Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1891 — EXPERIMENTS WITH FERTILIZERS [ARTICLE]

EXPERIMENTS WITH FERTILIZERS

What the Government Stations Are Doing For the Farmer. J. G. Speed in Harper’s Weekly, Farmers in the older States arc spending millions of dollars annually for commercial fertilizers. In this country, as in Europe, they have become an absolute necessity on wornout soils; but to make them profits: ble it is necessary that they should fit the wants of the soil and crops for which they are used. If a farmer buys potash for land which abounds in potash but needs phosphoric acid, he of course loses. The fundamental principle in the use of commercial fertilizers is to select those materials which supply in the bbst forms and at the lowest cost plant food which the crop needs and the soil fails to furnish. L In order to enable farmers to find out the wants of their own soils and the best way of supplying them, and at the same time to get light upon the properties of soils in different sections of the country, a number of experiment stations are introducing soil tests with fertilizers, which are largely conducted both by the stations and also by individual farmers on their own farms. Of course many of the experiments are failures, but many practical men who have engaged in this work have declared that they have thus learned a great deal which is practically useful and highly instructive.

The results of these tests in general show that ’‘soils vary greatly in their capabilities of supplying food to crops. Different ingredients are deficient in different soils. The best way to learn what materials are proper in any given case is by observation and experiment. The rational method for determining what ingredients of plant food a soil fails to furnish in abundance, and how these unfurnished materials can be most economically supplied, is to put the question to the soil with different fertilizing materials, and get the reply in the crops produced. The ciHef use of fertilizers is to supply plant food. It is good farming to make the most of the natural resources of the soil and of the manure produced on the farm and to depend upon artificial fertilizers only to furnish what more is needed. 11 is not good economy to pay high prices for materials which the soil itself may yield, but it is good economy to supply the lacking ones in the cheapest way.” Probably the most valuable work these experiment stations have done has been to analyze these various com merial fertizers which are offered for sale by manufacturers. Ih some of the States, in New .Tersy, for instance, the fertilizers are analyzed and the qualities of chemicals compared with what the manufacturer claimed that the composition contained. So as to make tins perfectly plain, the money value of the chemcals found in each sample is noted and compared With the price charged by the manufacturer. Some startling results have been shown One fertilizer selling ats2s per ton would’ be found to have a value of S2B; another, selling at S4O a ton, would be found to be worth only sls; and in one instance I recall the manufacturer charged 43 a ton for his complete fertilizer and the chemist found that its actual value was only $2.50. Bulletins like these have certainly done great good, for they have warned farmers ..from buying inferior chemicals, and they have compelled manufacturers to keep their compo sitions up to the advertised standard. When there is more universal education among the farmers it will only be necessary to express the value of fertilizers in Chemical terms. We have the authority of the United States Agricultural Department for the statement that in the States where experimental stations have long been established the greater number of the farmers now need nothing more than these chemical terms to guide them in selecting the the special fertilizers needed in given cases.