FERTILIZERS 
 
 FROM THE ,, 
 
 STANDPOINT. 
 
 -A. F .A. E I?, 
 
 PREFAUED FOR THE VERMONT DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION, 
 AND READ BEFORE THAT BODY, JANDARY i6, 1889; 
 ALSO DELIVERED BEFORE THE RHODE ISLAND 
 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND STATE 
 SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 20, 1889. 
 
 BY 
 
 MR. WILLIAM H. BOWKER, 
 PEESIDENI OF THE BOWKER FERTILIZER CO. 
 
 MANUPACTUREK’S 
 
 MONTPELIER : 
 
 Press of The Watchman Publishing Company. 
 1889. 
 
When Adam entered the Garden of Eden, six thousand 
 years ago, more or less, he found a fertile soil, a profusion of 
 fruits and flowers, and luxuries of nature. We are told that 
 if he had been content with these luxuries God would not have 
 put upon him the curse of earning his bread by the sweat of 
 his brow. 
 
 Now I am one of those who believe it was foreordained that 
 man should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. God 
 planted in him curiosity, and a thirst for knowledge ; hence, the 
 first thing Adam did when he entered the Garden, was to taste 
 of the forbidden fruit. He was seeking knowledge. 
 
 God also knew that as man sought knowledge, his wants 
 would increase ; that he would in time consume the bounties of 
 nature, and finally tax the fertility of the soil. 
 
 God also probably foresaw that as man was obliged to earn 
 his bread by the sweat of his brow, there would develop in him 
 a sense of greed, and that he would seek to profit, so far as he 
 could, by his labors, forgetting the future and his obligations to 
 posterity. 
 
 Man was created a social being, fond of society, and as so- 
 ciety grew, men congregated together in large centres, and as 
 they increased and multiplied, a greater tax was placed upon 
 nature. 
 
 The Creator foresaw that cities would grow up which would 
 draw on the fertile country for their support and to sustain the life 
 of these cities and secure the public health, they would conse- 
 quently have to be supplied with channels of traffic and drainage, 
 thus transferring the fertility of the fields to the city, and finally 
 to the sea. 
 
 NATURAL DEPOSITS. 
 
 We are taught that nothing in nature is wasted, but is simply 
 lost to the uses of man, or a generation of men. It may be re- 
 covered at another age of the world, or by another generation. 
 An all-wise Providence foresaw this, for, in order to make good 
 this loss. He has caused great deposits of crude materials to be 
 placed in all parts of the world. 
 
 He has caused inland seas to dry' up, and deposit, in that part 
 of the world which we now call Germany, their contents of pot- 
 ash and common salt. He buried great forests in Russia and 
 in the United States, from which to-day we are drawing oil and 
 
l^oal, and chemical salts which enter into plant food. He drove 
 n^yriads of animals out of the sea on to the land in Spain, and 
 invAmerica, and, in this century, when we need them, we find 
 th^ deposited as phosphate of lime, coprolites and soft gu- 
 anoes. He made great pockets in Canada, into which he poured 
 millions of tons of apatite, the mother source of phosphoric 
 acid, yand the predominant element of bone, and without which 
 no skeleton of any living animal could be organized. He planted 
 sulphur in Sicily, from which man by the aid of chemistry, man- 
 ufactures sulphuric acid with which to dissolve this phosphate 
 or apatite, and so make it quickly available for plants. 
 
 He placed in different parts of the United States, in Massa- 
 chusetts, Vermont an just over the line in Canada, great de- 
 posits of copper pyrites, or “ fool’s gold,” from which this sul- 
 phur can also be obtained. 
 
 He caused great deposits of organic matter to be placed un- 
 der the equator in Chili, which by heat and moisture has been 
 converted into a chemical salt which we are now mining as 
 nitrate of soda, and from which we draw large supplies of ni- 
 trogen, the most costly part of all plant food. 
 
