METHODS OF APPLYING FERTILIZERS 149 



plant, delay or reduce fruiting, injure the quality of the fruit, and 

 possibly engender disease in the tree or vine. Monstrous size and 

 puffiness of oranges is clearly due in some cases to excess nitrogenous 

 manures. Excessive use of soluble fertilizers like nitrate of soda may 

 kill plants or trees outright. 



The effect of excessive use of stable manures, or other manures 

 very rich in nitrogen, upon the products of the vine has been frequently 

 noted as destructive to bouquet and quality. 



METHODS OF APPLYING FERTILIZERS 



Suggestions concerning proper application of barnyard manures, 

 both to young trees at planting and to bearing trees and vines, have 

 already been given. The same conditions which cause slow decomposi- 

 tion of stable manures apply to any fertilizing material which is not 

 readily soluble in water. All such material should be in a finely divided 

 state. Surface applications of ground bone will, in the dry climate of 

 California, lie practically unchanged for a long period. Ground bone 

 should be plowed in as deeply as can be done without injury to the 

 roots of trees and vines, and then, if the surface is kept cultivated, it 

 will lie in moist strata and decompose, or be seized by the searching 

 rootlets. On the other hand, super-phosphate, or other really soluble 

 chemical fertilizers, will produce immediate results, and can be most 

 economically used on light and easily permeable soils, on which falling 

 water sinks and does not flow over the surface. In leachy soils a part 

 of such fertilizers might be carried down beyond the reach of shallow- 

 rooting plants, but there is little danger of this in the case of trees 

 and vines. 



When superphosphate is used on irrigated ground, it is sometimes 

 drilled in to prevent its being carried along with the running water. 

 One way is to run a chisel-tooth cultivator ahead of the drill and to 

 drill in the fertilizer as deep as feasible to do without injuring the 

 roots. Spring application of fertilizers are conveniently made by 

 spreading upon the vegetation which is plowed under at that season. 



Manures with Irrigation Water. Distribution of fertilizers by 

 using the flow of irrigation water is described by A. S. Chapman, 

 as follows: 



We shovel sheep manure into the irrigating ditches, allowing each tree to 

 receive about twenty-five pounds at each separate irrigation. Our basins cover 

 the entire surface of the ground. We make no effort to choke such weeds as 

 clover, alfilerilla, and the like; but the irrigator with his hoe destroys the 

 obnoxious nightshade, hoarhound, and nettle. 



In the fall of the year we follow with copious liming about three barrels of 

 unslacked lime to the acre applied in the following manner at the head of our 

 irrigating ditch : We plant a box (about three feet wide, six feet long, two 

 feet deep) six inches under the surface of the running water. In it we place a 

 barrel of the lime. It slacks and swells to twice its original bulk. A man stands 

 on this with his hoe and sees that the water carries it off evenly. With an 

 irrigating head such as we use, a man will run into the ditch four barrels a day, 

 or about three barrels to the acre. We have a considerable fall, and the water 

 runs very rapidly; but it takes up all the lime and the water runs white, like 

 milk. 



