Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-11-19
EXPERIMENTS WITH FERTILIZERS.
What Government Stations Are Doing for
thu Farmers OF the Country.

What Government Stations Are Doing for
thu Farmers Of the Country.
Farmers in the older states are spending
millions o., dollars annually for CONNER
cial fertilizers. In this country, as I'm
Europe, they have become an absolute
necessity on won out soils, but to make
them profitable it is necessary that they
should fit the wants of the soil and crops
for which they are used. If farmer buys
potash for land.which abounds in potash,
but needs phosphoric acid, he of course
loses. The fundamental principle in the
use of commercial fertilizers is to select
those materials which supply in the best
forms and at the lowest cost the plant food
which the crop needs and the soil fails to
furnish.
In order to enable farmers to find out
the wants of their own soils and the best
way of supplying them, and at the same
time to get light upon the properties of
soils in different sections of the country, a
number of experiment stations are intro
ducing soil tests with fertilizers which are
largely conducted both by the stations and
also by individual farmers on their own
farms. OF course many of the expert
ments are failures, but many practical men
who have engaged in this work have de-
clared that they have thus learned great
NN'@A " H'Nh 80 PhoNNiNaAiJ useful
instructive.
The results of these tests in general
show that soils vary greatly in their capa-
biIlties of supplying food to crops. Differ
ent ingredients are deficient in different
soils. The best way to learn what mate
rails are proper in any given case is by OBJ
servation and experiment. The rational
method for determining what ingredients
of plant food soil fails to furnish in
abundance, and how these unfurnished
materials can be most economically sup
pied, Is to put the question to the soil with
different fertiliZing materials, and get the
reply in the crops produced The chief use
OF fertilizers is to supply plant food. 1t is
good farming to make the most of the
natural resources of the soil and of the
manures produced on the farm, and to de-
pend upon artificial fertilizers only to fur
nish what more is needed. 1t is not good
economy to pay high prices for materials
which the soil itself may yield, but it is
good economy to supply the lacking ones
in the cheapest way"
Probably the most valuable practical
work that these experiment stations have
done has been to analyZe these various
commercial fertilizers which are offered
for sale by manufacturers In some of the
states, in New Jersey, for instance. the
fertilizers are analysed, and the qualities
of chemicals found in each sample COM
pared with what the manufacturer claimed
that the composition contained. So as to
make this perfectly plain, the money value
of the chemicals found in each sample is
noted and compared with the price charged
by the manufacturer. Some startling re-
suits have been shown. One fertilizer sell
ing, say, at twenty-five dollars per ton,
would be found to have a value of twenty
eight; another, selling at forty dollars a
ton would be found to be worth only fif-
teen dollars; and in one instance / recall
the manufacturer charged forty three dol
lars ton for his complete fertilizer, and
the chemist found that its actual value
was only $50.
Bulletins like these have certainly done
great good, for they have warned farmers
from buying inferior chemicals, and they
have compelled manufacturers to keep
their compositions up to the advertised
standard. When there is more universal
education among the farmers it will only
he necessary to express the values of fer
tilizers in chemical terms. We have the
authority of the United States agricultural
department for the statement that in the
states where experiment stations have long
been established the greater number of the
farmers now need nothing more than these
chemical terms to guide them in selecting
the special fertilizers needed in given
cases.-John Gilmer Speed in Harper's
Weekly.