 And so I might go on enumerating the different natural de- 
 posits of crude materials which directly interest the farmer as 
 a source of plant food, and a means of recuperating the soil 
 which has been taxed by generations, and by injudicious cul- 
 ture. Perhaps these materials which an all-wise Creator has 
 placed in different parts of the world are simply the lost prod- 
 ucts, or the waste of a cycle of civilization which existed upon 
 this earth before Adam entered the Garden of Eden, and by 
 the shifting processes of nature, — the upheaval of land and sea, 
 the drying up of waters, has again been brought into use, and 
 so rounding out a grand scheme of evolution and compensation. 
 
 Thus we see that these crude products, specimens of some 
 of which I have before me, are placed for man’s use ; and those 
 which directly go to fertilize the soil are the ones with which I 
 shall deal to-day. 
 
 WHAT CHEMISTRY HAS TAUGHT US, 
 
 The chemist has taught us that plants are composed of cer- 
 tain ingredients known as organic and inorganic or mineral ; 
 that plants average to take from eighty to ninety per cent of 
 their weight from the air, while the other ten or twenty per 
 cent is taken from the soil, and that if man draws from the 
 deposits which have been placed for his use, this small quantity 
 of mineral matter, he can make his worn-out soil as rich and 
 fertile as of old, and to blossom like the Garden of Eden. 
 
 New soil usually contains enough plant food for a number of 
 crops. In some places crops have been raised for generation 
 
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 / 
 
 after generation without seeming to exhaust its fertility, and i/i 
 other localities the virgin fertility has been exhausted in o|fe 
 or two crops. 
 
 Man has determined not only what these ingredients /are 
 which it is necessary for him to supply, but he has determined 
 the various forms which are most suitable to plant growth. He 
 has found that most soils yet contain all that is required of the 
 ordinary plant ingredients, such as lime, silica or sand, iron, 
 magnesia and many others, but that nearly all soils ha\e been 
 exhausted of their potash, their phosphoric acid or phosphate 
 of lime, and their nitrogen. That if we supply these ingredi- 
 ents, every agricultural soil may be made fertile again. 
 
 Why these have been exhausted more than others, is because 
 the crops which we grow contain more of these than they do 
 of the minor ingredients. 
 
 According to the Stockbridge formulas, icx) bushels of pota- 
 toes take from the soil 21 pounds of nitrogen, 34 pounds of 
 potash, and 1 1 pounds of soluble phosphoric acid ; 50 bushels 
 of Indian corn take 64 pounds of nitrogen, 77 of actual potash, 
 and 30 pounds of soluble phosphoric acid ; one ton of English 
 hay requires 36 pounds of nitrogen, 3 1 pounds of potash and 
 12 pounds of soluble phosphoric acid; and so I might go through 
 the list, showing that these are the leading constituents, while 
 the others, although important, are taken from the soil in 
 smaller quantity, and of which most soils have an abundant 
 supply for years to come. 
 
 SOURCES OF PLANT FOOD. 
 
 To furnish the necessary ingredients which I have mentioned, 
 we in this country draw upon Germany for the potash, upon 
 South Carolina and Canada for phosphoric acid, upon Sicily, 
 Vermont and Spain for sulphur, and upon Chili for nitrogen, 
 and also upon the waste products of all the mauufacturing in- 
 dustries throughout the world. 
 
 Stable manure is one of the waste products of the agricul- 
 tural industry ; perhaps it is better termed a by-product. It 
 contains all the fertility that has been taken out of the soil, 
 less what man has absorbed for his support or the support of 
 the animals which he keeps. If we plowed in all the crops we 
 raise, it will be readily seen we should not exhaust the soil at 
 all, but when we sell off potatoes, vegetables, grain and milk, 
 we are taxing it in a greater or less degree, and are taking 
 from it as many pounds of plant food in proportion as we take 
 off pounds in agricultural products. To supply these drafts of 
 man, nature has responded in a liberal manner, but now she 
 says : “ I can give you out of my great storehouse of fertility, 
 an abundance of some of the minor ingredients, but if you wish 
 to draw upon me further, you must make deposits in my store- 
 
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 Kouse of such ingredients as I do not possess, and in such forms 
 a^will be available for your uses. If you will do this, I will 
 strll continue to honor your drafts in the future as in the past.” 
 
 iflow then to assist nature in carrying on her part of the 
 wori; is the problem of the farmer to-day, and the manufacturer 
 of fertilizers with his capital, his experience and his knowledge 
 of chiiemistry comes to his assistance. 
 
