Delaware Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1843-1874, 1873-05-29

MANURING WITHOUT AMMoNlA.-A cores
pondenl in the Country Gentleman writes as
follows:-l have read with much interest the
report in one oi your late numbers Of the dit
feIent analysis Of fertilizers which are palmed
oil Oh farmers, and not confined to New York
City alone. The writer has for the past seven
years experimental with many Of. the fertili-
zers found In the Baltimore market, and found
some of them perfectly worthless as 10 the Ell
feet produced on his land.
| must find fault with one portion Of the re-
port, and that is in giving toomuch credit to the
value Of ammonia producing matter, although
| In saying so, 1 know full well come in CON
tact with the popular idea that ammonia is ole
Of the important and necessary kinds OF food
| for plants--which no one doubts but the ques-
ton is, does not the atmosphere (1o per cent
| nitrogen) furnish abundant ammonia las 1t does
Of carbon with only f,c0 pei cent? With this
idea, in my experiments, the artificial applca-
ton of ammonia has been entirely discarded
| will let the results speak for themselves, OH
the poorest Of poor lands.
| A field of twenty acres, commencing in the
SPRING Of 1868, being the year the farm was
purchased, was planted in corn, using i tons
of popular ammoniated phosphate made in
Philadelphia. The crop was very poor-not
, more than ten or twelve bushels to the acre
In 1866 the field was sowed in oats and clover
with 200 lbs. of bone ash to the acre entirely
free of ammonia. The season was bad oni
for oats, threshing little over 800 bushels, blu
, the clover took very well, the former owner o
the farm remarking that he had never seen
such clover on the place before. Tht
following summer (1S6D 1t was mown, and b.,
estimate produced about 20 tons of good hay
and soon gave good pasture. In 1868 agail
n planted corn, aud where the insect failed to in
jure, the crop was good one-surely not les
, than 40 bushels to the acre, and in some place
. may have gone So In 1850 1 again PLANTS
q oats timothy and clover, using about 200 lbs
!, of boneblack from the sugar refinery, In fin
, powder. The oats grew finely, and haiveste
. 842 bushels, with fine set of timothy and Gle
yer. In 1870 the field was nlown; in man
places the clover was on the ground (too hig
|, TO stand up)-the machine only cutting tn
y timothy-but it yielded at least Ia tons to til
acre. The crcp was fed on the place. In 1877
the same field was MOVE, little clover shown
itself, and although the season was extremel
; dry, l sold $3.50 worth of hay from the field
bringing the highest price in the Baltmor
market. The remainder, with the other pro,
u ender, wintered % head OF horses and caltl
:, and this OH Place which seven years ago di
Il not raise enough provender to winter six hea
i all told! The season Of 1872, las every one know
~ was very dry and many Of the best mead ov
II IL failed to yield anything The above field Wi
at again mown in 1872. Clover entirely disal
~ peared, and although the crop has not all bee
sold, it will probably net between four and fl
hundred dollars, Last fall the growing gra
=, looked beautiful, and never so thick on Il
~ ground-every square inch apparently cover,
II with young timothy and redtop. In 1866,
:, was hard to get glass Of milk; in 1871 ov
~ 600 lbs. of butter was sold, and hundreds
M gallons of milk fed to the hogs and given aw
~ all OF which | consider came from bone as
W entirely free of ammonia.