Fertilizers

Front matter

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

FERTILIZERS.

Preface

This treatise is by a farmer for farmers. Using forty or fifty tons of commercial fertilizers on my own crops annually, I have been compelled to "book myself up," as the phrase is, — to learn the cheapest market in which to buy the elements, the best way to combine these, and the wisest way to apply them to the different crops of the farm. This treatise is the result of the study of various works on agricultural chemistry, especially the excellent reports that have been sent out from our agricultural stations by Professors Johnson and Atwater, Goessmann, Dabney, Caldwell, and others, to whom our sense of indebtedness will be measured by the growth of our intelligence. This study, combined with personal observation and experience, makes up my little book. My treatise is not a work on barn manure : it is confined, for the most part, to fertilizers. It can perform no miracles : to ask that it shall show every one the road to success in the profitable raising of his crops would be as reasonable as was the search of the alchemist of old for the wonderful alembic that was to transmute every thing to gold. The whole matter of soil in

IV PBEFACE.

action and plant-growth is wonderfully complex ; and so far from the old axiom being true, that any man can be a farmer, we find that farming, in the problems it presents for solution, is a calling that challenges the best ability and the best culture to be found among men. To give a history of the three principal elements which enter into the composition of fertilizers, to discuss their relations to plant-growth in the various forms in which they exist, to tell in what form and where they may be obtained at the lowest rates, to tell how they may be combined and applied in the wisest way, brother farmers, is the object of this treatise. Should it prove desirable to enlarge the subject, I may take up barn and various other manures in another work.

To those who desire to study the subject of plants and plant-growth more extensively, I would recommend such excellent works as " How Crops Grow " and " How Crops Feed," by Professor Johnson ; " Botanical Text-Book," by Professor Grey ; and " Harris on Manures."

FERTILIZERS.