 My friend, Professor Whitcher, of the New Hampshire Ag- 
 ricultural College, who is doing a noble work for the cause of 
 agriculture, will tell you that the farmer has little or no use for 
 the fertilizer manufacturer, as he can manufacture his fertilizers 
 at home, and thereby save money, which I grant is a most im- 
 portant consideration. I agree with him up to a certain point. 
 The manufacture of fertilizers, however, does not mean simply 
 mixing these crude products together. That is only one stage 
 of the process. 
 
 THE MANUFACTURE OF FERTILIZERS 
 
 begins back of this. It begins with the crude and by-products 
 which require manipulation and treatment before they are even 
 ready for home mixing. 
 
 Take bone for example. The manufacturer begins by gath- 
 ering it from the slaughter-houses throughout the land ; he ex- 
 tracts from it the grease which is of no value as a fertilizer, 
 steams it in digesters under 6o pounds pressure, grinds it in 
 mills requiring from 15 to 20 horse power, in order to make it 
 fine, so that it may be evenly mixed in a fertilizer, or evenly 
 distributed over a field. In short, he makes it available for 
 plants. No farmer can do this unless he has these appliances. 
 He may burn it at home and pound it up, but in that case he 
 loses tire most valuable part of the bone, namely, the ammonia, 
 which goes into, the air, and is lost to his uses. 
 
 Besides bone, almost every drop of blood and piece of waste 
 meat is now saved throughout the land. This used to be fed 
 to the hogs, and made pork that it is no wonder the Jews re- 
 jected. It is now gathered together by the manufacturer of 
 fertilizers, and by means of steam and large dryers, is brought 
 to a fine dry powder, freed of its moisture and grease, and con- 
 taining twelve to eighteen per cent of nitrogen, a most valuable 
 source, which used to be practically wasted. 
 
 The South Carolina phosphate and Canadian apatite which 
 supplement bone, is mined from the depths of rivers, seventy, 
 eighty and a hundred feet below the surface. Apatite is quar- 
 ried in the deposits of Canada. The phosphate rock must be 
 washed and dried, and the apatite must be freed from foreign 
 material, and then both must be ground in mills adapted to the 
 purpose. 
 
 The sulphur which is mingled with the copper and iron in 
 
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 the mines, must be eliminated in furnaces, and the gases gath- 
 ered in large leaden chambers, and by a complicated process 
 involving elaborate chemical apparatus, and requiring skill, is 
 converted into a liquid which, next to water, is the greatest' sol- 
 vent in agricultural chemistry. The manufactuer of fertilizers 
 is not content with this, but he sends out his vessels and steam- 
 ers into the bays and sounds along the Atlantic coast, and 
 gathers in great schools of menhaden fish, which are thought 
 to feed to some extent upon the drainage which is poured out 
 of the great cities, thus immediately recovering some of the lost 
 fertility. These fish are steamed, placed in large presses, the oil 
 extracted, and the pomace, looking very much like apple pom- 
 ace, is dried, and becomes a valuable source of nitrogen and 
 phosphoric acid. 
 
 WASTE PRODUCTS. 
 
 The manufacturer roams the world over, gathering plant food 
 wherever he can find it. If a cargo of damaged tea comes into 
 New York, he buys it, because it contains plant food, thus 
 transferring fertility from Asia to America. 
 
 The wine maker skims from his casks a deposit which is sold 
 as argols. These argols are taken by the manufacturer of cream 
 of tartar, and the bi-tartrate of potash extracted, which is again 
 sold to the manufacturer of baking powders, but in this process 
 there is left a waste product known as tartar pomace, which 
 also contains plant food, and is purchased by the manufacturer 
 of fertilizers; but it comes to him in a condition that requires 
 drying and chemical manipulation before it can be used. 
 
