Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1916-02-05
1. THE USE OF COMMERCIAL FER.
 TILiZERS-HISTORY.


 commercial fertilizers, but only to show how this great industry began and grew in the Southern United States. Generally speaking. the far mers of this generation inherited the habit of applying fertilizers to soils, but have not been taught the underly- ing principles of the industry.
 The use of some kind of manures on soils with crops for the purpose of in- creaslng the yields goes back to an c1ent times. We know that many an cient people applied animal manures to their soils for this purpose. The
 Chinese centuries ago, applied ma
 nures of various kinds to their soils and gardens and with phenomenal re- suits. In Won Tshudi's Travels in Pe- ru we find that as early as the middle of the last century notes were being taken on the actual value of Guano by
 the Pcruvians.
 Bousingault speaks of seeing fields in Peru on which wheat had been grown every year for two centuries, and the yield still high and the grow CTS prosperous.
 The practice of using mineral ferti. lizers was introduced direct from Pe- ru t the United States in the year 1S46, and was based on such reports as we find above It had already been used in England before it found it's way into the United States, but Peru seems to be the country in which the application of minerals to soils as plant food originated. We do not know this is true, but all evidence points to this. It is of greater interest to us therefore that we know about the customs in Peru.
 The first man in the Southern States to use this Peruvian guano was David Dickson, of Sparta, Ga, who saw an advertisement of it in the old Ameri- can Farmer published in Baltimore. The South has perhaps never had a more successful farmer than David Dixon, who made many millions of dollars farming, and who was pio- neer in many other lines as we'll as in the use of mineral fertilizers. In the year 1S46, the year after It was intro duced into the United States, he bought three sacks and used it, and on find ing that it paid him, bought It in in- creasing quantities till the year 1855 and 1856, when he went into it fully" As is suggested above this IS no doubt the first instance of the use of a con- centrated mineral fertilizer on cotton f in the United States.
 The universal success With which MT. Dickson met in the use of this Pe- ruvian guano led many other pro-ni- nent farmers to follow his example.
 and in every reported case, success followed it's use. We are constrained to believe that the way that the app;i-
 cation of this mineral fertilizer to the cotton and other crops in the South could not possibly have been an acci dent. Its success was unquestiOnably based on the actual needs of the soil A quickly available manure was what l the crop needed, and when this was
 once applied results were evident. After time it was found that the Peruvian guano, which contained prin- | cipally nitrogen, produced too much stalk and not much increase in the yield of fruit, and hence it's use was
 somewhat discouraged for a season. About this time the war between
 the States began, and at the same time the discovery of the potash beds of Germany, also, the offering on the market of various kinds of mineral fertilizers resulting from the teach ings of Non Liebig of Germany, who was at that time the greatest cham
 pion in the world of agriculture and I it's possibilities. As result the pop. ularity of Peruvian guano subsided and more study was given to the gen eral question of the use of mineral manures, both by farmers themselves and the students of agriculture.
 Two great contributing factors to | the rise of the fertilizer trade in the
 South are first the abolition of slav- cry, and second, the rise of agricul. tural education. Before the war the question of land was secondary. if
 growing farm crops in the South wore the land out" there were plenty of slaves to take in more land" It was
 cheaper to take in land than to pay for any artificial manure. In 1882. the Morrill, Bill passed Congress,
 creating agricultural colleges in the
 various states, after which there be-
 gan campaign for improving meth ods in agriculture. Experiments at
 public expense were begun on small l scale, and the public was induced to make greater use of plant foods of all
 kinds, as we'll as to improve methods
 of tillage. This, of course, caused an
 immediate increase in the use of min
 eral plant foods, and out of which grew demands for great quantities oi
 fertilizers. From this great demand ] there sprang up fertilizer factories in l all parts of the country. All kinds of | materials were tried out. some was