of salt there rested enormous beds of saline compounds known to contain a great deal of magnesia and some potash. To get at the salt below, these magnesia and potash salts had to be dug out and dumped on waste land at the mouth of the mine. In 1860 the chemist Rose called attention to the waste, and the government encouraged fertilizing experiments with a view of utilizing this material, and also offered premiums to manufacturers who should devise methods of producing high-grade potash salts from them. In both directions there was complete success. The extent to which the industry has grown may be illustrated by a few figures. The amount of high-grade salts produced has been, according to the best data at hand, in 1862 about 3,000 tons; in 1863, 9,000 tons; 1864, 21,500; 1865, 14,700; 1866, 26,782; 1867, 25,991, while from this time the production increased until in 1877 it The Composition of Various Sorts of Commercial Fertilizers, Farm Manures, and other Fertilizing Materials. reached 106,809 tons. Besides these highgrade materials, very large quantities of inferior grades are sold. The bulk of the potash salts in our markets belong to three classes Sulphates, Muriates, and Kainite. The sulphates are difficult of preparation, costly, and sometimes contain less sulphate of potash than represented. The muriates are rarely below grade, and are for general uses the cheapest and most desirable. The kainite is a lowgrade salt containing a small percentage of potash, and a large amount of common salt and magnesium compounds. A most useful and satisfactory exhibit of the composition of the commercial fertilizers in our markets is given in a tabular statement, compiled from the most reliable analyses, by Dr. Jenkins, in "The Farmer's Annual HandBook for 1882,"* from which we condense the following: "The average trade-values, or cost in the markets, per pound, of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash," for 1881, are given by the Connecticut Agricultural-Experiment Station as follows. The figures are based upon prices in Connecticut and New York, but do not differ materially from those in other large markets: Cents per TRADE-VALUES FOR 1881. pound. in Peruvian guano, fine steamed bone, dried in coarse or moist blood, meat, or tankage, in in fine ground bone, horn, and wool-dust in fine medium bone.. in medium bone.. in coarse medium bone. in coarse bone, horn-shavings, hair, and fish- Phosphoric acid, soluble in water. "reverted" and in Peruvian guano... 26 224 in fine medium bone... 58 " 4 of the State University at Athens, says: "My experience and observation, during the past five seasons, convince me that we can not afford to raise crops on upland without the aid of commercial fertilizers of established reputation, and of composts carefully made." Another experimenter, Mr. E. S. Wellons, of Perry, Houston County, says: "My experience, particularly on my own farm this season, more clearly than ever demonstrates the wisdom of composting acid phosphate with cotton-seed and stable-manure." Experiments in Alabama: Fertilizers for Cotton.-Professor W. C. Stubbs, of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama, who has been conducting extensive series of experiments with fertilizers for cotton, arrives at a number of very interesting conclusions, of which several may be briefly stated, as follows: 1. The soils upon which the experiments were made, and which result from the decomposition of metamorphic rocks, principally in fine ground rock phosphate 3 hornblendic and feldspathic, appear to need no Potash, in high-grade sulphate... in low-grade sulphate and kainite.. in muriate or potassium chloride.... EXPERIMENTS WITH FERTILIZERS. 7 Perhaps the most interesting phase of the late history of commercial fertilizers is the experimental study of their action upon the soil and influence upon the growth of plants. A large number of agricultural colleges, experiment stations, bureaus, societies, and private individuals have been lately engaged in this work, and results of great value are being attained. Experiments in Georgia: Composts.-The Department of Agriculture of Georgia, under direction of J. T. Henderson, commissioner, has continued, during the season of 1881, the soil-tests of commercial fertilizers, which it has been conducting for some years past. In these experiments various brands of superphosphates, guanos, etc., alone and composted with cotton-seed or stable-manure, have been applied by planters throughout the State to parallel strips of land, on which various crops, especially cotton, were grown. The results are, on the whole, very encouraging for the use of high-grade fertilizers, though failures are not infrequent, even with favorable weather. The very rational plan of composting concentrated fertilizers, such as acid phosphates with cotton seed and farm manures, has brought most gratifying results. Thus one of the experimenters, Professor W. M. Browne, potash, little nitrogen, and a great deal of soluble phosphoric acid. Indeed, one great want which seems to prevail throughout the older cotton States (except, perhaps, in individual regions, such as the black cretaceous prairie cotton-belt of Alabama, which has not been tested) is soluble phosphoric acid. On wornout soils a small quantity of nitrogen is also required-three parts of nitrogen to ten of phosphoric acid being a good mixture, as shown by experiments. 2. Phosphoric acid hastens, and nitrogen retards, the maturing of the plant. 