The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-04-14
Aaritaltural.
T. H. HOSkINs, m. D., Editor,
Newport, Vermont.
Mr.. Bowker on Acid Fertilizers.

tilizer Company, had greatly changed
his position in regard to the value of
acid fertilizers since the time when he
began their manufacture. Then he
said " 1t is true that when you treat
bone with sulphuric acid you make it
more soluble, but its solubility lies in
the fact that you simply have more
minutely divided it. Now if you can
take bone and steam it and grind it up
and reduce it to an impalpable powder,
have you not accomplished the same
thing, and also avoided the possibility
of the destructiveness of sulphuric
acid?" In our remarks we observed
that in recent agricultural meeting in
Boston he had taken the opposite posi-
ton. Now Mr.. Bowker comes out in a
letter in the NeC England Farmer
(Which we print elsewhere), in which
he ascribes his changed opinions to the
experience he has acquired as a manu-
facturer of fertilizers, and not content
with congratulating himself upon his
increase in wisdom, he intimates fear
that " DR.. Hoskins has stood still, mean
time.' We do not think Mr.. Bowker
need to give himself any concern about
our standing still on any agricultural
question, and least of all on that most
important one to us, in common with
other farmers, the cost and value of
fertilizers. Where mans daily bread
and provision for his family and for his
old age are involved, he is not likely to
neglect any probable means of enlight-
eminent, so long as he retains the power
of thought.
Mr.. Bowker says we should have
taken what he said against the use of
acid in connection with some other re-
marks made by him, but we do not find
those remarks reported in the Massa-
chusetts Agricultural Report for 1874,
from which we quoted. We are not
ignorant, however, as our readers can
testify, of the advantages accruing from
having our fertilizers Immediately avail
able, and we should be strongly in favor
of having all phosphate fertilizers
made more readily soluble, if it could
be done at cost which the farmer can
afford to pay. But when Mr.. Bowker
takes so-called insoluble phosphate
material like ground bone or South
Carolina rock, and by the addition of
sulphuric acid and water reduces its
percentage of phosphoric acid one-half,
and charges as much or more for it
than he did before, nothing can be
more reasonable for the farmer to ask
than whether what he has done is worth
what he asks for doing it. This is the
question as we have reviewed and dis
cussed it. We have never claimed that
the more soluble forms of phosphoric
acid were not desirable. On the con-
trary, we have urged for years the i'm
portance of fine grinding, and have la
bored to show how the use of wet ashes
with raw bone would cheaply promote
its solubility. Unlike a good many
writers on this subject, we have sought
for practical experience through re-
peated and careful tests in the field,
before publishing our views. We never
positively asserted the availability of I'M
acidifed South Carolina rock until after
our experiments made with it last sum-
mer in competition with Mr.. Bowker's
Hill and Drill fertilizer; and even now
we are more earnest to urge the expert
ment stations and the agricultural col
leges to pursue the investigation than
we are to press its use upon the
farmers.
Mr.. Bowker says that his animal fer
tilizer did not give the satisfaction he
anticipated. We can assure him that
it did with us, for We never got better
corn or potatoes than we had when we
used it. But it is easy to understand
why it did not suit farmers in general
as well as an acid fertilizer. The rea-
son was because in the way in which
farmers generally use a fertilizer it was
not quick enough. If you are going to
use only barrel to the acre, in the
hill, along with the Embarrassing of
stable manure, then use the most
soluble fertilizer you can get. When
you put only spoonful in hill, unless
it is Immediately available it is of hardly
any use at all The phosphoric acid,
nitrogen and potash of stable manure
is in the insoluble :" forms, and where
little fertilizer is used with it " to give
the crop a start " that should be made
as soluble as possible. If it is not,
you have, in barrel of unacidilied fer
tilizer (however rich), added only
enough to the half dressing of stable
manure to make say three-fifths of a
dressing, and you should not expect
more than three-fifths of crop.
The facts on this subject seem to re-
quire about as much explaining as the
position of politician on civil service
reform, and for about the same reason
namely, that the public don't seem tc