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A Bit Of Arithmetic

Categories: PURCHASING PLANT-FOOD

This paragraph is intended to serve the man who

is willing to be reasonably near right if he cannot be wholly so: A ton

is 2000 pounds, and one per cent is 20 pounds. In dealing with

fertilizers it is the practice to call 20 pounds, or one per cent of a

ton, a unit, and to base the price of the nitrogen, and phosphoric

acid, and potash, on the unit. This is done for convenience. If five

cents is a fair price for a poun
of available phosphoric acid in one's

locality, as it would be if a ton of 14 per cent acid phosphate cost

$14, a unit of 20 pounds is worth $1. Each one per cent guaranteed is

thus worth a dollar, and the phosphoric acid in the fertilizer is

easily valued. If a pound of potash in a ton of muriate is worth five

cents in one's locality, as it would be if a ton of muriate cost $50,

the muriate being one half actual potash, a unit of 20 pounds of potash

is worth $1. Each one per cent of guaranteed potash is thus worth one

dollar, and the entire content of potash is easily valued. If a pound

of nitrogen in nitrate of soda is worth seventeen and one half cents a

pound in one's locality, as it would be if a ton of nitrate of soda

cost $54, a unit, or one per cent, is worth $3.50, and the content of

nitrogen is easily valued.



The prices named would seem high to good cash buyers near the seaboard,

and they are too low for some other regions where freights are very

high. They are only illustrative. The consumer can get his own basis

for an estimate by obtaining the best possible cash quotations from

city dealers. Some interested critic may point out that nitrate of soda

should not be the sole source of nitrogen in a fertilizer on account of

its immediate availability. Manufacturers use some sulphate of ammonia,

and a pound of nitrogen in it has had practically the same market price

as that in nitrate of soda. Tankage may be used in part, and in it the

nitrogen costs very little more per pound.



It may be said that the potash in the fertilizer is in form of

sulphate. Usually that profits the user nothing, and often the claim is

baseless, but if it is a sulphate, the cost of the potash should have

only 20 per cent added to the valuation of the potash, which usually

will not add one dollar to the total cost of the ton of mixed

fertilizer. Basing the valuations of the pounds of plant-food in the

mixed fertilizer on the value per pound in unmixed materials delivered

to one's own locality, there must be taken into account the added

expense of mixing.



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