The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1878-12-25
How TO Use Fertilizers.
TOos..t;ao Eo~1-


The first principle regarding the use of
fertilizers should be to never waste the home
product. The purchase of fertilizers should
be the last resort of the farmer; the resort
for increased acreage and increased crops
over what can be produced by the manure
of the farm. Ii the dung Of the farm will
20 over thoroughly but five acres, let the
farmer ask himself whether Increasing the
field cultivated TO ten acres will not dImin-
ISL the cost of production and give more
crop to be sold from the farm II an aft rm-
alive reply comes, then seek fertilizers to
add TO your manure, thlnly spread over ten
acres or to use by itself on the extra acre
age. III the latter course be pursued, then
there is an additional value gained-the
knowledge OF just what the fertilizer bought
is doing for this year OF use, aud whether 1t
will pay for its use.
Another principle, and a most important
one for success is TO use fertilizers as you
would dung-continuously.
Indeed, our own experience and the evil
dence of others, culled from published re-
ports of experiment and farm practice, all
indicate that the efficacy of fertilizers seems
more manifest with their continuous applica
tioa. One years application may fail to show
a marked effect, either on account of the
season or the crop, and yet produce marked
influence on the crop of the following year.
We think that the farmer who should try q
yearly dressing of fertilizers on a small plot,
and continue it for three years even, would
be educated to the point of largely using fer
tilizers on his farm at the end of this period.
Then, again, a fertilizer will OCCASIONALLY
produce large crop the first year, and ap
psrently fail the second year; yet the next
year if continued, the results Will be so
noteworthy as to satisfy that the one years
small return was due to other causes than
lack of virtue in plant food purchased.
third principle is that a sufficient guam
tity should always be used. We know Of
cases where half dressing has produced
good effects and but little profit, while a full
dressing would have produced a paying crop.
A plant must be well fed TO do its best for
us We may feed a COW little more than
she needs for mere existence and get fair
quantity OF milk without being enough to
furnish profit on the value of the food con-
sumed and the labor; little more food may
increase the yield to degree which shsll
amply remunerate. 1t rs just so with feed.
ing the plant. The man who starves his
fields is as unwise as the man who staryes
his mich COW. Enough food for a cow is
proper; more than enough Is waste. Enough
food for the plant, in the dung or fertilizer
man to strike the happy mean of plant feed
ing, the giving OF an ample but neither too
great nor too small supply for profit.
How shall we strike the proper point for
applying fertilizers? IL seems to us quite
clear. First get the land to It's maximum
condition of fertility; then calculate the
smount OF plant food removed by the last
crop, and apply this amount to the f Id in
order to grow the next croper. This is
practical and useful direction, which every
farmer ought TO educate himself to apply.