The Bulletin. 7 



Well-rotted . stable manure is perhaps the best general fertilizer that 

 can be used under average conditions in the growing of strawberries. 

 When applied to the preceding crop there is less danger of injury from 

 the "white grub." While it is doubtless true that stable manure can 

 hardly be equaled, few growers are so situated as to be able to obtain 

 all they need. As a result, artificial fertilizers, or commercial fertil- 

 izers as they are commonly called, have been introduced, and in many 

 instances their use has proved even more advantageous than stable 

 manure. These fertilizers are of different materials which contain 

 some form of ammonia, potash, or phosphoric acid, derived either from 

 organic or inorganic sources. Complete fertilizers contain all three of 

 these principal plant-food ingredients. When fertilizing material of 

 this kind is depended upon exclusively, the use of some soiling crop or 

 other source of vegetable matter becomes of the utmost importance in 

 order to supply the soil with a sufficient amount of humus. The use 

 of these fertilizers alone, without the addition of sufficient vegetable 

 matter, will soon leave the land in an impoverished, unproductive con- 

 dition. As each particular crop requires a certain amount of the neces- 

 sary elements of plant food, and as soils vary considerably in their con- 

 tent of these elements in an available form, growers can best learn from 

 personal experience the fertilizing material most suitable for their par- 

 ticular land. 



The kind and amount of fertilizer used by different growers varies 

 with the location and the natural conditions under which the plant food 

 is to be applied. As a rule, the lighter sandy soils of the coastal plain 

 need more potash and less phosphoric acid than do the heavier clay 

 lands. The most universally used fertilizer in the coastal section, and 

 the one that seems to have produced the most profitable results, is one 

 that contains 8 per cent available phosphoric acid, 3 per cent nitrogen, 

 and 10 per cent actual potash. This is applied at the rate of from 

 1,200 to 2,000 pounds per acre, in two applications. One application 

 is made about July or August and the other in December or January. 

 Some growers prefer to mix their own fertilizers, believing that in this 

 way they can obtain more satisfactory results at less cost. Fish scrap, 

 tankage, or dried blood are most commonly used as a basis for the 

 nitrogen; acid phosphate, bone phosphate, and muriate of potash as 

 their source of phosphoric acid and potash. Cotton-seed meal is also 

 used in combination with these materials. On some of the heavier loam 

 soils containing more clay, certain growers have found it profitable to 

 apply about 500 pounds of raw bone or dissolved bone per acre two or 

 three weeks before setting the plants. The same application is repeated 

 in the fall at the last cultivation, and continued in the same way the 

 following season. In addition to this, a top dressing of about 500 

 pounds per acre of a fertilizer having 6 per cent available phosphoric 

 acid, 3 per cent nitrogen, and 6 per cent actual potash is applied in the 

 spring. 