3. Cotton-seed or cotton-seed meal is as efficacious as, and a far more economical source of nitrogen than, the much costlier guano, animal refuse, nitrate of soda, and other commercial materials. These conclusions are borne out by carefully conducted experiments as well as by large experience. The doctrine that the Southern States will do better to utilize nitrogen in a home product than import it at an expense of millions of dollars every year is certainly an important one. Fortunately, it is getting to be understood and followed. During the past five years several hundred field experiments with fertilizers have been conducted in concert in all the States east, and some west, of the Mississippi, and the provinces of Canada, by farmers, schools, and experiment stations. The results of a large num ber tabulated by Professor W. O. Atwater, by whom, as Director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, the experiments were suggested, are of no inconsiderable in terest. Experiments for testing the Needs of Soils.Of these experiments the larger number were performed by farmers as a means of learning what ingredients of plant-food were most needed by their soils and crops. The principle upon which they are based is briefly this: The chief office of fertilizers is to supply the plant-food that our crops need and soils fail to furnish. It is not good economy to pay high prices for materials which the soil may be made to yield in abundance or which may be supplied by the carefully husbanded manures of the farm, but it is good economy to supply the lacking ones in the cheapest way. The most important ingredients of our common commercial fertilizers are phosphoric acid, nitrogen, and potash, because of both their scarcity in the soil and their high cost. It is in furnishing these that guano, phosphates, bone-manures, potash salts, fertilizers for special crops, etc., are chiefly useful. The experiments provided the three ingredients named, each by itself, two by two, and all three together. Nitrogen was supplied in nitrate of soda, phosphoric acid in dissolved bone-black, and potash in the German muriate. Muriate of potash, at the rate of 150 pounds per acre, increased the yield of corn in some cases from scarcely enough to be worth husking to over sixty bushels of shelled corn with a rich growth of stalks, while in other places it was without marked effect, and alone it was not usually profitable. With superphosphate numerous experimenters compute their gain at $20 to $40 per acre, while others find large loss. With each of the other materials and mixtures the same is true to a greater or less degree. On the average the complete chemical fertilizer has brought larger, better, and surer crops than farm manures. The experiments show conclusively that: 1. Soils vary widely in their capacities for supplying crops with food, and consequently in their demand for fertilizers. 2. The right materials, in proper forms and in combinations suited to soil, crop, and surroundings, bring large profits. 3. The way, and the only way, to find what a soil wants is to study it by careful observation and experiments. An outcome of these experiments has been the developing of a series of more complicated "special experiments," whose object is the study of certain important problems of fertilization and plant-growth. The Feeding Capacities of Plants: the Nitrogen Supply.-A vast deal of experience in the laboratory and in the field bears concurrent testimony to the fact (though we are still deplorably in the dark as to how or why it is so) that different kinds of plants have different capacities for making use of the stores of food that soil and air contain. Of the ingredients of plant-food commonly lacking in our soils, the most important, because the most rare and costly, is nitrogen. Leguminous crops, like clover, do somehow or other gather a good supply of nitrogen where cereals, such as wheat, barley, etc., would half starve for lack of it, and this in the face of the fact that leguminous plants contain a great deal of nitrogen and cereals relatively little. Hence a heavy nitrogenous manuring may be profitable for wheat and be in large part lost on clover. To get some more definite information as to the relation of our more common cultivated plants to the nitrogen supply, a "special nitrogen experiment" was devised, in which were compared the effects of mineral fertilizers (superphosphate and potash salt) alone and the same with nitrogen in different amounts and forms. The nitrogen was supplied as nitric acid in nitrate of soda, as ammonia in sulphate of ammonia, as organic nitrogen in dried blood, and the three forms combined. Experiments with Corn.-The relation of corn to the nitrogen supply has been widely discussed. The main question is whether it is, like wheat, an "exhausting," or like clover, a renovating, crop. Botanically it is closely allied to wheat, and the most eminent authorities have attributed to it a similar relation as regards its demand for nitrogenous manures. Indeed, "corn manures" with large and very costly quantities of nitrogen have been widely recommended and largely used. So eminent an authority as Dr. Lawes, the famous English experimenter, recommends as "the best possible manure for cereals," including maize, “a mixture of nitrate of soda and superphosphate, while Professors Ville, of France, and Stockbridge, of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, whose formulas are widely known and used, have advised the following formulas for In trials, total 75 53 Fortunately, we have a considerable number of experiments bearing upon this point. The results of the trials of 1881 have not yet been published in detail; the general outcome, how- number. ever, is similar to that of those of previous years, which are summarized by Professor Atwater as follows. The "general" experiments are those of the former class (soil-tests), and the "special" of the latter class named above: "Estimating a bushel of corn, with its cobs and stalks, to contain 1 pound of nitrogen, and to be worth 80 cents, the effects of the nitrogenous fertilizers in the special and in the general experiments may be summarized as follows, remembering that the superphosphate and potash salt, "mixed minerals," supplied the amounts of phosphoric acid and potash in a crop of not far fro:n 55 or 60 bushels, which would also contain about the 72 pounds of nitrogen: 22 48 11.05 $1.48 6 66 "The experiments are numerous and decisive enough to warrant the inference that, as corn is commonly grown, nitrogenous fertilizers in any considerable quantity would be rarely profitable. They imply that corn has somehow or other the power to gather a great deal of nitrogen from soil or air, or both; they imply that in this respect it comes closer to the legumes than the cereals-that, in short, corn may be classed with the renovating crops." Practical Applications.