 The sugar refiner has found that charcoal made from bone 
 is the best material through which to strain his syrups and 
 clarify and make white his sugars ; but after a time it becomes 
 loaded with impurities, and worthless for his use. It then finds 
 its way to the fertilizer manufacturer, who knows it to be a val- 
 uable source of phosphoric acid, but it comes to him in large 
 grains, often wet, and must be dried and ground and finally 
 dissolved in sulphuric acid to be made available for plants. 
 
 The gas manufacturer puts in his retorts the soft coal which 
 is converted into gas ; but there runs along with it a large de- 
 posit of liquor which the manufacturer gathers, and from which 
 he makes a pure white salt, known as sulphate of am- 
 monia, which is also another valuable source of nitrogen, and is 
 also used for making aqua ammonia, alum and smelling salts. 
 
 The steel maker who is manipulating his iron ore under the 
 new process, throws into his great retorts of molten iron quick- 
 lime, which immediately combines with the phosphorous in the 
 iron, and forms a slag, which contains fifteen to twenty per 
 c®iit of phosphoric acid, and is another product that comes to 
 the manufacturer of fertilizers in large lumps and nodules, re- 
 
qiiiring to be ground and treated in order to be made avail- 
 
 ably. 
 
 Y LEATHER WASTE. 
 
 sVen the shoemaker produces a waste known as “ chippings,” 
 which finds its way into the hands of some manufacturers. Let 
 the shoemaker be ever so careful in cutting up his leather, there 
 will be small bits which cannot be utilized, although I am told 
 they now use them by means of glue, in making pieced heels, 
 and also in the production of leather-board ; but these leather 
 scrapings and cuttings, after the oil is extracted by the aid of 
 steam and presses, are sold as a source of ammonia. 
 
 I am glad that your new fertilizer law in Vermont makes the 
 use of this source of ammonia unlawful, and if it could only be 
 detected in fertilizers by chemists, its use would be absolutely 
 prevented. There is eight or ten per cent of ammonia in 
 leather waste, but it is considered insoluble and unavailable for 
 plants, and, therefore, an inferior source of plant food. Dr. 
 Voelcker, chemist to the Royal Agricultural Society of Eng- 
 land, says he would rather have one per cent of ammonia in the 
 form of sulphate of ammonia than six per cent in the form of 
 powdered leather. I do not think any reputable manufacturer 
 selling fertilizers in the State of Vermont uses it to any extent ; 
 but Professor Cooke, your inspector, should be on his guard, 
 and look for it with an eagle eye. 
 
 The wool manufacturer clips from his woolens a waste which 
 also contains nitrogen; and the manufacturer of buttons and 
 combs from horns and hoofs produces a waste which is another 
 source of nitrogen, all of which are more or less valuable, and 
 all of which require treatment to make them available. 
 
 INTELLIGENT MANUFACTURE. 
 
 Thus I might go on naming industry after industry producing 
 by-products which directly concern the manufacturer of fertil- 
 izers. I can hardly name any staple industry that does not 
 touch the fertilizer industry at some point. Hence, as you will 
 see, the intelligent manufacture of fertilizers is not shoveling a 
 little of this or that together, without rule or reason, and call- 
 ing it a compound fit for the kings of plant life. It is a more 
 comprehensive and complicated business than this would im- 
 ply. 
 
 The good housewife makes bread at home, but how much 
 thought and skill has gone into the preparation of the flour and 
 yeast, and even the stove in which the bread is baked. The 
 process of making phosphate can be stopped half-way, and the 
 ground phosphate, dissolved bone, chemicals or dried blood can 
 be shipped to the farmer, and he can mix them at home, but 
 this is not the manufacture of fertilizers. When it is done on 
 
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 a large scale, at the rate of one hundred or two hundred to^ns 
 a day, it requires large buildings suitably arranged with elq^va- 
 tors, bins, mills, mixers and scales that will record the weight of 
 a carload at a time, and others in the laboratory so delicate 
 that they will turn at the weight of a hair. The final mixing 
 is but the last and easiest stage in a long series which require ^ 
 an extensive and expensive plant, and the employment of skill 
 and large capital for its economical accomplishment. 
 
