THE DIVERSIFIED FARM. 



29 



for a field or orchard fertilizer. Professor 

 Massey has shown in the "Canadian Hor- 

 ticulturist" that the great trade between 

 Canada and the United States in Canadian 

 ashes is profitable only to the transporta- 

 tion companies and the dealers. There is 

 no profit in the business to the farmer 

 who sells the ashes from his farm in Can- 

 ada, or to the farmer who buys it for use 

 as a fertilizer in the United States. 



He found that ashes costing about $5 

 per ton in Canada were sold at certain 

 points in the United States at $15, the 

 difference of $10 per ton being largely 

 made up of freight charges. In such cases 

 Professor Massey found that the Canadian 

 farmer was selling potash from his land 

 at two cents a pound, and that the United 

 States farmer was paying more than six 

 cents a pound, whereas he could get the 

 same substance in other forms at from 

 four and a half to five cents a pound. 

 The business "may be thus summed up: 

 At the prices named the Canadian farmer 

 cannot afford to sell ashes, and the United 

 States farmer cannot afford to buy. 



We sometimes see advertisements of 

 hardwood ashes guaranteed to contain five 

 per cent of potash, and a good many tons 

 have been bought for use in American 

 orchards. Of that grade of ashes, a ton 

 would contain 100 pounds of potash, 

 worth not to exceed $5. From this it will 

 be seen that he who pays much more than 

 $5 for a ton of ashes for fertilizing pur- 

 poses pays too much. 



The amount of muriate of potash im- 

 ported in 1894, was 101,597,074 pounds, 

 valued at $1,540,081. All other forms of 

 potash, except chlorate and nitrate, 

 28,623,629 pounds, worth $702,269. 



Of nitrate of soda (Chili saltpeter) the 

 importations in 1894, were 98,136 tons, 

 valued at $3,189,084. 



PROFIT IN RAISING LARGE FRUITS. 



IN harmony with what THE IRRIGATION 

 AGE has taken occasion to urge time and 

 again, upon deciduous fruit growers in 

 general, the following from the"Canadian 

 Horticulturist " is of interest: 



The material composing large fruit is less 

 costly than that which enters into the composi- 

 tion of small fruit. We use the terms large 

 and small fruit to distinguish specimens of the 

 same variety, as large Lombard plums and 

 small Lombard plums, not to distinguish plums 

 and cherries from grapes and currants. 



Composition of Fruit, Like other vegetable 

 products, fruits are mostly composed of oxygen, 

 hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, potash, soda, mag- 

 nesia, lime, phosphoric acid and sulphuric acid. 

 With the exception of nitrogen, potash, and 

 phosphoric acid, all these elements are abun- 

 dantly supplied by the air or the soil. A defi- 

 ciency of one or more of these three substances 

 impairs the fertility of the soil, which must be 

 restored and maintained by compounds con- 

 taining one or more of these three elements. 

 Each crop taken off the land carries with it a 

 certain amount of these three elements, and 

 lessens by so much the raw material at the 

 command of the farmer. 



Let us apply these principles in reckoning 

 the cost of producing large and small fruit of 

 the same variety. An apple three inches in di- 

 ameter contains twenty-seven times as much 

 substance as one only one inch in diameter, but 

 the skins, cores, and seeds form a much larger 

 percentage of entire substance of the smaller 

 apple than of the larger one. 



By a chemical analysis of the apple we find 

 that the seeds, skins, and cores contain about 

 twice as large a percentage of ash, and five 

 times as large a percentage of nitrogen, as the 

 flesh of the apple does. Not only is the ash of 

 the refuse in greater abundance, but it is also 

 richer in phosphoric acid. These facts show 

 that the soil is more rapidly exhausted by the 

 production of small fruit. 



Injurious to the Tree. The tree is more in- 

 jured by a large crop of small fruit than by an 

 equal weight of large fruit. The fruit tree 

 which bears a heavy crop of small fruit makes 

 very little growth of wood, while one 

 which bears the same weight of large fruit 

 makes sufficient wood-growth. Both the 

 growth of the tree is retarded and its health is 

 much impaired by an undue amount of seed. 

 Besides this, the raising of large fruit is more 

 profitable, because, it commands a higher price 

 in the market. 



An Ingenious Safeguard. George A. 

 Fleming, a fruit grower of Visalia, Cal.,has 

 devised so ingenious, simple and effica- 

 cious a scheme for protecting orchards 

 from frost that it should be known as 

 widely as possible, says the Call. It 

 should be borne in mind that frost occurs 

 only when the air is still. Hence fires 

 built around an orchard will send their 

 heat and vapors straight up into the air, 

 while building them among the trees 

 would be dangerous. 



Mr. Fleming, after various experiments, 

 hit on the following plan. He thus de- 

 scribes it: "We built wire frames on our 

 low truck wagons, stretching them from 

 four wagon stakes and heaping wet ma- 

 nure over them. Dirt was thrown on the 

 wagon beds to protect them, and pots of 

 burning tar were set underneath the straw 

 roof. A barrel of water on the wagon was 

 used to keep the straw wet. These 