-Among the general conclusions derived from these experiments are the following: 1. The "Complete Chemical Fertilizer," the mixtBUSHELS OF CORN AND POUNDS OF NITROGEN IN CROP, potash salt, and 150 pounds nitrate of soda, costing ure of 300 pounds superphosphate, 150 to 200 pounds PER ACRE. "Mixed minerals" alone. Same + 24 lbs. nitrogen.. 43.4 47.8 57-8 "In the general experiments the mixture of 300 pounds superphosphate and 200 pounds muriate of potash brought, on the average of fifty-three experiments, about 43 bushels of shelled corn per acre. The special experiments, however, seem to me a fairer test of what the fertilizers may do, because, while made in all sorts of weather and on worn-out soils, they were nearly all on soils and in latitudes fit for corn, as many of the general experiments were not. In these the mixture of 300 pounds superphosphate and 150 pounds of potash salt, which can be bought for $8.25, brought on the average 45 bushels of shelled corn per acre. "The experiments of these seasons bear unanimous testimony to two things: The corn was helped but little by nitrogen in the fertilizers; and it gathered a good deal from natural sources. The increase of crop and of nitrogen in the crop will appear more clearly if we look at it another way." In num WITH NITROGEN, The average 18 bushels. 4.1 bushels. The increase of nitrogen in was 5.5 lbs. 7.9" 10.6" $15.35 per acre (including $5 per acre for freight), brought the largest crops, excelling even the farm mapures with all the crops on which the number of experiments is large enough for a fair comparison, and bringing surer returns even in cold, wet, and drought. Doubtless a mixture with less potash and more phosphoric acid would have proved still more efficient. 2. The mixture of 300 pounds of superphosphate and 150 pounds of salt, costing $8.25 per acre, brought a trifle less corn and decidedly more potatoeз than farm manures. 3. The mixture of nitrate of soda and superphosphate, which corresponds closest of all to the ordinary ammoniated superphosphates, fish-manures, and guano, though costing more than the mixture of superPhosphate and potash salt, brought less increase of corn, potatoes, turnips, sweet-potatoes, and in leed of every crop but oats. The number of experiments with oats, however, is too small for any general conclusions. It is very probable that oats and the cereals generally would be more helped by nitrogen, and less by potash, than the other crops. But it is a question whether manufacturers of ammoniated phosphates would not do better to substitute potash salts for the nitrogenous materials in compounding their fertilizers, at least for some crops. 4. The mixture of nitrate of soda and potash salt was the least useful in all the cases where it was tried. 5. As to the efficiency of the materials separately, the nitrate of soda was rarely profitable, the sulphate of lime frequently, the muriate of potash very often, and the superphosphate generally so. Doubtless, considerable of the effect of the superphosphate was due, in many cases, to the sulphuric acid and lime. 6. As to the effect of ashes, the results are variable, though generally they were efficacious. 7. Not only did the "Complete Chemical Fertilizer" bring a larger average increase than farm maphosphate and potash salt nearly as large average nures as actually used, and the mixture of super increase, but the quality of the crop was generally better with the chemicals than with the farm manures. Potatoes, especially, were finer in quality and less disposed to rot with the artificial fertilizers than with the farin manures. 8. The most profitable material in a given case is that which is best fitted to its needs. The chief factors of the problem are: 1. Soil; 2. Season; 3. Feeding-capacity of the crop, its power to gather its food from soil and air; 4. Form of combination of the the fertilizer. Or, estimating the result in dollars and ingredients of the fertilizers; 5. The indirect action of cents Soils vary in respect to the plant-food they supply in available forms. Phosphoric acid is most often insufficient; next come potash and nitrogen; then, lime and sulphuric acid, and rarely magnesia. having become a partner in the house soon after reaching his majority. Meantime he had acquired an enviable social position, and at the age of eighteen had been invited to deliver the anniversary poem before the Mercantile Library Association of Boston-Edward Everett be"Commerce" was the sub But the infertility of soils is due to physical causes perhaps nearly as often as to chemical. Soils often do not have the proper texture, they are too compact or too loose, or they lack absorptive power, they can not retain the plant-food until plants use it, but suffer it to be leached away by drainage-water; or the moist-ing the orator. ure-supply is bad they are too wet or too dry. These defects are as bad as lack of plant-food. Many soils need first amendment and then manure. Drainage, irrigation, tillage, use of lime or muck, are often the cheapest if not the only means for bringing up poor soils. Season counts for much, often for everything, in the action of manure. 