 No one would think of sweeping these things together which ) 
 I have before me, and calling the result a mixed fertilizer, for 
 the product would be no more a fertilizer than milk fiom the cow 
 can be called butter, or raw meat digestible food. 
 
 It is safe to say that the crude materials as they are received 
 require to be handled at least six or seven times before the 
 finished product is placed upon the cars for shipment, and you 
 must remember that a ton of fertilizer or fertilizing material is 
 just as heavy to handle in a fertilizer factory as on the farm. 
 
 Thus far in this paper, I have tried to show the essential in- 
 gredients of plant food, their sources, and the processes of 
 manufacture. The practical question with every farmer here 
 to-day is 
 
 HOW TO OBTAIN THIS PLANT FOOD IN THE CHEAPEST AND 
 BEST FORMS. 
 
 In the first place, the farmer must remember that in buying 
 chemicals he is taking as much risk as to the strength and 
 quality of these as he is in the mixed fertilizer, for it is just as 
 easy to adulterate the one as the other. You have in Vermont 
 recently passed a most excellent law, which requires that man- 
 ufacturers shall not only “ state what they sell,” but shall “sell 
 what they state.” That is to say, they shall guarantee the per 
 cent of ammonia, potash and phosphoric acid in the materials, 
 as well as in the mixed goods, and if that law is worth any- 
 thing and is enforced, as no doubt it will be under Professor 
 Cooke, (as the old law has been for the past three years), the 
 farmer is just as much protected in purchasing mixed mate- 
 rials as he is in those which are half prepared. So, when men 
 say that if you buy the unmixed chemicals you will be more 
 likely to get what you buy, they say that which is untrue. 
 
 HOME MIXING. 
 
 No doubt you can figure out a saving between the prepared 
 chemicals and the mixed fertilizer. Your wife can take the 
 milk left over from day to day, set it, raise cream and make 
 butter from it, and from the skim-milk a soft curd cheese, but it 
 would not be such butter nor such cheese as is made in the fac- 
 tories of the country. As a source of food it would have a value, 
 but whether it would be as digestible and palatable as that ob- 
 
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 1 
 
 \ 
 
 tamed in the market, is quite another question. Whether you can 
 mix the half-prepared chemicals so that they will be as evenly 
 cornbined and as carefully distributed over your field, is a ques- 
 tion ^j'or you to consider. You doubtless know that the amount 
 of actual plant food which you apply to an acre is very small, 
 indeeH, as compared with the great bulk of soil. Professor 
 Battle's, of the North Carolina Experiment Station, says : “ If 
 the application of three hundred or four hundred pounds of 
 fertilizer is thoroughly mixed with the soil, and an average 
 sample obtained, by no chemical means can this amount be de- 
 tected, and yet this application changes the yield from an un- 
 productive to a productive one, and measures the line between 
 success and failure.” He further says, “ not only does this 
 
 THREE HUNDRED POUNDS TO THE ACRE ESCAPE DETECTION BY 
 CHEMICAL MEANS, BUT IT IS ALSO THE CASP: WITH FIVE HUN- 
 DRED POUNDS, ONE THOUSAND POUNDS, AND EVEN WITH A 
 TON APPLIED TO THE ACRE. ” Now if this is the case, how im- 
 portant it is that the fertilizer which we apply shall be in the 
 best form, thoroughly mixed and carefully applied, so that it 
 may be easily and quickly absorbed by the growing plant. 
 
 THE CASH SYSTEM AND AGENCIES. 
 
