150 



IRISH GARDENING 



OCTORl.R 



subjocls of study ill scliool _i;;iiili'iis mii;lil he iim-Iu1 to 

 those who are ahi>ady iMiiifa^-i'il in tlu> U-ailiiii); of rural 

 science. 



Besides the routine operations of a >;-aiden at this 

 time of year, whicli will be found detailed elsewiu-n- in 

 this paper, there are many interestinj,'- tliinifs to note — 

 the various forms K^f fruit produced by plants and tiie 

 arranijement of the seeds in the fruit ; the way in which 

 the different fruits open and their seeds are distributed ; 

 the winjfed fruits of some trees (ash, sycamore, and 

 elm) and the silky hairs on the fruits of many composites 

 are interestintf structures to facilitate seed dispersion. 

 Collections of weed seeds mitrht be made by the 

 children. 



The reg-ion in which plants store their reserve food 

 should be noted, and the structures of the various 

 storage organs — roots, rhizomes, bulbs, tubers, and 

 corms — compared. Later on the fall of the leaf will 

 afford an interesting- study. 



G. O. SllKKKAKI). 



Autumn Manuring of Fruit 



Trees. 



" It is indispensable th.1t every plant should find in the soil 

 in which it grows those inorganic constitiienls which nature 

 has rendered necessary to it " — Lindley. 



A S fruit culture is now so rapidly extending in this 

 /~\ country, and as the intelligent manuring of 

 fruit trees is a factor of great importance in the 

 management of an orchard, a chapter upon manurial 

 treatment will doubtless be useful to many of our 

 readers. The kind of manure as well as the quantity to 

 apply will, of course, depend not only upon the nature 

 of the soil but also upon the character of the trees. 

 But even so there are certain fixed principles applying 

 to all soils and all kinds of fruit that ought to be well 

 understood by growers, and it is these principles rather 

 than precise details that we are at present anxious to 

 explain. 



The soil, it should be remembered, is not simply a 

 mass of inert matter ; it is, in fact, a great natural labora- 

 tory in which things are being constantly changed 

 under the. influence of air and bacteria. The changes 

 of importance to cultivators are those that result in the 

 formation of compounds required in the nutrition of 

 plants. With the exception of carbon the soil supplies 

 the plant with everything it requires in the way of food. 

 "With good reason the soil is called mother," sii3s 

 Lucretius, "since all things have been produced out of 

 it." 



It is a well established fact that under natural con- 

 ditions soils have the power of maintaining their 

 fertility, but when subjected to systematic cropping a 

 large quantity of material removed by the crop is taken 

 away from the soil and, hence it is made poorer by just 

 so much. For example, a ton of apples will remove 

 about nine pounds and a ton of grapes as much as forty- 

 six pounds of minerals from the soil. Some of these 

 minerals are plentiful in soils, while others are relatively 

 scarce. Those that are necessary and scarce are, of 



coursi-. till' most important from the cultivator's point 

 of view, .\sarule, only two minerals are valuable in 

 this rest rid I'll sense — these are potash and phosphoric 

 ;nid. In addition to minerals the soil supplies the 

 pl.ml with nitrogen cither in the form of nitrate oi' ;i 

 salt oi ammonia, and these available nitrogen com- 

 poimds are. as a rule, also present to a limited extent. 

 These are only general rules, however, and do not apply 

 to all soils. For example, many clays are particularly 

 rich, in potash while other soils may have quite an 

 oxjeptional amount of either phosphatic or nitrogenous 

 coinpouiuls. It follows, therefore, that whether an\ 

 particular kind of fruit tree growing on any particular 

 kind of soil will benefit from the application of any 

 [larticular kind of manure can only be discovered by 

 experiment. Hence one of the very first things a fruit 

 grower should find out is the name of the particular 

 food element that his orchard land is weakest in, as it 

 is that element that will most of all determine the 

 natural fertility of the soil and the weight of the crop. 

 The first principle then in manuring is to supply such 

 essential food substances as the plant needs and the 

 soil itself fails to supply in sufficient abundance to the 

 growing crop. A gardener can only find this out by 

 trials. It is ea.sy, for example, to try the effect of, sa}-, 

 a potash salt upon a young apple tree, and note if it 

 makes any difference between it and a similar tree from 

 which potash i-s withheld. By a number of intelligent 1\ 

 planned trials a good deal of valuable soil knowledgi 

 can be gained in a few seasons. 



The composition of different kinds of manures ami 

 their respective physiological use to the plant are 

 matters that ought, of course, to be clearly understood. 

 Some manures supply only one kind of essential sub- 

 stance—nitrogen, phosphate or potash — while others 

 contain two or, as in the case of guano or farmyanl 

 manure, all three. These latter are called complcii' 

 manures. As to the influence exerted by the different 

 kinds of manurial substances the following facts shoukl 

 be remembered : — 



Ni/rogt')i tends to increase the growth of root, 

 stem and foliage. It therefore encourages shoot 

 production, and is usefid in the case of trees that are 

 stunted or otherwise, not making good growth, but 

 ought not to be given in cases where trees are already 

 making too much "wood." It is wasteful to apply 

 nitrate or ammonium salts in autumn, as being very 

 soluble tlie\- will get washed out during the winter rains 

 .Spring is the best time, as roots have then a difihculty in 

 getting a sufficiency of nitrate until the soil gets 

 warmer and nitrification begins with the advance of the 

 year. Some discretion is needed in the use of nitro- 

 genous manures, as an excess may be harmful, and 

 especially so if there is a lack of the necessary minerals. 

 Furtherinore, an excess renders a tree more susceptible 

 to disease. 



Phosphates, unlike nitrogenous manures, encourage 

 sturdy grow'th and the development of flower buds. 

 They also tend to improve the quality of fruit. \'ery 

 few soils are overstocked with phosphates, and fruit 

 growers can hardly err in applying phosphatic manures 

 to their trees. Of artificial manures supplying phos- 

 phorous the three commonest are superphosphate of 

 lime, basic slag and bone meal. For clays basic slag is 



