35 



organic manures applied for the current season can be generally 

 regarded as coming into active play. 



If the winter should have happened to be a wet one, the nitrates 

 formed during the previous year have probably been washed away 

 to such an extent that the plant in its earlier stages of the season's 

 growth may be suffering for lack of readily available nitrogen, despite 

 the recent application of organic manures which have not yet assumed 

 an active condition ; and this state of things is still more likely to 

 occur if, in addition to a wet winter, there should happen to be a late 

 or cold spring. In such circumstances as these much assistance may 

 be rendered by a dressing of nitrate of soda, which the first shower 

 of rain renders immediately available for the use of the plant. 



This special utility of nitrate of soda in hop manuring has been 

 overlooked until recent years. Indeed, this particular manure which, 

 as need scarcely be observed, has long been in general and extensive 

 use for ordinary farm crops was for a long time regarded with an 

 unfriendly eye both by hop growers and by hop consumers as being 

 likely to produce a rank growth of bine at the expense of quality, and 

 even quantity of crop. This view was no doubt partly based on the 

 experience of those who had applied nitrate of soda without a 

 sufficient quantity of mineral manures (phosphates and potash salts) ; 

 but more especially, perhaps, on the experience of those who erred 

 by applying nitrate of soda too late in the season. Formerly, indeed, 

 when the hop grower did have recourse to nitrate of soda it was as an 

 application late in the season to stimulate a backward plant. Such 

 late applications, no doubt, may have the effect of rapid feeding and 

 consequent stimulation of the bine ; but, unfortunately, they are 

 likely to have the result of unduly delaying the ripening period, and 

 often of causing the hops to ripen unequally, and any hop grower of 

 experience knows that late and unequal ripening are seldom 

 consistent with excellence of quality. 



Of late years, however, owing largely to the interest which has 

 been taken, not only by hop growers but also by factors, merchants 

 and brewers, in the results of the experiments about to be briefly 

 described, the general attitude towards nitrate of soda bis been 

 greatly modified. To the knowledge of the present writer nitrate of 



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