 It must also be borne in mind that if the chemicals and pre- 
 pared materials are bought unmixed, cash must be paid for 
 them, and I wish the cash system of buying fertilizers could be 
 adopted throughout the country. We were gathering together 
 materials last June, July and August and all through the sum- 
 mer and fall which we are now manufacturing into fertilizers, 
 and which will be shipped into Vermont and other States this 
 spring. We shall not get our pay for this fertilizer until next 
 fall, or from twelve to eighteen months after the first material 
 is put into the factory. This is all wrong, but it is the custom 
 of the trade. Interest accrues, and interest is as much a part 
 of the cost as the material, and must be added into the cost of 
 the fertilizer. Then, too, there is an element of risk as well as 
 a large shrinkage, which are items to be counted in. On the 
 other hand, chemicals are sold free on board cars, and the pur- 
 chaser pays the freight. In the case of mixed goods, the man- 
 ufacturer delivers them to almost every station throughout the 
 Eastern States, which averages to add three dollars more to 
 the cost. He is also obliged to pay commissions to agents. If 
 he attempted to supply the trade, shipping to each individual 
 farmer, the business could not be done, because farmers, as a 
 class, will not order until the last moment, and to ship out the 
 whole year’s product of a fertilizer factory in thirty to sixty 
 days in spring would be impossible ; hence, the manufacturer 
 is obliged to ship ahead, and place in store-houses and in the 
 
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 hands of agents for distribution. Perhaps the time will c(^me 
 when all this will be changed, and the consumer and the ^pro- 
 ducer brought directly together. As for one, I shall welcome 
 any change which will bring the business nearer a cash basis. 
 
 PROFITS OF THE BUSINESS. 
 
 It makes little difference to us whether we sell the mixed 
 goods or the prepared chemicals. We are in the business 
 for a living and a legitimate profit, the same as you are 
 in the business of farming for a living and legitimate 
 profit, and it is immaterial whether it comes to us on un- 
 mixed chemicals or on prepared fertilizers. The profit is 
 not large in either case ; some of you perhaps imagine 
 it is ten, fifteen or twenty dollars a ton ; but let me as- 
 sure you that it will not average over §2.00 a ton on the mixed 
 fertilizers sold in New England for the past year. I have 
 made the statement, and am willing to repeat it now, that 
 if any one will guarantee the concern with which I am con- 
 nected, a net profit of $2.00 per ton on the output of our fac- 
 tory for the next ten years, he may have any surplus which 
 accrues above this amount. 
 
 PURCHASE OF PLANT FOOD. 
 
 In purchasing fertilizers, you want to consider that you are 
 purchasing plant food. Don’t let a ton of fertilizer mean sim- 
 ply a ton. Some tons of fertilizers contain two hundred pounds 
 of plant food, and others five hundred pounds, but those tons 
 that contain five hundred pounds can not be bought for the 
 same price as those that contain only two hundred. We man- 
 ufacture fertilizers running in all strengths ; from one to 
 eight per cent of ammonia, and from one to ten* per cent of 
 potash, and from five to twenty per cent of phosphoric acid, 
 and each has its respective value. When we buy fertilizer ma- 
 terials in the open market, we buy it on the content of plant 
 food. You should buy mixed fertilizers or chemicals in the 
 same way, and should consult your State Chemist, Professor 
 Cooke, and the admirable tables which he publishes, to know 
 what the different things contain, or the different brands of fer- 
 tilizer analyze, and also the different forms in which the plant 
 food exists. 
 
 It is with this as it is with milk ; some samples of milk carry 
 ten and others fifteen per cent of solids ; the Massachusetts 
 law requires thirteen per cent. Some samples of butter carry 
 ten per cent of water, and others twenty per cent, and, other 
 things being equal, that butter which contains only ten per 
 cent of water is worth more as an article of food than that 
 

 1 1 
 
 wraich carries twenty per cent, and why should not butter and 
 cheese be sold upon their content of food constituents as any 
 otl^er article of commerce ? 
 
 Lte,\ 
 
 FORMS OF PLANT FOOD. 
 
