Timely Hints for Farmers. 287 



Station for fertilizing orange orchards, and is believed to be in 

 every way suited to the purpose. It should be applied at the rate 

 of from 500 to 1500 pounds to the acre, according to age of trees 

 and quality of soil, and "plowed in deeply at the edge of the 

 branches, about the beginning of the growing season." 



Formula. 



6 per cent nitrogen, from organic material, 



1 per cent nitrogen, from nitrate of soda, 



iy 2 per cent potash, from sulphate of potash, 



6 x /2 per cent available phosphoric acid, — 

 which in certain cases can be compounded with economy by the 

 farmer himself from the following materials : 



1000 pounds 10 per cent bone tankage, 



140 pounds nitrate of soda, 



60 pounds sulphate of potash, 



800 pounds dissolved bone (16 per cent available phosphoric 

 acid). 



A home-made fertilizer resembling this in composition would 

 result from the accumulation of bones, carcasses and slaughter- 

 house refuse, dried, worked up and preserved, as suggested, and 

 would result in saving at least a part of the expense of chemical 



fertilizers. 



W. W. Skinner, 



Assistant Chemist. 



WILD BARLEY. 

 No. 32, May 15. 



There is now maturing in Southern Arizona the seed of a 

 grass that should be destroyed as promptly and as thoroughly as 

 practicable. It is known in this region most commonly as "fox- 

 tail." There are about a dozen grasses in the United States 

 known as foxtails, but the one called by this name in Arizona is 

 not so called in many of the other parts of the world to which it 

 has spread from Europe, the place of its origin. It belongs to 

 the same genus as our common cultivated barley, and is simply a 

 wild barley. Cultivated barley was called hordeum by the Ro- 



