ticular fertilizers for the raising of particular crops! Money sent to New York, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago and elsewhere, for a composition of which they know absolutely nothing, with which they expect to raise a particular crop, while they are wasting and treading under foot the same materials and fertilizers with which they are all well acquainted. Fertilizers not only calculated to raise a particular crop, but fertilizers that every good farmer well knows will grow every plant from the hyssop on the wall to the oak in the forest.

I am fully aware of the position I occupy, and expect to be criticised; but the truth will bear criticism, and will stand though the heavens fall. In this connection, let me say that many honest and conscientious parties are engaged in the sale and manufacture of commercial fertilizers, who are doing a fair and honest business, and are making a good article, if farmers could know the good from the bad, and may sell an inferior article at a high price, and believe it to be all right. We will give an example: One of our merchants made a proposition to one of our best farmers upon the faith he had in the goods he handled. He made the following offer: The farmer was to put out a certain field in wheat, on the one-half of which he should use the fertilizer which the merchant was selling, and give him the amount of wheat which that half produced over the other half that had no fertilizer. The result was that the half of the field that had no fertilizer yielded just twelve bushels of wheat more than the other half with the fertilizer. Now, if the farmer had bought the fertilizer, he would have lost his investment, together with the twelve bushels of wheat.

One thing stands in favor of commercial fertilizers. They were instrumental in more generally introducing the grain drill, by which nearly every grain is put to its proper place, and in a furrow that will serve as protection and support, where a fine fertilizer can give to the crop a good start and all the virtue that is in it. Here is the point where many farmers are deceived, and give undue credit to fertilizers -namely, by the immediate effect of all the virtue contained in the fertilizer, with the additional advantage of the work of the drill, never taking into account the lasting effect and the money it costs. The drilling of a good fertilizer, with the seed to give the plant a start, we heartily indorse; but you want something which you know, and something that costs less money than the prices generally asked for a commercial fertilizer.

There are some commercial fertilizers worth buying, not for general use, but in an emergency, where you can do no better, if farmers could know the good from the bad. The best are generally too high in the price, and the worst are dear as a gift. Many fine stimulating fertilizers can be manufactured on the farm and in the neighborhood where they are to be used from materials which too often go to waste, which could be utilized and applied for much less expense than the price generally paid for commercial fertilizers, fertilizers that would always. be sure and safe and have the effect of some of the best commercial fertilizers. Let it be remembered that farmers as a rule make more by what they save than by what they make. There could be no objection to a home manufactory, where materials of the neighborhood could be utilized, and where the farmers could acquaint themselves with the character of the party manufacturing and the character of the goods they buy.

Bone is an excellent fertilizer, if you could know the pure article

from what you can see of it in the inside of the sack, for very few farmers ever pretend to know anything they can learn from the hieroglyphics on the outside of the sack. Farmers should utilize every bone on their premises, and even buy, if they can get a pure article at a fair price; but, in the language of Holy Writ," Beware of false prophets; beware of the leaven of the pharisees; beware of covetousness.' And let us add, beware of acid phosphates and the homeopathic land quacks, who go about the country "seeking whom they may devour," with well-committed speeches, pictures and advertisements, exhibiting vials filled with the balm of Gilead," for the healing of sick and consumptive soils, who talk like philosophers upon a subject they know practically very little about.

Let me ask in all sincerity, is there nothing wrong in this great scramble for the gain that is derived from the traffic of commercial fertilizers?

Is there nothing wrong where farmers are induced to pay high prices for fertilizers that have very little, if any, value, and after waiting patiently for a season to find their hopes blasted and their money gone? So much for commercial fertilizers. We will now see what can be said for home fertilizers.

All fertile soils are composed of five principal elements-namely, calcareous matter or lime, aluminous matter or clay, silicious matter or sand dead vegetable matter or humus, and water. All these in proper proportion are absolutely necessary for all and every good crop, and not a blade of grass, nor a single grain can grow without lime, and where nature has not furnished a sufficient supply it must be supplied by artificial means.

Skinner, in his Elements of Agriculture, when speaking upon the subject of lime, says: "If farmers have not often recourse to this means of increasing the value of their lands, it is because they are generally ignorant of the good effect it produces, or because they do not know in what circumstance liming can be advantageously effected." The same author says: "The beneficial effect of lime is sometimes not seen until the second or third year." It often shows a very good effect the first year. This depends upon certain conditions and circumstances. We say the farmer who expects the same result the first season from lime that he does of some active go-off-at-once-or-never fertilizer, which must do all it ever can do the first season, knows very little of the nature of lime.

