230 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



Union — it works overtime. The only way we can make succulence 

 and palatability is through sunshine, and when we make plenty of 

 leaf surface to catch that sunshine, then we are reaching out in the 

 right direction. First, get pure bred seeds, and then feed them all 

 along the line. 



The man who starts out thinking he will feed his crop with compost, 

 is about as successful as a man who will tie a peck of oats to the 

 hind leg of a horse and tlien expect him to get fat. Every little root- 

 let draws up sustenance. Where does it get it? Right there on the 

 ground. I remember when men used to dig up their manure, and 

 then dig a little hole, fill it up and cover it and then expect the 

 plant to thrive on it, without loosening the edges. There is many a 

 farmer in New Jersey and Pennsylvania today who is doing just 

 as his father or grandfather did. Now every particle of soil has 

 some food in it, and it must be broken up so that these little root- 

 lets can get it. The way to get this plant food into tomatoes and 

 cantaloupes, etc., is by a side dressing. I am a nitrate of soda crank, 

 because it has carried me through life for nigh three score years. I 

 Avas one of the first men who used nitrate of soda. I have made some 

 mistakes, and most of them have been on this basis. Most men 

 make mistakes at times; it is tlirough them that we get our experi- 

 ence. Some of us go on the principle that if a teaspoonful of medicine 

 every three hours will cure you, three teaspoonfuls an hour ought 

 to do it sooner, but it sometimes kills, instead of cures. Nitrate of 

 soda gives us increased vegetation, but too much vegetation is inju- 

 rious to the product of the plant. ^Vhat you want is to get enough 

 nitrate of soda to start the plant growth, and then let the fruit 

 develop. 



Now, to make my proposition clear, I want to say that the mar- 

 ket gardener realizes that he must be in the market early; so he 

 starts in with nitrate of soda and gets the plant tangoing all over 

 itself, when all that plant needed was soluble plant food. The re- 

 sult is that the farmer is three or four weeks late with his fruit. 

 All his growth has gone to vegetation. He should have given it a lig'ht 

 does of nitrate of soda, and started it growing, and then if neces- 

 sary, given it another liglit dose or two. But tlie farmer says, "That 

 is so much work; I want to do it at once, and get through with it." 

 But that does not work in market garden crops. Last March I put 

 a litle nitrate of soda on my plants. I found little tomatoes on them 

 and knew that the plant had something else to do than to form vine, 

 so I put on nitrate of soda, about a hundred and fifty pounds to the 

 acre. I am increasing that now to two hundred pounds. 



We must not only get the fruit to grow, but we must get it to 

 ripen, so to ripen it we put on soluble i)lJosphoric acid; that will 

 ripen it. I know that to be true from experiment after experiment. 

 Now there was a discussion here yesterday morning as to the merits 

 of floats and acid phosphate. T am an acid phosphate man, first, 

 last and all tlie time, because we have soluble plant food from the 

 moment we apply it, but when we apply floats, we have to make it 

 soluble first. Now you ap])ly phosphoric acid, six, eight hundred or 

 half a ton to the acre, and with reasonable care such as the market 

 gardener gives his plants, I will guarantee that your fruits will 

 ripen regardless of the weather. 



