The ninth is a restatement of the eighth line.
There then remains the following guaranty:
| Per Cent | |
|---|---|
| Nitrogen | 0.82 |
| Available phosphoric acid | 8.00 |
| Potash | 1.00 |
This is a low-grade fertilizer whose cheap character becomes apparent when the unnecessary statements and restatements are erased. A ton of it contains only 16 pounds of nitrogen, 160 pounds of phosphoric acid, and 20 pounds of potash.
Valuation of Fertilizers.—The manufacturer of a mixed fertilizer must make use of the unmixed materials he finds upon the market. The prices of the various plant constituents in the different unmixed materials can be determined by averaging quotations in leading markets for a given length of time. The fair retail price is obtained by adding about 20 per cent to the wholesale cash price. The retail cash price per pound of the plant constituents in leading markets is thus determined for their various forms and carriers. A pound of nitrogen in dried blood may have its valuation fixed at a figure 50 per cent higher than that of a pound of nitrogen in nitrate of soda simply because the dried blood sells at a price per ton that makes that difference. It is true commercial value that is sought, and that may be very different from agricultural value.
The mixed fertilizer of the manufacturer has its content of plant-food known by analysis. Its number of pounds of the various constituents in a ton is known, and the retail price per pound of these substances has been fixed. The commercial value per ton can then be determined, provided proper allowance is made for cost of mixing and bagging. The individual must pay in addition the freight, and usually a considerable sum for unnecessarily costly methods of distribution and collection.
A Bit of Arithmetic.—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 pound 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.
High-grade Fertilizers.—A high-grade fertilizer is not necessarily a high-priced one. What we want in a fertilizer is a high content of the plant-food needed, together with desirable availability. If only phosphoric acid is wanted, a 14 per cent, or 16 per cent, acid phosphate is high-grade because it contains as many pounds of available phosphoric acid in a ton as the public can buy in a large way. A 10 per cent acid phosphate is low-grade. The effort is to escape paying freight, and other cost of handling, on waste material as far as possible. Generally speaking, the higher the percentages of plant-food in a fertilizer, the cheaper per pound is the plant-food. A low-grade fertilizer rarely fails to be an expensive one because the expense of handling adds unduly to the price per pound of the small content of plant-food.