 M3f^y have urged farmers to use phosphates in their raw 
 state, \ particularly the crude South Carolina phosphate, con- 
 tending that plants will absorb the phosphoric acid and make 
 it available, and that by using it in this form they will get more 
 for their money. I grant this is true to a certain extent. But 
 is crude South Carolina phosphate as available as the dissolved ? 
 The crops which you are growing here average to mature 
 in sixty to ninety days. The seasons here are short. The 
 plants must have their food every hour they are in the soil, and 
 it must be available or they will not grow. If you think you 
 can trust quick-growing crops on insoluble fertilizers, that is 
 for you to determine, but in my judgment, taking the seasons 
 as they go, wet and dry, hot and cold, you will find you will be 
 the loser. You have to take a great risk as to the weather. 
 That is the largest factor in raising crops. Can you afford to 
 take any risk in the seed, the kind of fertilizer used, or the 
 culture employed, factors over which you have control ? 
 
 VALUE OF STABLE MANURE. 
 
 Stable manure is the best source of plant food, all things 
 considered. We can not manufacture anything equal to it. It 
 supplies plant food gradually throughout the season, and seems 
 to be adapted to the various kinds of plants. It should, how- 
 ever, be applied in its crude state, because you cannot afford 
 to compost it. It is also particularly adapted to grassland, and 
 should be used in more liberal quantity upon grass fields near 
 at hand. A ton of stable manure, according to Dr. Goessmann, 
 contains only about twenty-five pounds of actual plant food, 
 the other one thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five pounds 
 being water, straw and organic matter. You can not afford to 
 haul this one thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five pounds 
 a long distance. Your rule should be to apply stable manure 
 in larger quantities upon grass fields easy of access, and after 
 that gives out, purchase, if you have faith, some form of plant 
 food in the shape of chemicals or mixed fertilizer, adapted to 
 hoed crops. It is generally conceded that better potatoes can 
 be raised upon fertilizer than upon stable manure, and that 
 the sulphate of potash is better for fruits than the muriate, and 
 that nitrate of soda is a specific for grass. These are ques- 
 tions which relate to the form of plant food, and which has as 
 much influence upon the quality and amount of the crop as the 
 quantity applied. 
 
FARMERS AND MANUFACTURER ALIKE INTERESTED. 
 
 ( 
 
 This talk may appear to many of you to be in the interes,t of 
 fertilizer manufacturers, but is it not also in your interest V Is 
 it not for your interest to have all these crude materiaL- fath- 
 ered from all parts of the world, brought to your dooi /avail- 
 able for plants } Has not your own Professor Cooke s\i\vn in 
 his last bulletin, just issued, that by competition and careful 
 inspection, there has been a total gain of twenty-one per cent 
 in favor of the purchaser in the last three years, or a saving in 
 the State of Vermont alone, of •'^21,000 on the single item of 
 fertilizers ? 
 
 Again, can you afford to starve your crops any more than 
 you can afford to starve the cows in your barn } Before this 
 meeting is over, there will be a great deal of discussion touch- 
 ing the feeding of dairy stock. Should you not also discuss 
 how to feed the plant which feeds the cow, and is not the feed- 
 ing of the plant at the basis of all other feeding ? Given cheap 
 plant food, would not the farms of Vermont flourish as of old 
 
 I beg of you not to understand that I am talking to-day of 
 the fertilizers of old. The fertilizer business has progressed 
 with every other business, and I am considering plant food the 
 same as you will discuss animal food. 
 
 Let me suggest that you go to Professor Cooke, or any other 
 competent authority, and ask him how you shall feed your 
 plants, and where you shall obtain the food with which to feed 
 them, and finally, let me impress upon you to 
 
 FEED THE PLANT RATHER THAN THE SOIL. 
 
 We have heard a great deal about feeding the land, and it 
 has crystallized into the maxim : “ Feed the land, and the land 
 will feed you.” 
 
 At first thought, this strikes one as exceedingly sensible and 
 practicable, but experience has shown that this is wrong, both 
 in theory and practice. The soil — what is it ? So far as plant 
 food is concerned, it is an enigma, but practically, it is a store 
 house of plant food, and a medium through which plants are 
 fed. To be sure, it is more than a medium or receptacle, for it 
 not only receives plant food, but helps to prepare it for assimi- 
 lation. But the soil has no life in itself, hence no wants. You 
 can not feed a dead body. It is the living, breathing plant 
 which grows and thrives on the food fed to it by nature or by 
 man.