BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 343 
No. 31.— Some items of American experience which suggest 
that Potassic Fertilizers may perhaps act in several dif- 
Jerent ways. By F. H. Storer, Professor of Agricultural 
Chemistry. 
In an interesting and important essay published a few years 
since Professor Adolf Mayer,* of Wageningen, has set forth in 
considerable detail the results of a critical study of numerous Euro- 
pean experiments with potassic fertilizers, and has formulated sey- 
eral ‘* practical conclusions” relating to the use of potash-com- 
pounds in agriculture. Among the numerous points suggested by 
Mayer there are several which are specially interesting to Ameri- 
cans, more particularly those relating to facts which were already 
familiar to many persons in this country from the study of their 
own experiments and observations and the teachings of agricul- 
tural experience such as a new country affords; and it is worthy 
of record that in several particulars the observations of Mayer and 
of his American predecessors do mutually support and strengthen 
one another. It is true withal that some of the results recorded 
by earlier European observers and experimenters which have not 
been noticed by Mayer consist very well with conceptions that 
are now commonly held in this country. There is indeed, in some 
respects, a curious parallelism between the farming experience 
which was gained in some European countries a century or two 
ago and that which finds place in certain American districts to-day, 
or which did at all events exist in them very recently. And it is 
probably true in general, as it would seem to be in this special in- 
stance, that the agricultural critic who has it in his power so to do 
will find an advantage in considering his subject in the light of 
the earlier evidence as well as in that of testimony which has been 
more recently adduced. Thus with regard to certain particulars 
dwelt upon by Mayer, there are facts of American experience, and 
_ of old European experience as well, which point with considerable 
force to the significance of ‘‘ mitigating circumstances,” and which 
seem to call for some qualification of one or two of the more ex- 
treme statements which have been made by this chemist. The 
reader is impressed withal with a conception of the very different 
* «Die landwirthschaftlichen Versuchs-Stationen,” 1881, 26. pp. 77, 309. 
