60 MANAGEMENT OF THE FORCING-HOUSE. 
is required to fill the bench 8 inches deep with soil. Ex- 
periments are now in progress to determine whether the 
use of peat is necessary. About 1o pounds of commercial 
fertilizers are needed for this bench space, costing, at pres- 
ent ruling ton rates, less than 21 cents. The cost of these 
things is to be compared with the cost of providing a con- 
siderably greater weight of rich compost containing a large 
relative amount of stable manure. In very many cases, the 
cost of filling the benches with the artificial soil must be 
very much less than the cost of filling them with rich garden 
soil. 
“The greatest expense in running a forcing-house is the 
artificial heat required, and for this reason, quick growth 
and early maturity are extremely desirable. Regarding the 
relative availability of the potash and phosphates in compost 
and in commercial fertilizers, we know little, but it is very 
certain that the nitrogen of composts is slowly available as 
compared with the nitrogen of nitrates. Our tomato tests 
showed, too, very clearly, that plants in natural soil made 
much slower growth and were slower in fruiting than those 
in artificial soil supplied with nitrates. Though the former 
were set fully three weeks earlier, both began fruiting at the 
same time.’” 
The general summary of all the results of fertilizing the 
tomatoes is as follows: 
““t. A forcing-house tomato crop yielding about two 
pounds of fruit for each square foot of bench room, takes, 
in the vines and fruit, for every hundred square feet of 
bench space, not less than: 
Grams. Lbs. Oxzs. 
Nitrogen. ..... 168 Equivalent to Nitrate of soda 2 5 
Phosphoricacid .. 65 s ‘“ Dissolved bone black o 13 
Potash cro... e ees 362 = ‘* Muriate of potash I 9 
‘Of this from a fourth to a fifth only is in the vines. 
“2. To enable the plants to get these fertilizer elements 
as required, there should be a large excess of them in the 
soil, perhaps double the quantity given above. 
