March, 1922. 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



51 



i: 



Fertilizers For The Amateur 



E. S. Archibald, B.A., B.S.A., Director, C. E. F., Ottawa 



cultivation of the soil for moisture con- 



VEN amateur gardeners must 

 have constantly in mind the 

 three important factors of pro- 

 duction, that is, increasing production, 

 improving the quality and decreasing 

 the cost. The essential requirement for 

 these is to have the soil in proper phy- 

 sical condition and containing the nec- 

 essary fertilizing ingredients in an 

 available form. The study of the above 

 problems, then, is of just as great im- 

 portance to the amateur gardener as 

 to his professional fellow. 



Soils for Gardening 



The ideal garden soil is a rich, friable 

 loam. Unfortunately, however, this 

 ideal is not available to the majority of 

 those wishing to grow garden crops. 

 Hence, it is imperative that the soil 

 available, whatever it may be, either 

 sand, clay, muck or any combination 

 of these, must be so treated and so 

 modified that good results may be ob- 

 tained. The day is past when it was 

 considered that only a special type of 

 soil was suitable for garden crops. 

 Modern methods of handling soils will 

 permit of profitable crops being har- 

 vested from any type of soil which may 

 (e available. 

 Time does not permit us to go into 

 ny lengthy discussion upon the im- 

 ortance of thorough cultivation of 

 )il, rotation of crops and proper drain- 

 ge, but every good gardener should 

 thoroughly undei'stand the importance 

 of these. What may be emphasized 

 here in this regard is that proper culti- 

 vation includes fall plowing or dig- 

 !iing, working the manure thoroughly 

 into the soil at that time and leaving 

 the land in good shape for spring work. 

 It also includes thorough and constant 



servation, destruction of weeds and 

 liberation of plant food from early 

 spring until the crop has covered the 

 ground. 



Fertilizers 



The fertilizers used are of the utmost 

 importance and warrant the most care- 

 ful study, since a large percentage of 

 amateur gardeners are doing so at a 

 loss, either because of insufficient use 

 or using fertilizers which are unsuited 

 to their soils or crop conditions. The 

 most important requirement of any fer- 

 tilizer is that it contain the main fer- 

 tilizing ingredients, namely, nitrogen, 

 phosphoric acid and potash in propor- 

 tions suitable to soil and crop and in 

 the form available as needed. 



Analysis show that the first nine 

 inches of our medium to poor soils con- 

 tain 2 per cent, nitrogen, 1 per cent, 

 phosphoric acid and 3 per cent, potash, 

 or a total amount per acre of 5,000 

 pounds nitrogen, 2,500 pounds phos- 

 phoric acid and 7,500 pounds potash. 



Considering that a crop of 200 bush- 

 els of potatoes per acre contains only 

 42 pounds nitrogen, 18 pounds phos- 

 phoric acid and 60 pounds potash, it is 

 seen that such a crop takes, even from 

 our poorer soils, a relatively small per- 

 centage of their actual fertilizer con- 

 tent. The reason why a proper appli- 

 cation of manure or fertilizer, or both, 

 to such soils stimulates production 

 from 15 per cent to, in an extreme case 

 200 per cent, is owing to the availabil- 

 ity of the fertilizing ingredients thus 

 applied. ' 



Unfortunately, we can not giye this 

 subject the detailed study it deserves 

 here, but I would emphasize the need 



of everyone intending to garden study- 

 ing carefully the values of manures and 

 fertilizers, the time to apply them and 

 the amounts to apply, not only to suit 

 his or her particular soil, but also the 

 type of crop to be grown, since each 

 type of crop has its own requirements. 

 Value of Barnyard Manure 

 The value of this cannot be over- 

 estimated. Barnyard manure is the 

 most important source of soil fertility 

 which we have. It contains, per ton, 

 twelve pounds of nitrogen, four pounds 

 of phosphoric acid and ten pounds of 

 phosphoric acid and ten pounds of pot- 

 ash. These amounts vary more or less 

 according to the source of supply and 

 the care with which the manure has 

 been handled and applied. Above all, 

 it is the source of humus or decaying 

 vegetable matter which is of even 

 greater importance to the soil than are 

 the fertilizing elements themselves 

 supplied by the manure. Humus, in 

 its turn, is a source of nitrogen and, in 

 fact, is the regulating factor in the pre- 

 servation of nitrogen and its liberation 

 as nitrates in the soil. In gardening 

 the physical effects of humus are most 

 important to plant growth, and finally, 

 its biological effects are controlling 

 factors as to whether the soil is to be a 

 "dead" one or "live" one, that is, a 

 soil in which bacterial organisms are 

 making available the fertilizing in- 

 gredients. 



Commercial Fertilizers 



Neither will time permit us here to 

 enter upon a detailed discussion of 

 commercial fertilizers. We caii only 

 again emphasize that this subject de- 

 mands the most careful study. It may, 

 however, be said here that as yet our 

 knowledge of commercial fertilizers is 

 only fragmentary, hence each gardener 

 must study his or her own gardening 

 conditions in the endeavor to ascertain 

 what commercial fertilizer will best 



... ; ;. 1922. 



II i-'-[)r<-scnt«-u ovt'F J ,iij .-oci'-ii'ff. Willi a coiiibiiieu metnbi-rshlp of 

 inenl la anticipated during this comlnrt year. 



•000. During the past year, 25 new sncli-t'.pa 



