EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS 357 



ing. They may wisely be used on Tines and succulent fruits that are liable to be 

 cut by early frosts in autumn, securing early crops with better prices and avoiding 

 the loss of the entire crop by untimely frosts before the most of the crop had 

 ripened. Fruit trees sometimes blossom year after year without producing fruit. 

 This is often caused by storms at the period of flowering, but it may be caused 

 by constitutional weakness, in consequence of which pollen of vital power is not 

 formed. In such cases the use of active phosphates is worthy of trial. 



3. Bone Meal contains phosphate of lime and animal matter rich in nitrogen, 

 and hence is very valuable for manure where we desire a prolonged influence. 

 It is well adapted to grass lands and lawns, and is free from the bad odor often 

 given off by mixed fertilizers. Moist meadows are benefited by a dressing of bone 

 meal. If the bones that now adorn the back yard and pasture Jot should be 

 ground into a powder and scattered on a crop-worn field, the results would sur- 

 prise some farmers. 



4. Potash Manure. The best and cheapest is that neglected home product- 

 wood ashes. These contain an average of five per cent of potash, besides a sensi- 

 ble amount of phosphate, and a very large amount of carbonates of lime and 

 magnesia; they are an all-round plant manure so far as mineral matter is con- 

 cerned, supplying each ash element. 



Unless the farmer can bring into active form the great store of potash in his 

 soil, he will then have to buy the German potash salts, the muriate or sulphate. 

 These salts are yearly coming into greater prominence as potash fertilizers, but 

 their sale in Michigan in separate form has not been large. 



The influence of potash on plant life is masterful; no plant can grow without 

 it, and its influence in developing the carbohydrates, and maturing fruits, is 

 marked and apparently controlling. 



5. Nitrogen Compounds. Nitrogen is the bottled wine of the vegetable feast. 

 If the term stimulant can be applied to any organization destitute of a nervous 

 system, then nitrogen is the stimulant of plant life. In any of its combined forms 

 it gives depth of color and exuberance of growth to vegetable life, and when in 

 abundant supply it causes the plant to break forth into riotous growth. Tlie 

 great reservoir of nitrogen is the air, but the leaves of plants though constantly 

 bathed in nitrogen, cannot drink in a particle. It is only nitrogen in combination 

 that can be appropriated by the plant, and this enters the plant by the roots and 

 comes from the soil. A small amount is brought to the soil by the rain, washing 

 out the ammonia and nitrates of the air, but the amount is not large, and entirely 

 inadequate to supply a crop, 



A large amount of active nitrogen in the form of nitrates is yearly formed in 

 every well cultivated field, and this is the cheapest way of securing a supply of thxS 

 costliest element of plant growth. The raising of leguminous crops, like the 

 clovers, is the next cheapest way of securing a supply.. 



Combined nitrogen is purchased in three forms; salts of ammonia, nitrate of 

 soda, and organic nitrogen in the form of dried blood, fish scraps, cotton seed 

 meal, etc. 



6. Tankage, is a complex and variable material obtained from the waste resi- 

 dues at the slaughter houses, the garbage collected by the scavengers in cities, 

 etc. These materials are dried, the grease extracted in tanks and this tankage 

 by itself, or mixed with phosphates, potash, etc., is sold as a fertilizer. It is 

 mainly used to give bulk to the concentrated fertilizers made from bone and rock 

 phosphate. 



LIME. 



Following nitrogen, potash and phophoi'ic acid, the next most important mate- 

 rial is lime. In soils made by the decomposition of granite rocks, the soil is apt to 

 be deficient in lime. This is manifest in the New England states. In most coun- 

 ties of our lower peninsula, where the soil is classed in the drift formation, lime 

 is an abundant element in the soil. It is easy to determine this by an examination 

 of the well water. Our water comes by the rain and is soft, but soaking into the 

 ground it dissolves more or less of the mineral matter of the soil. If the well 

 water of any region is very hard as shown by its action on soap, the hardness 

 being caused by the lime dissolved in the water, such soil contains enough lime 

 to supply the needs of crops. Lime may be used in such regions to decompose 

 muck and flocculate clay, but is not required to feed the crops. 



