 
hunting for fresh supplies, while certain 
companies are trying to exploit worthless 
deposits by making extravagant claims 
about them. One such deposit is located 
in Oregon. Great claims were made re¬ 
garding the richiu'ss of the deposits, and 
the great value of the platinum loc-ated 
there, and, as is usually the case, great 
efforts were made to exploit or capitalize 
the demand for this metal. The Geo¬ 
logical Survey has now investigated this 
claim. The outward conditions are much 
the same as those where gold and plat¬ 
inum arc found, but thorough analysis 
and careful working has failed to find any 
trace of either metal, and thus these 
claims are branded as false or extrava¬ 
gant. It is a fair sample of the way 
many mining schemes are worked. The 
promoters find a locality where the indi¬ 
cations seem good for mineral deposits, 
and on the strength of that they sell 
stock in a mining project. It is always 
possible to work up a plausible story iV 
garding a situation of this sort, and many 
people are deceived by it. If we could 
have the money which has been thrown 
away in thi.s manner on worthless mining 
.schemes we could easily take care of the 
starving Belgians during the entire war. 
At any rate, the survey has now branded 
this iilatinum scheme as a fake, and none 
of oiir readers will be justified in putting 
any of their money into this scheme. 
“Life Rock”An Old Acquaintance 
We have in former years printed sev¬ 
eral articles about the so-called “Mineral 
Fertilizer” which was offered for sale in 
Boston. This whole proposition was .so 
absurd that it seemed impossible people 
with good judgment would ever pay any 
attention to it, and yet a number of our 
readers actually bought the stuff, or 
signed a contract to act as agent for it. 
The State Chemist of Florida analyzed 
this stuff, and on the strength of his'an¬ 
alysis refused to permit its sale in that 
State. We thought this stuff had dropped 
out of sight, but now comes an advertise¬ 
ment of “liife-Rock,” which seems to be 
the old mineral fertilizer with a new suit 
of clothes. The president of the Life- 
Rock company appears to be the sales 
manager of th old mineral company, and 
the secretary is evidently the former 
treasurer. Wlhat they are trying to do 
now, evidently, is to sell stock in the 
Life-Rock company. They state that they 
hold a bond to secure title to 300 acres of 
land in (Ixford County. Maine, wherein 
this volcanic deposit is found. They 
claim that the deposit is inexhaustible, 
and with 100,()00,000 tons on hand. We 
have the same old dope about Life-Rock 
being a soil vitalizer, a disease destroyer, 
and a remedy for plant pests. You would 
think to read about it that Life-Rock was 
a true agent of prosperity and that the 
fertilizer millennium had come. They 
are to charge from .$15 to .$20 a ton for 
this stuff. The analysis shows that it 
contains about 50 per cent of pure sand. 
In one ton the analysis shows two pounds 
of phosphoric acid, and about 30 pounds 
of potash. There are (JO pounds of lime, 
and about 100 pounds of sulphur. On 
the analysis there is no such value in 
this stuff as the price would indicate, and 
our advice to readers is to leave Life- 
Rock alone, just as we advised them to 
leave Mineral Fertilizer alone wheu the 
same stuff sailed under that name. 
Manufacture of Commercial Fertilizers 
Of the thousands who use fertilizers 
comparatively few know what the chemi¬ 
cals are and how they are put together. 
This is partly because most of the litera¬ 
ture ou the subject is written for .scientific 
people, and not in the language of farm¬ 
ers. Of course many scientific men think 
they are making the subject absolutely 
clear and plain, but having forgotten the 
language in which a farmer must think 
and speak they do not reach him as they 
honestly try to do. A plain discussion of 
fertilizer-making has long been needed, 
and at last we have it in Bulletin No. 207 
of the Vermont Exiieriment Station at 
Burlington. It is by Dr. .1. L. Hills, the 
director of the station. Probably no man 
in the country i.s better qualified than Dr. 
Hills to do this work. He has had prac¬ 
tical experience in manufacturing, has 
had charge of fertilizer control, and has 
taught chemistry in laboratory and class¬ 
room and had practical experience with 
farmers. The result is what you would 
expect—a vei’y clear account of the ma¬ 
king of a fertilizer. Everybody who 
uses chemical manures should rea<’ (hi.s 
bulletin. 
