The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1906-05-24
HAD ENOUGH OF GRANITE.
George Cassie Doubts It's Value as
Fertilizer

Mr. Editor: In your Yesterdays is-
sue Of The Times you refer in an cdi-
toriai to stone dust as q fertilizer and TO
back up statements made by Prof. Shall
cr al Harvard university and say that
there arc apparently great opportunities
for Barre's great by product, stone chips.
! should like to say here that we have
had about enough thrown on the streets
To iiggie over and for me ! pray that
they will never get on mn mowings.
Since about 1875 or 1880 farmers IN
this vicinity have been compelled to use
plant food to a greater or less extent
land today we find that IN order to raise
Il good crop of hay or any crop WE. have
to furnish per acre about 80 pounds ot
nitrogen, 50 pounds OF phosphoric acid
and 100 pounds Of potash in order to
keep orr land from going backward.
Nitrogen can be produced from nitrates
III soda. which analyzes about 40 per
lcent nitrogen, 50 that 50 pounds Of ae-
tual nitrogen would cost about SIS. Phos-
Iphoric acid in the form Of ground bone
or acidulated Carolina phosphate rock
costs about 4 IN cents per pound and to
gct the required S. pounds costs nearly
S4. And then comes potash which ear
be produced at present with eheapened
form from German potash salts in the
| form OF mu,iate of potash, which ana.
Ilyzcs about 5O per cent actual potash
and can be bought at boston points fol
S42 per ton, which delivered in Barre
would bring the. price Of actual potash
down To about M cents per pound, and
lour regular amonnt, 100 pounds per
acre, would amount to about $4.50 pei
acre, bringing the cash value of chemi.
Gals per acre about, nitrogen Ss; phos
acid "a, potash $4.50
4 This amount every year will keeT
land up to about the original virgin sort
with the exception Of the huIrlls, which
u another factor. 1t will be seen that
potash Is only one ingredient Of tllreeol
/ four and without the others would be II
d great measure wasted. Quotations
from Boston and Lowell make German
muriate of potash s42 per ton on board
not 500 as stated hy your informant
Some dozen or fourteen years ago
found that granite contained d certain
amount Of potash and as ] was running
a stone shed at that time | sifted some
Of the finest dust and sent it up to ths
experiment station AT Burlington te
4 Prof. Hills to be analyzed, and prompt,
ilT received information, that it would
averaee about , TO 4 per cent potash
and as that was almost as much potash
las is contained in ashes ! thought
would trya few tons and so ! carefully
sifted d few tons of the fine dust Of tht
I stone she'd and took il to the farm and
tried it. But | failed to notice any more
difference on crops when 1t was used
/ than ] would If it were sand; and 50
iquit 1t. After more extended study
Of plant food found that d plant takes
its food in a liquid state and potash il
miGiate Of potash is in the form of q
salt and with the first shower is melted
ready Tor the plant But in the form oi
stone dust it is altogether u different
llToposition-
Vie advertise the durability Of BARR
granite. Does il ever rot So that the
potash will be available in d liquid state
for plant foods And Ii SO viii IL be ii
tour day. ] think 1t will be as hard te
extract potash from granite dust as te
extract nitrogen from the air. There
may be sucl thing as treating finely
grounded granite with acid 30 rs te
make the potash available Tor plant food
las in the case of Carolina rock phos
plate.
\ Clover, peas and other legumcs have
a facuty of extracting through the lit
ltlc nodules ON their roots the nitrogen
they require from the air, but | am IN
clined to think that stonedust will BE-
about as detrimental TO plants as te
stonecutters.
Our city fathers probably foresaw it
when they made the provision that the
( new stone crusher must be used for the
street department. But with three farm
crs up already for the ends Congressional
district we nIag be able to hear more
information Oh this subject
] George Cassie.