Nearly all acid phosphates must do their work the first year or never. If it happens to be a dry season, it will not only refuse to do its work, but may prove an injury, as stated by Dr. Gauth and confirmed by the experience of thousands of farmers. Yet farmers are asked to risk their money for a high-priced, dangerously corrosive, unknown, doubtful stuff, while they stumble over materials which are well known to be sure and safe-materials that could be utilized for a trifle, materials that only serve to pollute the God-given elements of air and water, to the detriment of health and comfort.

There are three different forms of lime, namely, carbonate, sulphate and phosphate of lime, and upon these three different forms of lime "hang all the law and profits" of successful farming. And by the application of common, or carbonate of lime to the soil, all three forms of lime will be added, and every fertilizing element contained in the best commercial fertilizer, in a greater or less degree, according to the quality of the lime used and the condition of the soil. This posi

tion was stoutly denied at our last annual meeting by a gentleman traveling in the interest of commercial fertilizers; especially was it denied that phosphate of lime could be produced by the application of common, or carbonate of lime. The correctness of my theory will be proven by facts, figures and good authority. Standing as I do, in the midst of an intelligent audience, at the fountain of agricultural knowledge, and surrounded by these able professors, I ask you to correct me if I make a mistake, stand by me only as far as I stand by the truth.

We have taken the broad position-let us repeat it-that by liming all the different forms of lime are made, in some degree, as well as all the principal elements found in a complete commercial fertilizer, namely, phosphoric acid, potash and ammonia. Some of these will have to be made by lime in a round-about-way, but it will get there.

Soils, especially clayey soils, contain more or less sulphuric acid, or oil of vitrol, in a mild form. And any chemist, and he need not be a chemist to know, that carbonate of lime brought in contact with sulphuric acid will produce sulphate of lime, which is gypsum, sometimes called plaster of Paris, or land plaster, after it is pulverized, which has the power of attracting and fixing ammonia, the very heart of all fertilizers, and composed of hidrogen and nitrogen. Here we have already two forms of lime, namely, carbonate and sulphate of lime, together with ammonia, which contains the little nitrogen sometimes printed on the outside of the phosphate sack.

Being only a plain, practical farmer, amounting to not very much, especially in a scientific discussion, I brought with me Prof. Johnson's work on Elements of Agricultucal Chemistry and Geology, by which will be proven every assertion I have made, or do now make, upon this subject.

Professor Johnson, speaking upon the importance of lime as a fertilizer, and phosphoric acid, says: "It happens that limestone invariably contains phosphoric acid, and a proportion of it usually increases with that of the visible remains of animals, shells, corals, &c., which occur in it. In the magnesian limestones of the county of Dorham I have found the proportion of phosphate of lime to be as small as 0.15 per cent., while limestones from Lenarkshire, analyzed in my laboratory, amounted to 14 per cent., or one hundred pounds of the burned lime contained as much as 2 pounds of phosphate of lime."

In addition to the evidence given as to the formation of sulphate of lime (gypsum) by applying lime to soils containing acids, Professor Johnson goes further. When speaking on the subject of lime in connection with sulphur and sulphuric acid, he says: "This acid exists in combination with lime in the state of gypsum." This confirms the opinion, that by the burning of lime with bituminous coal, or any other fuel containing sulphur, that sulphate of lime or gypsum is formed.

Lime has a very beneficial effect upon sandy soils by its chemical and physical action, principally by forming silicate of lime (another form of lime made by liming), thus making available plant food out of bound-up and inactive material by its chemical action, and, physically, by making sandy soils more cohesive and retentive.

Lime has chemically and physically a powerful effect upon clayey soils. Chemically it is a great neutralizer; clayey soils contain more

or less sulphuric acid, in itself a very corrosive element and a deadly poison, this it converts into wholesome plant food, both directly and indirectly.

Lime is a great meliorater, helping to make heavy soils warmer and lighter, and light soils heavier. Lime which fills the store house of nature is the most generally used, and does perhaps more to lay the foundation of a fertile soil and to maintain it than all other fertilizers put together. So much for lime.

A mere reference to some of the other home fertilizers can be made. Such as barn-yard manure, both solid and liquid; manure from the poultry house, pig-pen and privy; swamp muck or peat, ashes and road wash. Last but not least are green crops, natures own fertilizers, and lime with its many beneficial effects will always bring clover and a better sod, than by turning down the old carpet that is trodden by the tiller of the soil, and given in exchange for something better. With the above mentioned home fertilizers properly husbanded and applied is the surest, nearest and cheapest road from a sterile to a fertile soil.

