The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-09-30
Balanced Fertilizers.


Commercial fertilizers are practically
mixture of the cheaper forms OF
crude fertilizer materials, arranged SO
that the mixture contains certain per-
centages of the three elements of plant
food, nitrogen, potash and phosphorlc
acid. saws S. P Cox in Fruit World,
The mixture is finely ground, dry ana
in such mechanical condition that II
passes readily through drill, or otner
distributing machine. 1t has many al
vantages over old style manuring, not
the least of which is the fact the acre
application of anywhere from 200 to l.
600 pounds may be very evenly distrib-
uted, so that the plant food 1t contains
reaches all parts of the crop equally.
Manufacturers of fertilizers have ma
chinery for working up crude materials
so that they are suitable for use as fer-
tilizers; in fact, many of these crude
materials would be of little value I'M
less thus manufactured" These
crude materials generally are packing
house by-products, and contain more
or less nitrogen and phosphoric acid.
Few, If any of them, contain potash
in appreciate quality. This is the
weak point of these commercial ferti-
lizers. Usually they are a very well
prepared mixture of tankage and acid
phosphate very good as far as they go.
There are practically no crude mater
ials containing sufficient potash to use
| in these mixtures, hence German pot
ash salts must be used. In a sense
these are also crude materials, but have
a stated uniform price all over the
| world, hence, there is no such thing as
| private IDEAL" in potash. The price
| is the same to all.
Custom has fixed the general run of
fertilizer mixtures and this custom was
established by the nature of crude raw
materials rather than the plant food
needs of the crop to be grown, at about
per cent. nitrogen, per cent. phos-
phoric acid, and per cent. potash.
This is made UP about as follows: 2
per cent. nitrogen equals 40 pounds per
ton. and tankage at per cent. supplies
in 500 pounds the necessary quantity
for the ton mixture; per cent. avail
able phosphoric acid means $50 pounds
per ton, which is supplied by 1,150
pounds of IA per cent. acid phosphate
This makes a total of 1850 pounds
leaving $50 pounds to make up a ton.
| There is no crude potash material
which will supply the necessary 40
pounds of actual potash in $50 pounds,
so it is necessary to use so pounds mu-
riate. This leaves 270 pounds of filler
to make up the ton. If for the full $50
pounds to make up the ton muriate of
potash had been used, the analysis
would have been, nitrogen, per cent. !;
available phosphoric acid, per cent. /;
| potash, per cent.-a formula CORE
| spending quite closely with the needs
of the average crop, supposing of
| course, more or less nitrogen is accu-
| mulated through a legume crop in ro-
tation.
1t is quite true that materials of
| still lower grade than those mentioned
are used for the supply of nitrogen and
| phosphoric acid, in which case even the
| highest grade potash material would
not make up a we'll balanced fertilizer,
and this is perhaps all the excuse that
can be offered for the fact that fer
tilizers as a rule are entirely too low
in potash. At the same time the pro-
cess of manufacturing adds little to
| the value of potash salts to the farm
er, in the line of making them more
commercially used. AS commercial
brands are offered at a very low rate,
it is possibly cheaper for the farmer
to buy his potash separately. 1t need
not be mixed with the fertilizer, may
be broadcasted at any time in the
spring or during the summer with no
more danger of loss than if mixed and
sown with the fertilizer.
Farm crops as rule need twice as
much potash as phosphoric acid, but
| as the latter is not readily available
| once incorporated with the SOIL a good
safe plan is to use at least equal guam
titles of each. To figure this out on a
fertilizer basis, is to keep in mind SIM
ply that forty pounds muriate of pot
ash equals l per cent. potash. If a
fertilizer contains per cent. available
phosphoric acid and per cent. potash
it needs 6 per cent. more potash, or six
times 40 pounds of muriate per acre,
| 240 pounds. Kainit is equally useful,
but as it contains only 1914 per cent.
actual potash while muriate contains
so per cent, where a long freight haul
is necessary, the muriate is apt to be
cheaper per pound Of actual potash.