450 Agrioultubal Experiment Station, Ithaoa, N. Y. 



FERTILIZERS FOR GRAPE CUTTINGS. 



It is often a very serious question with nurserymen what fer- 

 tilizers they shall use to produce the largest and best grape-vines, 

 especially in the drj^er seasons when growth is small. Two years 

 ago we undertook an experiment in this direction, and T. S. 

 Hubbard, of Fredonia, N. Y., a well-known nurseryman, gave us 

 10,000 cuttings of Concord with which to make the test. These 

 cuttings were divided into ten equal lots and each lot was set in 

 the spring of 1891 upon a plot ten by twenty-five feet. The 

 cuttings stood three by twelve inches apart. The plots were 

 arranged in two rows, and they received treatment as follows in 

 1891 and 1892: 



1. Check (no fertilizer). 2. Cotton-seed hull ashes (four pounds 

 a year). 3. Muriate of potash (two pounds a year). 4. Nitrate 

 of soda (two pounds a year). 5. Sulphate of ammonia (two pounds 

 a year). 6. Cotton-seed meal (four pounds a year). 7. Bone flour 

 (four pounds a year). 8. Stable manure (forty pounds a year). 

 9. Bradley's superphosphates (four pounds a year). 10. Check (ro 

 fertilizer). 



These fertilizers were applied May 14, 1891, and June 23, 1892. 

 They were sown upon the ground and found their way under the 

 surface at the regular hoeings. The soil upon which these cut- 

 tings were grown was a poor and very hard gravel. This soil 

 was selected because it had received no fertilizers in recent years 

 and because the results of the different materials would be undis- 

 guised by the heavy growth which would be given by a good soil. 

 The early season of 1891 was very dry and many of the cuttings 

 did not st^art. Later in the season, the remaining plants made a 

 fair growth but no difference could be seen in the plots. It was 

 evident that the fertilizers had not yet reached the roots of the 

 plants. But in 1892 the effect began to be marked early in 

 summer, and it was evident that plot No. 4 — nitrate of soda — 

 would distance all the rest. Final observations were made Octo- 

 ber nineteenth, when it was found that plot No. 4 was best and 

 No. 5 second. These plots gave easily fifty per cent more growth 

 than any of the remaining eight. No. 2 — cotton-^seed hull 



