272 



California Station, Bulletin No. 88, October 6, 1890 (pp. 4). 



The use of fertilizers in California, E. W. Hilgard, Ph. 

 J). — Prom the increasing correspondence on the subject, the author 

 concludes that soils in that State which have long been occupied or heav- 

 ily cropped are beginning to require serious care to maintain or restore 

 their productiveness. 



In a great many instances the failure to produce satisfactory crops is not at all due 

 to soil exhaustion, but to improper physical conditions of the subsoils, unsuitable 

 cultivation or irrigation, alkali, etc. The fact that orchards and vineyards form 

 costly investments of much greater permanence than the annual crops that occupy 

 the vast majority of the cultivated land east of the Eocky Mountains, and the high 

 returns so often realized from them, have brought the manure question forward here 

 much earlier than has usually been the case in the United States. * * * In order 

 to fertilize intelligently we must know first of all what ingredients are chiefly drawn 

 upon by the crop sold off the laud; secondly, we must know which of these ingredi- 

 ents are so abundantly present in the soil (or irrigation water, as the case may be) as 

 to render their replacement unnecessary for the present at least. 



Estimates of the quantities of fertilizing ingredients taken off by 

 average crops of grapes, oranges, pears, plums, and apples, mostly 

 based on European analyses, are given, followed by a discussion of the 

 importance of analysis of soils and irrigation waters, and the needs of 

 soils of different sections of California. 



The great majority of soils in this State, more especially nearly all valley soils, 

 and absolutely all soils in which there is the least manifestation of alkali, contain an 

 abundance of available potash for all agricultural purposes^ so much so that dis- 

 solved potash salts frequently circulate in the soil water. Most irrigation waters 

 furnish an additional supply, sometimes enough of itself to make up for all that crops 

 take away. * * * Phosphoric acid is one of the substances to be first suspected 

 of exhaustion in the non-alkaline soils of California; it is therefore an ingredient 

 that should be prominent in all compound commercial fertilizers and which will be 

 found to pay in most cases of decreasing production. * * * From climatic causes 

 humus is rarely abundant in the upland soils of the State, and very generally its 

 amounts may be said to be small. This is especially true of the mesa soils of the 

 South— those best adapted to the growth of the citrus fruits — and hence it is reason- 

 able to suppose that a lack of nitrogen will be among the first things to be appre- 

 hended when that fruit shrinks in size and production fails on these soils. 



The forms of nitrogenous fertilizers are described and directions given 

 for the use of these, and of bones. "This station has no direct or 

 definite knowledge of the quality or ' trueness to name' of anj- of the 

 commercial fertilizers now sold in this State." The desirability of a fer- 

 tilizer control is urged. 



Connecticut State Station, Bulletin No. 104, October, 1890 (pp. 20). 



Fertilizer analyses. — Tabulated analyses of 65 samples of nitro- 

 genous sui)erphosphates and guanos, and 33 of special manures collected 

 by special agents of th^ station in all parts of the State during April 

 and May, 1890. 



