in the country need investigation, I am ready to admit that conditions on the farm may be improved. I was particularly interested, therefore, in what the lecturer had to say concerning the carriers, transportation, etc., in their bearing upon conditions in the open country; for I am convinced that these things have much to do with the results which we are getting on our farms. I do not believe we realize to what an extent we are taxed by the tariff. We do realize that there are trusts; tobacco men realize that there are trusts who have them at their mercy, and who will pay just what they please for their crops. And we know it is very easy for milk dealers in a city to come to an agreement and unite together, and say they will pay so much for milk. We know that agreements among farmers, who are so much more widely scattered, are far more difficult. So I think we ought, as farmers, to very carefully consider these questions. We need better express rates, we need better rates from railroads, we need parcelspost, and we need legislation, both State and national, which will make conditions less favorable to trusts. With these things accomplished, conditions in the open country will be better. I have great faith in the farmers; I believe that they, when they think and study these problems, can settle them for themselves. Give them a fair chance in the economic world, a fair chance to get a fair share of the prices which the consumer pays for their products, and the farmer will be all right.

The CHAIR. We would like to hear from Professor Gribben.

Prof. R. L. GRIBBEN (of Amherst). I want to lay emphasis on one thing if I can in any way. I'll call it a hobby of mine and ride it. That is, the cow-testing association. I don't know what can be done; I am not well enough acquainted with conditions as they are, but it seems to me that one of the points brought out, that some cows are paying a profit while others were "paying a loss," is something that ought to be given considerable attention, especially when we consider that every dollar counts to the farmer as perhaps it does to no one else. As long as there are cows kept on the

farm that are causing a considerable outlay, with no return, there will always be more or less loss, and, at the same time, considerable fault finding at the conditions of country life. If we could get at some way to get rid of those cows, those animals that are causing a loss all the time, it would be one step towards improving conditions on the farm. I think this meeting will not have lost its purpose, and will have accomplished a great deal of good, if we can only start some organization which will have as its end a cow-testing association. Is it not worth one or two dollars a year for the farmer to know which cow is paying a profit and which a loss?

Mr. C. E. WARD (of Buckland). Speaking about these cow-testing associations, you have got to get the farmer first. Our western Massachusetts creameries are ready at any time to test a man's herd. If the farmers in the vicinity of Ashfield, for instance, care to know what their cows are doing, they have them tested, free of cost, and wherever there is a creamery I have no doubt that can be done.

If President Roosevelt's commission is going to do something for the country people, why, let us have it. Yet I believe that in rural Massachusetts the people of the country are more and more becoming awake to their privileges and opportunities; they are more and more enjoying life; they are more and more becoming what they should be, - part and parcel of this country, taking their places where they belong. They do not think they are lost in the country, but they think they are the people, and are going to be some one, and hold up their heads alongside of any of them.

Mr. GEO. B. FISKE (of Boston). Organization is what is needed. If each farmer here would go home and use the telephone and local papers to get speakers, and advertise a meeting to consider matters relating to country life, then send a report to the county commissioners, to their representatives in the State and national Legislatures and get things going, then there would be some prospect of their getting what they want through their public representatives.

Professor BROOKS. I want to emphasize what the last speaker has said. In Amherst we are trying to do just that.

Some of us work the telephones, talking with the farmers we can get, asking what they think about holding meetings, and we are going to have a country life meeting in Amherst. So far as I have heard, there is no farmer who does not say he will come and talk the thing up among the farmers he meets. If it does not do any other good such a meeting will get them to thinking about our problems, and when we begin to think out a problem in real earnest then some good will follow.

In the evening a banquet was held under the auspices of the Greenfield board of trade, at the Mansion House. Archibald D. Flower, secretary of the board of trade, was toastmaster. The distinguished guests were Lieutenant-Governorelect L. A. Frothingham, Hon. Joseph Walker of Brookline and Prof. Rufus W. Stimson, director of Smith's Agricultural School, who delivered an address on "School and Farm."

Others who took part in the speaking were Hon. H. C. Parsons of Greenfield and Hon. Frank Gerrett and Mr. Chas. E. Ward of the Board of Agriculture.

THIRD DAY.

The session was called to order at 10.30 o'clock A.M., by Secretary Ellsworth, who introduced Mr. Frederick A. Russell of Methuen as the presiding officer.

The CHAIR. It gives me great pleasure to perform this duty at this meeting. The subject is one of the most important that can come before an agricultural body. I believe that we, as farmers, agriculturists, should be in a position to leave this world in a better state of cultivation, better state of fertility and better state financially, so that we have been a benefit, when we come to lay down our labors, to those who come after us.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Dr. E. B. Voorhees, director of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Stations and president of the State Board of Agriculture.

THE PROFITABLE USE OF COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS.

BY DR. E. B. VOORHEES, NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J.

I have chosen the subject "The Profitable Use of Commercial Fertilizers" in order that I might, as far as possible, eliminate any scientific discussion which might have a tendency to confuse or in any way to lead your thoughts away from the very practical question of the relation of fertilizers to improved crops and to profit, and also that I may talk to you as a farmer to farmers. Naturally, it is necessary that we know something definite concerning the principles involved, but in these days, and after twenty years of work of experiment stations, we must assume that the farmer knows what fertilizers are and something of their general usefulness.

For example, I must assume that all farmers know that the essential elements of fertility are nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash; that lime is not classed with these constituents because most soils do not need lime as an actual additional constituent in the same sense, although it has many important functions and bears a relation to profitable fertilization which should not be ignored, and which we must, as far as possible, understand.

I assume, also, that farmers know that nitrogen is one of the most important elements of plant food, and that in many instances, particularly on lands that are not producing satisfactory crops, the deficient element is more often nitrogen than any other. Farmers also know that nitrogen is the most expensive element of plant food; it costs three times as much as phosphoric acid and potash in mixed fertilizers, and differs from the mineral elements in the sense that it is a very elusive and unstable element existing in various compounds,

organic and mineral, but always liable to changes which may cause its escape into the atmosphere or its loss through the drainage into the streams and rivers. It is, therefore, important that we should know its origin, its various transformations and its comparative usefulness as an element of

manures.

We all know that nitrogen may be obtained for fertilizer purposes in two distinct classes of compounds: first, those which are soluble in water; and second, those which are insoluble. The soluble compounds of nitrogen are those which naturally become more quickly available to plants than do the insoluble. In fact, in the soluble forms we have nitrogen in the form of nitrates, of ammonia, and, in combination with other materials, as lime in the newer product, cyanamid and lime-nitrate. These, whether nitrate or ammonia, are readily soluble in water, and freely distribute themselves throughout the soil, and, with the exception of nitrate, form fixed compounds which are not liable to be lost by leaching in case of heavy rains, and which are not generally likely to be lost in the atmosphere, unless the soil is wet and compact, or is exceedingly rich in lime.

Of these three forms of nitrogen, nitrate is the most important, because it is the form in which plants take up the most of this element. In other words, it is the form to which all other forms must be converted before plants can take it up; the nitrate form is, therefore, quickly available to plants, being absorbed by them immediately it comes in contact with their roots, and is especially useful, therefore, as top-dressings for meadow lands, for grain crops, for hay crops, for market-garden crops and for all quick-growing crops, whose chief use is the edible portion of the leaf or stem.

Of the ammonia forms, we have as the chief source of supply sulphate of ammonia, which, because of its solubility, is almost as quickly available as the nitrate. It distributes readily in the soil, is fixed, and then quickly changes to a nitrate form, and is useful practically along the same lines as nitrate, except its continuous application in large quantities has a tendency to cause acidity of soils. In wet seasons