9. As to the feeding capacities of the crops, the experiments imply that the corn was somehow able to gather nitrogen from natural sources, provided it had enough of the mineral ingredients at its disposal. They do not tell how much of the nitrogen came from the roots of the preceding crops, how much from other nitrogen compounds in the soil, and how much from the air. They imply that potatoes possess in far less degree than corn the power of gathering suflicient supply of either nitrogen or the other ingredients of its food from soil and air. They imply that turnips are generally unable to provide themselves with phosphoric acid from the soil, and are greatly helped by it in fertilizers, and that without its application they usually get but little good from other materials; that with it alone they can generally gather but a partial supply of the other materials of their food; and that for a full yield considerable quantities of all the soi! ingredients of plant-food are needed close at hand and in available forms. 10. Leaving differences of soils out of account, and considering the average results of the experiments, the best fertilizer to produce large crops of corn among the materials used would probably be a mixture of some nitrogenous material with superphosphate or bene, or both, and muriate of potash. The most profitable mixture would probably consist of muriate of potash with either superphosphate or fine ground bone, or both. 11. For potatoes, which responded well to all the materials, probably a mixture containing nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. For either corn or potatoes, nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia, dried blood, or better, a mixture of these, could be advantageously used to supply the nitrogen, and superphosphate or bone-dust, or a mixture of the two, for phosphoric acid. 12. The common impression among farmers that the best use of artificial fertilizers is to supplement farm manure is doubtless, in ordinary circumstances, correct. The right way is to make the most and best out with such commercial fertilizers as experiments manure that is practicable upon the farm, and piece and experience prove profitable. FIELDS, JAMES THOMAS, born December 31, 1817, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; died April 26, 1881, in Boston. At the age of four years he lost his father, who was a ship-master. His education was acquired in his native town, and when only thirteen years of age he graduated at the high-school, having taken several prizes for Greek and Latin compositions. Before graduating he had attracted the attention of the late Chief-Justice Woodbury, who advised him to continue his studies and enter Harvard University; but this advice, for good reasons, was not followed, and in 1834 the lad went to Boston, where he obtained employment in the bookstore of Messrs. Carter & Hendee, this firm being succeeded by that of Allen & Ticknor, which in turn was succeeded by that of Ticknor & Fields in 1846, Mr. Fields ject of the poem. In 1847 he visited Europe, passed several months in England, Scotland, and Germany, and formed intimacies with some of the most distinguished literary people of the day; among whom were Talfourd, Dickens, Moore, Landor, and Wordsworth, at whose home he became a guest. With Dickens he formed a very close friendship, and it was through his influence that the famous novelist made his second visit to this country in 1867, at which time Dickens was the guest of Mr. Fields. While returning to America after his first tour, Mr. Fields narrowly escaped shipwreck on the coast of Newfoundland, the ship having struck the coast in a fog, sprung a leak, and was with difficulty kept afloat and taken into port. In 1848 Mr. Fields was again the poet at the anniversary celebration of the Mercantile Library Association, and on this occasion Daniel Webster was the orator. The subject chosen by Mr. Fields was "The Post of Honor." Before the same association he delivered a lecture upon "Preparations for Travel," which was full of sensible advice, well seasoned with humor. Often called upon to deliver poems and lectures, Mr. Fields appeared as a poet or lecturer before the societies of Harvard University, and Dartmouth and other colleges. A volume of his poetical compositions was published in Boston in 1843, and in 1858 he privately printed a beautiful volume, entitled "A Few Verses for a Few Friends," of which the "North American Review" made the following comment: This book itself, apart from its contents, is a pothe variable details of mechanical execution-it vindiem. In paper, type, edging, and ornament-in all cates its title to be termed a work of high art. The lambent fancy in natural measures and easy rhythmPoems it contains are gems well worthy the setting-pure thought, genial feeling, tender remembrance, and such poems as always win a higher fame than they seek, and are best appreciated by those whose verdict is of the most significant import. A second visit was made to Europe in 1851, and Mr. Fields was in Paris in December of 1851, when the coup d'état of Louis Napoleon took place. He witnessed the encounter between the troops and the populace upon the boulevards, and at the same time a house near him was shattered by a cannon-ball. During this trip he spent a winter in Italy-chiefly in Rome-and while in England passed three months in London, where he was the honored guest in cultivated circles, and invited to membership in the leading clubs. Literary people paid him great attention, and rendered his visit profitable as well as pleasant. A visit to Edinburgh gave him the opportunity for enjoying an intimate acquaintance with Professor Wil |