42 HINTS ON SOILS AND FERTILIZERS 
ble, straw, and even discarded wearing apparel, 
and then this mixture is applied to the land in 
the spring. The time will soon come in this 
country, with land not so plentiful, when we 
shall be forced to stop this huge waste of fer¬ 
tility, that is leaching away from the farmer 
every day, and to substitute a more careful 
and more efficient method. 
COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS 
We have seen in the previous chapter that 
barnyard manure, even when given the most 
intelligent care, does not return to the soil all 
of the plant food removed by the crops. Con¬ 
sequently, it is not difficult to conclude that 
when this manure is improperly handled, an 
even greater loss is sustained by the farmer. 
In order that this land may be kept perpetual¬ 
ly productive, this barnyard manure must be 
supplemented by some other form of fertilizer. 
This brings us to the discussion of “commer¬ 
cial” fertilizers. 
The use of commercial fertilizers is not uni¬ 
versal, by any means. These fertilizers find 
their greatest use on the lands that have been 
farmed the longest in this country. Many of the 
states in the eastern part of our country use 
commercial fertilizers to a large extent. While 
it is true that some of these fertilizers are used 
in the western states, their application is not 
nearly as common in this section as in the 
East. For instance, a western farmer might 
apply two or three hundred pounds of the fer- 
