82 ASPARAGUS 
and it was therefore generally believed that liberal 
quantities of salt were a necessity to its successful 
growth. Experience has shown, however, that its 
presence is not at all necessary for its growth, and 
that the reason that a bed to which salt has been 
applied shows quickened and improved growth is that 
the salt dissolves out of the soil plant food which, 
without the presence of the salt, would have become 
too slowly reduced to available condition for producing 
good crops. The salt acted practically as a stimulant 
and added nothing except chlorine and soda, neither 
of which in any considerable quantity is essential for 
growing this crop. It is this dissolving action that 
takes place in the soil whenever any soluble salt or 
fertilizer, like kainit, potash salts, acid phosphates, 
etc., be applied to the soil, that is often mistaken for 
amanuring one. ‘The result is an exhaustion, nct a 
strengthening, of the soil. The crop is grown at the 
expense of the limited supply of food that the soluble 
salt can act upon. ‘The fertilizer has a¢ted practically 
as a stimulant.’’ 
