THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 257 



and 95 pounds nitrate of soda; plats 3, 5, 7 and 11 were checks. 

 The first application of these fertilizers was made when the trees were 

 three years old and fourteen applications have followed. Tillage has 

 consisted of an early spring plowing and cultivation until about the 

 first of August, followed by a cover-crop of some non-leguminous plant. 

 What are the results.' 



The orchard bore its first crop of fruit in 1902, trees six years of age, 

 and has borne nine crops since. An examination of the individual 

 records of the sixty trees and of the tAvelve plats, for the seven crops, 

 shows only negative results. 



In any way the data is studied, it is impossible to find a decided 

 benefit for one treatment over another. The nitrogen applied is for 

 the most part lost. The potash and phosphoric acid are stored Avhere 

 "neither moth nor rust can corrupt." The storage, however, of these 

 two food constituents in a soil such as ours, where there are already 

 from fifty to one hundred times the quantities of them needed, is un- 

 profitable business. One might as well '"gild gold," "paint a rose," or 

 *' throw perfume on a violet." 



These are the facts, but facts signify little or nothing unless they 

 fit into a theory. Farm and garden crops on the Station grounds 

 respond to applications of fertilizers. Why do not apples ? The answer 

 probably is, that there is an abundance of plant-food in the soil and 

 the apple plant is pre-eminently able to help itself to what is .set before it. 



That there is an abundance of plant food in most cultivated soil, 

 many chemists now agree. In a wheat field in Rotliamstcd, England, 

 it was found on land cultivated for centuries and then subjected to 54 

 years continuous cropping with wheat without fertilizers, that there 

 was still nutriment enough for a luindred or more full crops. Much 

 of this food is not available but it now seems that by the regulation of 

 the moisture and by putting organic matter in the soil whereby we 

 secure the solvent action of humus and of the bacteria that thrive in 

 humus, much of the unavailable plant food in a soil may be made 

 available. How nnich, it would be an assumption to say, as there seems 

 to be no experiment to prove this point. Indeed, to attempt to prove 

 it M^ould make a, problem so complex as to be almost impossible and so 

 variable for different soils as to require a solution for each particular 

 soil. Notwithstanding the lack of definite proof as to how much of 

 the unavailable plant food in a soil may be made available, it may, I 

 think, be safely said from theoretical deductions that the yearly plowing, 

 the continuous tillage, the well regulated supply of moisture and the 

 addition of humus by plowing under cover-crops, have made available 

 the plant food the apple trees in these two experiments needed. 



A favorite theory regarding fertilizers used to be (it is still held by 

 many) that the composition of the crop is a good guide to the fertilizer 

 requirements of that crop. Very unfortunately, there have been almost 

 no well conducted long continued experiments to ascertain what the fer- 

 tilizer requirements of fruits are. In America, there have been less 

 than a half dozen experiments, planned and carried out for more than 

 two years, that by any stretch of imagination could be called fertilizer 

 experiments. Therefore, having no definite data for the apple as to 

 fertilizer requirements, practically all of our recommendations for fer- 

 tilizing this fruit are based on the differences in the chemical compo- 

 sition of this plant as compared with the composition of grain and 



