234 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



droughts prevail there is less effect from fertilizers than from stable manure, 

 but, although there may be some loss of the nitrogen and potash, the phos- 

 phates will be retained in the soil with little or no loss. 



THE RATIONAL USE OF FERTILIZERS. 



As nearly all, if not quite all, soils contain a considerable amount of lime, 

 there will be little use in applying lime in any form for the sake of supply- 

 ing that element to plants, and the same can be said of sodium and chlo- 

 rine; and, as these elements make up our common salt, it will be seen that 

 salt is of no value to any crop as a fertilizer. Of the three elements 

 mentioned above that are often deficient in the soil, potash, phosphorus, 

 and nitrogen, it can be said that a rich virgin soil will generally contain 

 all that is needed for an orchard; but, after the trees have matured several 

 crops of fruit, the available potash and phosphorus is likely to become so 

 reduced that a satisfactory growth can not be obtained, and if the soil is in 

 any way deficient in organic matter the amount of nitrogen will probably be 

 rather small. In order to determine what one of these elements is lacking, 

 and the amount that should be used, it is well to make use of them experi- 

 mentally, applying, for example, ground bone upon one row of trees, 

 muriate of potash or wood ashes upon another, nitrate of soda, if the land 

 is poor, upon a third, and combinations of two and of all of these materials 

 upon still other rows, with a proper number of untreated rows. If the plots 

 have been properly selected, one should be able to tell at the end of the 

 second or third year which of the elements are needed; and if the experi- 

 ment has been carried on so as to have plots with different quantities of 

 the fertilizers upon them, the amount that can be properly applied to each 

 can be learned, and in this way one can be saved the useless application of 

 fertilizing materials that are, perhaps, already in excess in the soil. 

 As a rule, where no experiments of the kind have been conducted, a bear- 

 ing orchard should have, once in two years, from 300 to 500 pounds 

 of ground bone, 200 to 300 pounds of muriate of potash (instead of the 

 muriate of potash, 100 bushels of wood ashes if unleached, or 300 bush- 

 els of leached, may be used); 150 pounds of nitrate of soda, or 25 tons of 

 decomposed stable manure, will be beneficial if the soil is light. In addi- 

 tion to their value for supplying plant food, the chemical fertilizers have 

 an additional value, that is perhaps equally important, as. by supplying 

 soluble plant food early in the season, they enable trees to make their 

 growth during the first of the season and ripen their wood thoroughly 

 before winter. The growth is, as a rule, much more firm than that 

 obtained by the use of stable manure, or from the natural fertility of the 

 soil. In fact, the chemical manures can be used as correctives, since, if 

 those containing potash and phosphoric acid are added to soils that have 

 been highly enriched with stable manure, or that are naturally quite rich 

 in organic matter, they will have a tendency to make the new wood more 

 firm and compact. It can then be claimed that the proper use of chemical 

 manures will increase the hardiness of the trees, and will both render the 

 fruit buds less susceptible to sudden changes in the weather and lessen 

 the danger of their winter-killing. 



