The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-03-24
agricultural.
T. H. HOSklNS, M. D., Editor,
Newport, Vermont.
DO We Pay Too Much Il?

The fertilizer season is beginning,
and again the question comes up in
every farmers mind, "Can / afford to
use these fertilizers, and to what ex-
tent?" There is little doubt that more
than half the farmers in New England
still answer the first clause of this in
quiry in the gative-some from preju-
dice, it may be, but great many from
more or less experience. Perhaps this
experience is not quite conclusive; per-
haps it has no sufficient extent; but
certainly il has had enough influence to
deter large numbers from having re-
course to fertilizers, and to prevent the
vast majority from using them freely,
or confidently, as source of profit to
themselves. This is shown by the COM
paratively small aggregate of sales in
Vermont, as we'll as in other states.
We have not under our hands at this
moment the figures in this connection,
but our impression is that the sale of
fertilizers, outside of the demands of
market gardeners, does not yet equal
one barrel to the farm in the whole of
New England.
Nevertheless, experience has con-
WINGED us all that these fertilizers will
make the crops grow. There are few
among us who have not been satisfied
that good corn and potatoes can be
grown upon the commercial superphos-
pilates alone. But when we consider
the low price at which we must sell
these products of our land, the doubt
still hangs about us whether " it pays"
while perhaps hardly farmer among
us yet thinks of the use of commercial
manures for the production of grass
and the small grains.
These questions are annually dis
cussed in the agricultural papers, but
unfortunately most of them derive so
large part of their advertising patron
age from the makers of fertilizers that
a perfectly impartial view of the sub
ject rarely gets into their columns.
The influence of the counting-room is
often pre-potent in the EDITORS sane
tum, so that, whatever his thoughts
may be, his pen is unnerved by the
knowledge that something he may say
will cause the withdrawal of advertise
ments, and bring down upon his head
the Indignation of his boss" One of
our exchanges, conducted by man of
high qualifications, both as a writer
and as farmer of wide and long expe-
rience, truly says:
Fertilizer manufacturers can no longer
obscure their work behind the ignor-
ance of the purchasers of their goods.
Farmers everywhere are coming to I'M
derstand that the value of fertilizer
to them, for application to the soil, is in
the percentages of nitrogen, potash and
phosphoric acid. These materials be-
ing the measure of fertilizing power,
farmers see, as well as chemists, that
where little is found limited results
from their application must follow.
Measured by this standard of
values, our station last year found the
Bay State fertilizer worth S33 a ton,
yet it cost the farmer $40. The Soluble
Pacific was worth $1,000 and cost $40.
Bradley's was worth S32 and cost $40.
ligent farmers lose sight of the wide
difference in these figures, or that they
fail to reason that if the trade values
used are the retail prices, then there is
too wide a margin between cost and
what farmers are paying for the goods.
If these fertilizers could be bought for
the estimated value it would leave a
possible margin of profit which would
warrant their use to far greater extent
than is now the case.
This is a good beginning, and we
read our friends article so far with
spontaneous approval and satisfaction.
In what follows there is also nothing
but what is true:
The necessity for this wide difference
between estimated or cost values and
selling prices comes from the system of
selling. An examination will show at
once that the system of selling fertil-
izers among us is an expensive one.
Whether this system is a necessity or
not may be question for the farmers
to decide, but this is certain, that the
extraordinary expenses must be paid by
the purchasers. Manufacturers of fer
tilizers purchase material and run their
manufactures from spring to spring
again without sales. For this material
and for running their manufactures
they pay cash down. After the goods
are made they are then consigned to
agents on time with contract to pay for
what has been sold at the expiration OF
time specified. More or less of these
goods remain unsold and must 90 over tc
the next years trade. The cost of pack
ages, no inconsiderable matter, freight
transportation, and a travelling agent
to make sales and to make collections
are expenses requiring cash down. II
will thus be seen that most of this in
vestment is employed all the way from
one to three years in order to make
sale of one years manufacture. The
cost of manufacture, the interest on the
investment for all the time it is tied up
all losses and all the expenses referred
to are represented in the difference be-
tween the estimated value and the sell
ing price, and must be met, regardless
of prOfits