222 GARDEN AND FARM TOPICS. 



or a grocery clerk to run either of these businesses, if he 

 were ignorant himself of the grocery or dry-goods trade ? 

 There is no more true adage, applied to horticulture as 

 a business, than that 



" He who by the plow would thrive, 

 Himself must either hold or drive ; " 



for he who attempts any branch of it, dependent upon the 

 knowledge of others, without taking a hold himself to 

 attain that knowledge, is almost certain to come to grief. 

 A class of scientific men, at the present time, are 

 greatly exercising the minds of a large portion of the 

 professional farmers and gardeners, as well as amateurs, 

 in the matter of fertilizers. These gentlemen have dis- 

 covered that certain kinds of plants have their structure 

 composed of different elements, and their aim is to put 

 in the soil the elements that are found in the several 

 families of plants. Some dealers in fertilizers advertise 

 not less than thirty different kinds, which they claim are 

 specially adapted for so many kinds of plants. Thus, 

 the Orange grower of Florida is told that a special ma- 

 nure is to be found in the " Orange Fertilizers," manu- 

 factured in New York or Philadelphia, and, if he has 

 faith in the claim, is induced to freight a material which 

 is no better, for the purpose wanted, than what may 

 be bought at less cost at his door. So, too, the 

 Tobacco grower of Kentucky, the Potato grower of New 

 York, or the Wheat growers of far-off Minnesota or 

 California, are told by so-called science that there are 

 fertilizers specially adapted for these crops. I do not 

 for a moment dispute that the special fertilizers claimed 

 for special crops do not answer for these crops ; but that 

 these specialties are a necessity is the point questioned. 

 There are few practical agriculturists but believe that, 



