Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1915 — Says Farmers’ Institute Worker Lacked Knowledge. [ARTICLE]

Says Farmers’ Institute Worker Lacked Knowledge.

The saying of Josh Billings that goes something like this: “Some people know a great deal but what they know haint so,” was forcefully brought to our remembrance at the recent farmers’ institute. Mr. Kline may be a good farmer for all we know, but his knowledge of soil chemistry is so lacking that he is entirely out of place as a lecturer on fertilizers. He was asked the question: "What’s the difference between potash and potassium?” His answer was they were the same, all potassium. As a matter of fact potaslj is 83 per cent potassium and 17 per cent oxygen. In chemistry potassium is designated by P while potash is P2O. When a farmer buys a fertilizer guaranteed to contain 3 per cent potash he supposes he is getting at least 3 pounds in 100 of a valuable plant food, while the facts of the case is he is getting but 2.49 pounds of potassium. The balance 51 per cent oxygen is of no commercial value for the reason that plants get an abundance of it from the water and aid. Nitrogen, another important plant food, is contained in ammonia. The ammonia formula is used in this state. To get the amount of nitrogen subtract 18 per cent phosphorous, is put out under phosphoric acid formula and has to be discounted 56.25 per cent to get the phosphorous content. This is a sample of how these matters are muddled up here, while in Illinois the potassium, phosphorous and nitrogen formula is used and it don’t require ay complicated* computation to determine how much of ehe particular plant food one it getting. How the farmer is kept ignorant of fertilizer values would be laughable were it not connected with matters of no little importance. W. H. PULLIN.