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Criticisms Of Home-mixing

Categories: HOME-MIXING OF FERTILIZERS

The manufacturer's advocate formerly laid

much stress upon the danger attending the treatment of bones and rock

with sulphuric acid. That is a business of itself, and the home-mixer

has nothing to do with it. He buys on the market the acidulated bone or

rock, just as a manufacturer makes his purchase.



It is claimed that the manufacturer renders a great public service by

using supplies of plant-food that t
e home-mixer would not use, and

thus conserves the world's total supply. Let us see the measure of

truth in the statement. The manufacturer gets his supply of phosphoric

acid from rock, bone, or tankage exactly as does the home-mixer. His

potash he buys from the syndicate owning the German beds, and the

farmer does the same. These sources must contribute all the phosphoric

acid and potash used on land, if we except trifling supplies of ashes,

marl, etc., and the only difference in the transaction is that in one

case the manufacturer buys the materials and mixes them, and in the

other case the farmer buys them direct and mixes them. The remaining

constituent is the nitrogen. If the manufacturer uses nitrate of soda,

sulphate of ammonia, bones, tankage, or manufactured nitrogen, he does

what the home-mixer may do. Most nitrogen must come from these sources.

If all came from these sources, the increased demand would not affect

the price. The beds of nitrate of soda will last for hundreds of years,

the present waste in ammonia from coal is immense, and the supply of

manufactured nitrogen can be without limit. The saving in use of inert

and low-grade forms of nitrogen is more profitable to the manufacturer

than to the farmer who buys and pays freight on low-grade materials.



The rather remarkable argument is advanced that fertilizer

manufacturers do not make a large per cent on their investment, despite

the perfection of their equipment, and therefore the farmer cannot find

it profitable to mix his materials at home. By the same reasoning,

assuming for the moment that the profit in manufacturing does not pay a

heavy dividend on all the stock issued, if a great hotel does not find

its dining-room a source of profit, as many hotels do not, no private

home should hope to prepare meals for its own members in competition

with hotels.



As has been stated, every user of commercial fertilizer should learn

what a pound of plant-food in unmixed material would cost him,

selecting the common materials that are the only chief sources. If he

can buy a pound of nitrogen in nitrate of soda or sulphate of ammonia,

a pound of phosphoric acid in acid phosphate or steamed bone, and a

pound of potash in muriate or sulphate of potash for less than they

would cost in the factory-mixed goods offered him, allowing to himself

a dollar or so a ton for the labor of mixing, it is only good business

to buy the unmixed materials. The saving usually is from five to ten

dollars a ton, excepting only interest on money, as he would pay cash

for the unmixed material.



The cost of bags always is mentioned. That is not to be considered by

the farmer, as he uses the bags in which the unmixed materials come to

him.



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