Fruit-Growing Industries. 123 



fertilizer will be of little avail. But the better the tillage and 

 the better the crops, the more it will pay, as a rule, to add 

 fertilizers : the better a thing is, the more will it pay extra care 

 and treatment. And the heavier an orchard bears in its youth, 

 the greater is the presumption that it will need good care and 

 fertilizing in its old age. 



All this means that the best fruit-growers will generally find 

 it profitable to use liberalh^ of fertilizers. What fertilizers to 

 use and how to apply them are subjects which are discussed in 

 bulletins by man}- authors, and it is not necessar}^ to refer to 

 these details here ; but even after reading all the literature, the 

 farmer must experiment with his own land and his own crops to 

 determine just what materials are most profitable for his use. 

 In other words, the advice as to fertilizers is more valuable in 

 teaching a man principles, in suggesting means of experimenting, 

 and in designating the probabilties of any line of action, than in 

 specif3ang just what fertilizers one shall use. Various studies of 

 the effects of fertilizers on horticultural crops have been made by 

 this station, some of which will be published in due season. Of 

 these, two may be mentioned here : 



I. In 1894, ail unprofitable apple orchard 25 years old, belong- 

 ing to S. W. McCullom, Lockport, was examined by an expert, 

 who thought that it needed potash. The orchard had been unpro- 

 ductive and had been in. sod for some time. It stands on a 

 rather hard dryish light clay loam, in which there are many 

 small stones. The trees, Baldwin and Greening, are in good 

 shape, and looked better than most apple trees do. Some trees 

 received 10 pounds of nitrate of soda, sowm as far as the spread 

 of the limbs. Other trees received 10 pounds of muriate of 

 potash, other 10 pounds of sulfate of potash, and others 

 both muriate and sulfate. The materials were lightly plowed 

 in, and the ground was then harrowed. The fertilizers 

 were applied August 11, 1894. The orchard was plowed 

 again in the fall of 1895, ^^^^ again in the spring of 1896; 

 and it is 3^et under tillage. In the season of 1895 no results 

 were seen. In 1896, the nitrate-fertilized trees were 

 remarkably darker colored than the others in foliage, more 

 vigorous, and carried a heavier load of fruit. The difference in 



