EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 327 



tain their supply of manure from the Chicago stockyards. This costs 

 about twenty-five to thirty-five dollars a carload of thirty tons laid 

 down in town, depending much upon its distance from Chicago. Un- 

 certainty as to the quality of the manure and the time it will be re- 

 ceived after it has been ordered from Chicago has tended to discourage 

 its use among the growers. 



There seems to be a strong preference in the Kalamazoo district for 

 horse manure over the other kinds and if it contains much coarse straw, 

 it is the practice to shake it out and apply only the fine manure. It 

 is stacked in large flat piles about three to four feet high if obtained 

 during the growing season and spread over the land any time in the 

 spring before plowing. On heavy compact muck land coarse hay or 

 straw is often turned under to make it mellow. 



COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 



Celery cannot be grown year after year on the same land by the use 

 of commercial fertilizers -alone. We do not advise its use, therefore, 

 as a substitute for stable manure, but we do believe that an intelligent 

 supplementing of manure with commercial fertilizers would result in 

 as good crops at a less cost. Muck lands are rich in nitrogen and con- 

 tain, generally, a sufficient supply of phosphoric acid, but are 

 lacking in potash. Although no definite data is available, no difference 

 has been detected, after making careful observations, in the crops of 

 growers where muriate of potash has been applied with twenty to 

 twenty-five loads of manure per acre, instead of forty to fifty loads. It 

 is probable, therefore, that the growera of celery on muck lands could 

 greatly economize on the cost of fertilizers by reducing the amount 

 of stable manure applied every second or third year and supplementing 

 it with about three hundred pounds of muriate of potash. 



NITRATE OF SODA. 



This is a very soluble form of nitrogen and acts very quickly upon 

 the plants. A week or two after the plants have been set in the field 

 and have taken hold, it is a very common practice to spread a dressing 

 of one hundred fifty to two hundred fifty pounds of nitrate of soda 

 over the soil to stimulate the plants into producing a very early crop. 

 The nitrate of soda is scattered along the side of the rows on top of 

 the soil, being very careful not to come in contact with the plants, 

 and it is then cultivated into the soil. It is preferable to do this while 

 the foliage is dry to prevent the burning of the leaves. The effect of 

 this fertilizer acts only for a short time, after w^hich another application 

 is often desirable. In producing mid-season or winter celery, nitrate 

 of soda is not essential unless the crop becomes stunted and some- 

 thing is needed to stimulate the plants. As this form of nitrogen is 

 very soluble, it is more satisfactory to apply two or three light appli- 

 cations at intervals of a couple of weeks than one heavy application. 



SALT. 



The practice of salting the celery fields is universal in the celery dis- 

 trict about Kalamazoo, where from six hundred to eight hundred pounds 



