The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-04-13
AGRICULTURAL.
Does 1t Pay to Buy Commercial
Fertilizersi

Fertillzersi
Yes and No. Yes when the best
grades of goods are used intelligently,
no where the lowest priced goods are
bought and used without the care and
thought necessary to produce the best
results. But mark this statement: For
every dollar gained by using the ordin-
airy commercial fertilizers, from 81 25
to SO would be gained by using wise
ly prepared home mixed fertilizers.
Again, it may be said that farm ma
nures can be intelligently supplement-
ed by home mixtures, while they can
not be by the ready mixed fertilizers.
Let US look at this. An average corn
crop takes from each acre of land 146
pounds of nitrogen, 60 pounds of phos-
phoric acid, and TIA pounds of potash.
An average crop of meadow hay takes
from an acre 1855 pounds of nitrogen, SO
phosphoric acid, and 201 of potash. An
average oat crop takes SO Of nitrogen,
80 phosphoric acid, 96 potash. An acre
of potatoes 119 nitrogen, 81 phosphoric
acid, and 1872 potash. These figures
gives us pointers as to what our crops
need. The manure from cattle varies
greatly according to their feed, but ma
ture cows literally fed showed the fol-
lowing amounts of plant food in ton:
Nitrogen $40 pounds, phosphoric acid 6
pounds, potash 96 pounds. 1t may be
said as a general statement that all our
common manures are not well balanced,
there is too much nitrogen in them for
their other fertilizing material. They are
especially deficient in potash, and the
same is also true of the ordinary COM
mercial fertilizer. To meet the needs
of our common farm crops we need to
use with our home made supply of ma
nures home mixed fertilizer which
shall be 30 made up that it shall balance
our one-sided stable manures. Or if
we are going to use fertilizer alone, we
need to mix our fertilizer 80 as to have
the three forms of plant food in the
right proportion, for the fact is noto-
rious that most of our fertilizers are not
well balanced. They contain too little
potash. Roughly il may be stated that
in fertilizer, for every pound of phos.
phoric acid there should be one to two
pounds of nitrogen and three to three
and half of potash. With these
figures before us we may estimate that
part of the nitrogen comes from other
sources, we may say that large part
of it should come from clover and from
rich and we'll kept manure. One hun
dred pounds of nitrate of soda usually
contains about Is pounds of nitrogen
100 pounds of acid phosphate contains
Is to IS pounds of phosphoric acid !;
and 100 pounds muriate potash con.
tains so pounds potash. But the only
way to learn what each crop and what
our own soils need is to experiment
There are many difficulties in this,
however. At the time when the ex-
periments have to be made the farmer
is very busy, and any we'll conducted
experiments take time. Then it is not
always easy to interpret the results of
experiments. Plots may be laid off and
carefully fertilized with different mate
rails, yet show little difference. But
every farmer should make an effort
to find out just what his soils need 80
that he can fertilize intelligently, and
not buy and put on fertilizers in blind,
haphazard way. Every farmer ought
to know whether his land needs potash
or phosphoric acid or both, also the
effects of nitrogen on his crops. Take
an acre Of land, put on one quarter of
it 100 pounds of acid phosphate; on
another quarter 80 pounds of muriate
of potash; on another 25 pounds nj
trate of soda; then mix the three in
the same quantities and put on the
other quarter acre. The result will
give good idea of the needs of that
field.