368 MISSOTRI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



MANURE. 



POTASH FERTILIZERS FOR FRUITS. 



At the Massachusetts Experiment Station some trials have been 

 made to determine the value of potash tertilizers for fruits. The re- 

 sults are reported as follows by Professor Winthrop E. Stone: 



Potash fertilizers have decidedly improved the desirable qualities 

 of fruits. Wherever the percentage of this element has been raised 

 the change is accotnpanied by an increase of sugar and decrease 

 of acid. This, it is hardly necessary to say, is an important and de- 

 sirable change — a matter of dollars and cents. Other things being 

 equal, the fruit with the largest per cent, of sugar will bring the high- 

 est price. Moreover, less desirable varieties may be brought up to r«, 

 higher standard, thus giving value to some good quality, as hardiness 

 or prolific bearing. The fact that the quality and character of garden 

 and orchard products can be modified by the effect of special fertili- 

 zers is of immense importance in its practical as well as scientific bear- 

 ing. 



CLOVER AS A FERTILIZER. 



Clover seems to be the great scavenger of agriculture, a gross 

 feeder, capable of collecting the plant food of the soil held in solution 

 too dilute or too deep down for the roots of cereals to thrive upon it, 

 and of rendering the insoluble soluble, and storing it up in large quan- 

 tities and available from near the surface where the young roots of the 

 cereals can at once find and use them. Dr. J. G. Holland makes an 

 Irish character in one of his books say : "" The peg (pig) '11 ate wot 

 there won't nothin' else ate, and thin you kin ate the peg." This seems 

 to be the office of clover, to eat what the wheat can't eat, and then die 

 and let the wheat eat it. — Secretary Chamberlain. 



HUMOR OF WESTERN FERTILITY. 



" Speakin' of productive soil," said a man from the West, " the 

 half has never been told. A few years ago my wife said : * Why, 

 Bijah ! I b'lieve you've took to growin' again.' I measured myself, 

 an' I hope Gabriel'll miss me at the final roundup if I hadn't grown six 

 inches in two weeks. I couldn't account for it for some time, till at 

 last I tumbled to the fact that Ihar war holes in my boots, an' the 



