BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 307 
stable manure of the first quality, let alone the question of transport- 
ing the two kinds of materials to the field and of applying them to. the 
land. It is to be observed, moreover, that mixtures of commercial 
fertilizers. equally efficacious with those in the foregoing lists can un- 
undoubtedly be prepared by the farmer at decidedly lower cost. Thus 
in the case of the mixture EE 2, barley, that has been specially cited, 
it would undoubtedly be more advantageous to buy or make a quantity 
of one of the plain superphosphates, such as have been described on 
pages 179 and 187, and to use with it as much fish scrap as should 
contain an amount of nitrogen equal to that in the 255 lbs. of the 
superphosphate mentioned in the above list. For example, in 325 lbs. 
of the plain. superphosphate, of 10% soluble acid, at $25 per ton, in- 
stanced in the note on page 186, and 70 lbs. of fish scrap at $18 per 
ton, there could be got as much and more than, as much of each of the 
two kinds of plant food, at one quarter less cost. The 326 lbs. of plain 
superphosphate would cost $4.06 and the 70 Ibs. of fish scrap $0.63, 
equal, $4.69 for both. 
As was just now said, 400 lbs. of nitrate of soda to the acre is an 
unnecessarily large application. It would be bad practice to apply so 
much of the nitrate all at once to any field crop. It is to be noted 
moreover that a considerable part of whatever amount of the nitrate 
might be fit and sufficient for the case in hand, could undoubtedly be 
replaced with advantage by some other kind of nitrogenous manure, 
such. for. example as fermented peat, or night soil, or sulphate of 
ammonia or Peruvian guano, or by a mixture of several or all of these 
substances. ~ It may even be true that a very large proportion of the 
nitrogenous food needed by the crop could be supplied as well or pos- 
sibly better. in the form of some of the coarser kinds of nitrogenous 
fertilizers, such as fish scrap, and flesh meal, and bone meal, than if 
all the nitrogen were applied in the form of its more active and: costly 
varieties. It is unquestionably desirable that a certain proportion of 
the latter should be contained in the soil, but it is not improbable that 
a very small amount of them, would be suflicient, provided there was 
an abundance of the coarser kinds of nitrogenous food at hand, The 
several kinds of nitrogenized fertilizers differ from one another so much, 
both with regard to the rapidity of their action and in respect to their 
retention by the soil, that there can be little doubt that a judicious mix- 
ture of two or more of them is better suited to be used in conjunction 
