90 STATE jHORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



peaches and to their sugar that they contain, by very Uberal apphcation of 

 potash. If you are not using potash very freely and are not satisfied with the 

 color on your peaches, I would advise you to depend partially upon potash 

 and partially on pruning shears, and light open-headed trees and sunlight, 

 because all those things work together for perfectly developed fruit, and no 

 one thing alone will bring it about. 



I am growing at the present time I hardly know how many acres, but 

 nearly three thousand acres of peaches north and south, and that thing 

 would be impossible were it not for commercial fertilizers; simply could not 

 be in the game at all were it not for commercial fertilizers; or, if I was in 

 the game, I would be down in the bottom somewhere where there would be 

 no fun in playing it, and perhaps little or no profit. I depend almost entirely 

 however, upon two elements — potash and phosphoric acid; because in getting 

 the humus I need to plough into my soil I also get all the nitrogen I want, 

 by growing cow peas, vetches and clover; I assure you we buy but very 

 little nitrogen; and yet we always keep some "up our sleeve," or at least 

 under the shed. But potash and phosphoric acid are our main dependence. 

 If I could get all the wood ashes I want, at a price I thought they were worth, 

 I don't know that I would buy any other form of potash; but that is difficult. 

 We therefore depend quite largely upon the German potash salts, and muriate 

 of potash is the form in which I usually buy it. In the south we depend 

 ■entirely upon the acid phosphate for the phosphoric acid. In the north 

 we have always dependecl upon the fine ground raw bone; it is not so available 

 as some other form, but the trees will take it out in time and I think it best 

 and cheapest in the long run. I always like to have a little money in the bank, 

 a little surplus food in the soil. While I depend almost entirely upon the cover 

 crops to get my nitrogen from the air, yet we always keep some nitrate of 

 soda, that is the, most quickly available form of nitrogen; just as soon as 

 it is dissolved and in the soil the plants go to taking it up in 24 hours. Sixty 

 pounds to the acre will make a whole field turn green 24 hours after a rain. 

 It will stimulate the corn crop, or a little sickly peach tree. Just a little 

 scattering broadcast of nitrate of soda will set that tree into a green, vigorous 

 ;growth; and you can't get perfect fruit without vigorous growth. Of course, 

 a sickly tree will give you high colored peaches, and they will be a little 

 •earlier and ship a little further; but perfectly developed peaches never come 

 off anything but a healthy developed tree. So a little nitrate of soda some- 

 times will help the tree quickly to come into that vigor that is needed. I 

 use any and every available form of the plant food that we can buy in its 

 highest and purest state at lowest price per unit of value. It is the one thing 

 to be considered in the use of commercial fertilizers. 



This putting fertilizers close to the plant, and putting fertilizers close 

 to the tree, is a large waste. I should not think of standing in a plate of 

 soup to absorb soup for my dinner really; and I don't want a tree to have 

 the fertilizer close around it ; after the first year, if you spread your fertilizer 

 broadcast all over the field, the roots will get it just as chickens will get 

 after it. No question about that. You need not worry lest you might 

 lose some of your fertilizer if it is not put close about the tree. The further 

 you scatter it, the further your tree will chase its roots after it and become 

 a vigorous and healthy tree, for in its roots hunting after that scattered 

 fertilizer it will find a lot of other things suitable to its uses. 



The fertilizer dealers are shrewd business men, and they have made 

 thousands and millions out of the business, much of it legitimate and some 

 not; but they make one regular rule: They take ten dollars worth each 



