PROPER DISTRIBUTION OF FERTILIZERS 

 IN THE SOIL. 



T may not be considered an impor- 

 tant matter by many who use 

 commercial fertilizers, as to how 

 much opportunity they give them 

 to dissolve and distribute their fertility 

 where all the roots of the crops can get 

 it, but it is a matter that should receive 

 the most careful consideration by all 

 farmers, and be carefully worked out, 

 practically, on every farm where these 

 manures are used. 



It is a very common practice, when 

 planting potatoes, corn and other crops 

 that are usually cultivated in hills or 

 close drills, to put all the fertilizer in 

 the hills or rows. When we come to 

 think of the very small space that a fer- 

 tilizer so placed will occupy even when 

 entirely dissolved, compared with the 

 space the roots occupy, the folly of the 

 plan can easily be seen. If we were to 

 put a handful of almost any commercial 

 fertilizer in a potato or corn hill at 

 planting time, it would need to be dis- 

 solved before it could be of any service 

 to the plants when they grow. How 

 much water would be needed to pro- 

 perly dissolve it ? Perhaps a thousand 

 times more in measure than the fertil- 

 izer. We cannot live upon clear molas- 

 ses, nor upon oil, nor upon any other 

 equally concentrated food alone. No 

 more can a plant live upon solutions of 

 nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, 

 that are more than five hundred times 

 stronger than they should be. The hu- 

 man system would soon have a disease 

 that we call indigestion or dyspepsia. 

 And, why may not plants have indiges- 

 tion ? Indeed these solutions are so 

 strong in some cases that they actually 

 cause the death of the tender plantlets. 

 Even seeds may be killed by the caustic 



characted of the strong acids and alkalis 

 that come in contact with them. 



But while a part of the soil may be 

 overcharged with fertilizing material, by 

 far the larger part of it is needing it, 

 when we think of how far the roots of 

 our crops extend ; how they permeate 

 every inch of the soil, in most cases, in 

 their search for moisture, and food, it is 

 very easy to see how needful it is that 

 the food should be there for them to lay 

 hold upon. Not only does the plant 

 need enough to start it in its growth 

 while the roots are yet all in the hill, 

 but it needs it all the way through life. 



There need be no fear that the fertil- 

 ity will be lost by being scattered 

 throughout all parts of the soil that will 

 finally be within reach of the roots. 

 They will find all in due timC; and it 

 will be much better for the crop in the 

 end, than if it were all put where the 

 roots may reach it in the first few weeks 

 of their growth. The feeding area of 

 the roots is greatly increased as the sea- 

 son advances. I have seen whole sur- 

 face soils of a corn field so netted with 

 tiny rootlets after cultivation had been 

 stopped that a small knife blade could 

 not be run into theground without cut- 

 ting some of them, and the same thing is 

 true of most potato fields, if properly 

 conducted. 



The fruit grower needs do some 

 thinking on this same line. The roots 

 of his trees and vines go all over the 

 ground, and in many cases the orchard 

 trees and other things are planted so 

 close together that they interlock in 

 their hungry chase for moisture and 

 fertility that they have a noiseless but no 

 less real war underground. It is the 

 survival of the fittest, indeed, and 



35° 



