New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 925 



mammoth clover plats differed by only one one-hundredth of a ton. 

 Wheat or barley with cowhorn turnips made a slightly better show- 

 ing, as the plats on which these crops were turned under, without 

 lime, averaged about one-twentieth of a ton to the acre better than 

 the checks. With these non-legumes, lime was apparently a detri- 

 ment, as the plats with the lime yielded a tenth of a ton less, on the 

 average, than those without it. 



The results of the several tests of which this 



Suggestions bulletin is an account throw comparatively little 



from the light on the value of fertilizers for grapes. It is 



results. evident that the fertilization of vineyards, as well 



as of orchards, fields and gardens, is so involved 



with other factors that only carefully planned and long continued 



work will give reliable results. Indeed, field experiments even in 



carefully selected vineyards, as the cooperative experiments show, 



may be so contradictory and misleading as to be worse than useless 



if deductions are made from the results of a few seasons. The work 



that has been done is not without value, however, for it has brought 



forth information about fertilizing vineyards that ought to be most 



helpful to grape-growers. Thus the results suggest: 



First, and most important, that it is usually waste, pure and 

 simple, to make applications of fertilizers in poorly-drained vine- 

 yards, in such as suffer frequently from winter cold or spring frosts, 

 where insect pests are epidemic and uncontrolled, or where good 

 care is lacking. The experiments furnish several examples of 

 inertness, ineffectiveness, or failure to produce profit where the 

 fertilizers were applied under any of the conditions named. 



Second, it is certain in some of the experiments and strongly 

 indicated in others that the soil is having a one-sided wear — that 

 only one or a very few of the elements of fertility are lacking. The 

 element most frequently lacking is nitrogen. The grape-grower 

 should try to discover which of the fertilizing elements his soil lacks 

 and not waste by using elements not needed. 



Third, the marked unevenness of the soil in all of the seven vine- 

 yards in which these experiments were carried on, as indicated by 

 the crops and the effects of the fertilizers, furnishes food for thought 

 to grape-growers. Maximum profits cannot be approached in 

 vineyards in which the soil is as uneven as in these, which were in 

 every case selected because there was an appearance of uniformity. 

 A problem before tne grape-growers of Chautauqua county is to 

 make more unifoim all conditions in their vineyards. 



Fourth, a grape-grower may assume that his vines do not need 

 fertilizers if they are vigorous and making a fair annual growth. 

 When the vineyard is found to be failing in vigor, the first step to 

 be taken is to make sure that the drainage is good; the second step, 

 to control insect and fungus pests; the third, to give tillage and 

 good care; and the fourth step is to apply fertilizers if they be found 

 necessary. \ 



