The St. Joseph observer. [volume] (St. Joseph, Mo.) 1906-1932, 1916-05-06
The Voice of
the Farmer
To The Editor OF The Observer:

themselves from sacred duties, and
that sheer love Of mental Incidence
renders them Indifferent to the dis
tress Of humanity, which they not only
allow to proceed on its downward
course but to speed on its way to de-
struction, by taking part in the mis-
leading of mankind.
Let us take the silk industry and its
products, as an example We shall
find that silk goods are so heavily
loaded down with chemicals that they
can scarcely be called silk. The man
ufacturers declare that the public
wants heavy silks without being will
ing to pay a fair price for them. and
! that this COmpels the manufacturers
to make goods weighing two or three
pounds from one pound of silk. Nor
mally such goods are quickly worn
out
The silk worn was created to supply
man with a healthful, elastic, lustrous
material, but man has succeeded, by
means of misleading articles, in
changing a natural product into an ar
tifiCial one And whenever all indus
tries shall have been equally success
full in changing natural products into
artificial ones, mankind will have be-
come an aggregation of deceived de-
ceivers.
Now let Us look at the chemical fer
tilizer works in the same way. These
manufacturers claim in their catalogs
and pamphlets that they sell fertiliz-
ers are meant to artificially stimulate
the plants to produce vegetables and
fruits very early in the season, so they
may be brought early to market and
sold at high prices. give below from
one of these catalogs, a So-called
guaranteed" analysis of a fertilizer
which is claimed to be excellent for
all kinds of vegetables and tobacco.
The analysis reads as follows:
Ammonia nia.......,....lO to IL per cent
Soluble phosphates. IA to 5 per cent
| Potash. to 4 per cent
1t is, however, an established fact
that such a fertilizer produces poison
Gus plants and poisonous vegetables,
causing a number OF dangerous dis
eases, All diseases are disturbances
of nutrition, due to injurious food
When a plant is grown in accordance
with the laws of nature, or in other
words, if it is nourished by the food
which nature provided for it in the
shape of disintegrated soil and rock, it
receives all the nutritive substances it
requires. When, on the other hand,
artificial fertilizers supply only three
of these substances, and these in enor-
nous quantities, the plant becomes an
artificial product, and, when used as
food for human beings or animals, it
causes the diseases from which man
kind and animals suffer.
The adulteration of food stuffs is
carried out on such an enormous scale
that an almost superhuman knowledge
or instinct is required to select from
among the many adulterated foods,
the few articles which we may still
use without danger of being poisoned.
The chemical fertilizer works enrich
themselves at the cost Of the people,
they undermine its health, and the
chemical fertilizers which they pro-
duce. being manufactured without re-
gard to the polaric laws. are merely
breeders Of parasites and disease.
, The catalogs of such fertilizer works
may serve to befog the farmers brain
How should they, or the gardeners
know that ammonia, phosphoric acid
and potash cannot produce healthful
foodstuffs? They see their plants
grow luXuriously and that they bear
large fruits. If the worms and weevils
restrOy their vegetables, and they
quickly become spongy and decay, the
farmers have only one remedy, viz, tC
} sell quickly. They know that they
must be taken to the market at once
even though but very little is received
for them. The farmers never think o.
= attributing this quick deCay-thi:
Transformation of matter-to theil
chemical fertilizer, and they can fine
no explanation for such results. Or
another page Of chemical fertilizer
catalog We find the following analysis
3 under the heading, Complete veget
: able fertilizer:
. Ammonia ia..............5 to 9 per cen
Soluable phosphates 80 10 per cen
:. Potash. h........,.....6 tC 2 per cen
:. This constitutes another of thes
= poisonous products, which certainl.
: produce large profits for the manu-
facturer, but which are a fraud on IT,
d farmer and upon humanity at large
n How could it be possible for the far
Z, mpr 10 obtain a clear INSIGHT into suc