258 • THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



garden crops. But the fertilizer requirements of fruits can not be cor- 

 rectly apprehended by comparing chemical composition of trees, bushes 

 or vines, with those of grain and garden crops, because their habits of 

 growth are entirely different from those of the other crops. These 

 differences in growth need to be kept in mind whenever the temptation 

 arises to draw comparisons between the fertilization of orchards and of 

 fields or gardens. Let us sum up the chief differences. 



Trees have a preparatory time of several seasons before fruit-bearing 

 begins ; farm and truck crops make their growth, bear a crop aucl pass 

 away for most part in a single season. Trees begin to grow early in the 

 spring and continue until late fall; few annual crops are in active 

 growth more than half the time that leaves and roots of trees are at 

 work. The roots of trees go much deeper and spread relatively farther 

 than do those of succulent crops. Such data as is at hand seems to 

 show that fruit transpires a greater amount of water in proportion to its 

 leaf area than do most succulent plants, which means that the nutritive 

 soil solution may be less concentrated than for grains and vegetables 

 and yet feed the fruits equally well. Fruit crops are from 80 to 90 per 

 cent water and the leaves for most part remain on the ground; in field 

 crops the product has a much higher percentage of solids and the rough- 

 age is not usually returned to the soil. These differences in manner of 

 feeding, and in the crop taken from the ground, to my mind, largely 

 account for the lack of results in applying fertilizers in orchards, while 

 in fields alongside farm crops have abundantly repaid the cost of fer- 

 tilizing them. 



Almost as barren of results as in the apple orchards are experiments 

 carried on with commercial fertilizers for grapes in Chautauqua County, 

 the chief grape region of New York. Fertilizers have been applied in 

 six vineyards on different soils for five years. The results are con- 

 fusing, contradictory, and unsatisfactory, but from them, in vineyards 

 well tilled, only the use of nitrogen as a commercial fertilizer could be 

 encouraged ; phosphorus, potassium and lime were usually wholly inert 

 or so nearly so as not to be profitable. 



Seven otlier experiments, all deciduous tree fruits being included, are 

 under way in different parts of New York, the number of seasons for 

 each varying from one to five. It is too soon to draw conclusions, but 

 the indications are that nitrogen is most often the limiting factor, that 

 phosphorus is only occassionally needed, and that in these New York 

 soils potassium and lime are very seldom needed for fruits. 



AVhat conclusions can be drawn from these several experiments 1 To 

 me they indicate that in orchards and vineyards, if well drained, well 

 tilled, and properly supplied by organic matter from stable manure or 

 cover-crops, commercial fertilizers are little needed. The exceptions 

 will largely be found on sandy and gravelly soils deficient in potassium 

 and the phosphates and very subject to droughts; or on soils of such 

 mechanical texture as to lim'it the root range of the_ plants ; or in soils 

 so wet or so dry, or so devoid of humus, or so close in texture that soil 

 bacteria do not thrive. These exceptions mean for most part that a soil 

 possessing them is unfitted for fruit culture. There may be some 

 orchards now receiving good care and planted on naturally good soil 

 that require additions of one or possibly two of the chief elements of 

 plant food. Few, indeed, require a complete fertilizer. AYhat these 