There are continually great hills of manure, reeking with fermentation, sending out like so many young volcanoes, the valuable gases on out spread wings, to the ends of the earth, to pollute the air. While rivers of the liquid, the soluble part and the very life blood of the dung hill, are running down the highway of nature, to sow the seed of death and destruction.

This carelessness and waste is in a great measure encouraged by some of these modern land quacks, who by their theory to educate farmers to the belief that it does not pay to handle and utilize these things, when a vest pocket full of some low-grade and high-priced, climax, ammoniated, acid superphosphate, well shaken together, will do the work. It will be only a question of time when the wisdom of these modern philosophers will become necessary to decide the pressing question, as to whether it would pay best to move the barn or the dung-pile

COMPLETE FERTILIZERS.

By JOHN I. CARTER, Esq., Chatham, Chester county, Pa.

The name complete fertilizer for a manurial compound has such a winning sound to it, and affords such golden opportunity to the glibtongued phosphate agent to dazzle the eyes and deplete the pockets of the unwary farmer, that I feel called upon to put the said farmer on his guard a little, and call his attention to a few facts before he goes too deeply into fancy fertilizers.

It is true that plants require, for full fertilization, three prominent manurial elements, viz: Phosphoric acid, potash and nitrogen. To secure a healthy and vigorous growth, a crop must be abundantly supplied with these elements from some source. The question is from whence? Must we buy them, or are some of them already in the soil? or will they come without their costly purchase? In soils remarkably fertile, like our Chester and Lancaster county soils, experiments and experience have pretty fully shown that one of these manurial elements has been more seriously exhausted than the others. The heavy 12 BD. AGR.

grazing and wheat raising for a long series of years have depleted the phosphoric acid to a dangerous extent, and all testimony shows that its return to the soil again from some source is a matter of prime necessity. The manner in which most of our crops respond to an application of dissoluble bone or rock show this; and I need not multiply words to prove the great benefit farmers have derived from the judicious use of phosphate of lime.

But is this true of potash? Have we any experiments showing good results from the application of pure potash? If so, I fail to remember them.

It will not do to cite the use of ashes! It may, and generally does, contain several things good for plants, other than potash.

The burning of brush heaps is often cited as evidence that ashes is a splendid fertilizer for crops. But were the rich spots the result of the presence of potash from the ashes, or from the heating or burning of the soil? The feldspar rock of this section probably yields potash enough for all practical purposes, without any unnecessary outlay to procure it from other sources.

How is it with nitrogen? This you know is the big card with the complete fertilizer men. With much plausibility they attempt to show it as the most valuable part in prepared plant-food. But does experiment or experience show this to be true? Of course, nitrogen in some form is an important component part in plant organization, and an ample supply must be furnished healthy plants.

Part of this must be present in the soil, but probably not that it may enter directly into the plant, but on account of its action on the other soil elements, rendering them available to the plants. Some late experiments of Professor Atwater, show that more than one-half the nitrogen contained in the grown plant must have come from the air. His experiments with plants grown in pure sand and treated with definite amounts of nitrogen, show that a portion of nitrogen must be present in the sand to give the plant start enough to enable it to gather its main supply from outward sources. He also proved that in field experiments heavy applications of nitrogens were unprofitable, not at all in proportion to their cost. This agrees with very many field experiments made by myself on the experimental farm. We used nitrogen from several different sources, and in varying quantities; the results were not at all satisfactory. Some plots treated with nitrogen actually grew poorer during the five year course than where no fertilizer at all was used.

The presence of nitrogen in a ground bone is of value indirectly. It assists in the speedy disintegration of the bone; and this is the reason why a raw bone is better than a charred bone, from which all nitrogenous matter has previously been expelled. Nitrogen is a popular ingredient with manufacturers and dealers in commercial fertilizers, because it makes an uncertainty about its value that enables them to increase their profits, without ready detection, and as before stated, gives opportunity for plausible theorizing on the advantages of special fertilizers for special crops.

A few years ago the idea of compounding a fertilizer in accordance with the component parts of the crop to be grown was adopted by some manufacturers, and much talked of, but practically it proved to be of little value. Science was not accurate enough for such close work. Lawes and Gilbert compounded special fertilizers for wheat and turnips, just in the right proportion to make the grain and straw