78 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Professor Stockbridge in relation to special fertilizers for roses, and 

 was of opinion that the use of iron in some form is desirable. He 

 had seen fugitive paragraphs recommending its use. "Whatever 

 the color of roses there is always a notable presence of iron in the 

 flowers. It also gives vigor to the growth and color to the foliage. 

 He believed, also, that the exhalations from ammonia, placed on the 

 pipes in the greenhouse, were advantageous. 



The subject of " Fertilizers," assigned for this meeting, was then 

 taken up, and John B. Moore was called on as a cultivator who, 

 whether he showed a rose, a strawberry, or a grape, had evidently 

 given it something to eat which it liked. 



Mr. Moore said that the question how to get manure is the most 

 important one which farmers and gardeners have to meet today. 

 We can grow crops if we can get manure, but the manure must not 

 cost more than the crops. There is a difference of opinion among 

 cultivators as to stable manure and chemical fertilizers. Some say 

 " we will use onl}^ manure," meaning animal excrements, and some 

 sa}' " we will use only chemical fertilizers." In the view of the 

 speaker both classes were wrong. He believed that every farmer 

 should save all the dung and other waste of the farm for manure, 

 and bu}' all that his means would allow. But this source of manure 

 is soon exhausted, yet the farmer finds the wants of his land un- 

 supplied, and he must have something more. From his own ex- 

 perience and from the study of scientific books an intelligent farmer 

 will come to the conclusion that each crop must have some special 

 fertilizer. There is no doubt that certain crops require a larger 

 amount of some particular element than is supplied by stable ma- 

 nure. Onions, for instance, require a large quantit}" of potash, as 

 is shown not only bj' chemical analysis, but b}- the fact that there 

 is no better fertilizer for onions than wood ashes. They also re- 

 quire sulphur, and this and the potash may be conveniently applied 

 in the form of sulphate of potash. The speaker advised farmers, 

 instead of buying mixed fertilizers, of the genuineness of which 

 they could not tell anything, to buy the particular articles which 

 their crops need. Dealers say "If you will apply the complete 

 fertilizer you will be all right," but they know nothing of the various 

 soils to which it is to be applied, and are like a ph3sician attempt- 

 ing to prescribe for a patient fift}- miles away. Farmers sliould not 

 leave it to other men to tell them what they should themselves know 



