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ingredients but actual experience taught the farmer and 

 those who experimented with fertilizers, that it is not only 

 a question of the amount contained '^in the plant substance, 

 but the circulation of the plant food in the soil, and in 

 orchard fertilizers we have to face this very question and 

 we have to consider not only how much plant food there is 

 in the soil, but how fast that plant food may be made avail- 

 able; and therefore if you can make the plant food in the 

 £>oil available fast enough, and if the natural supplies in the 

 soil are great, the introduction of plant food from outside 

 sources may not seem to be necessary. I want' to make that 

 particular point quite emphatic. It depends on the natural 

 supplies, in the first place, and on the rate at which the soil 

 supply may be changed into such forms as may be accessible 

 to the crops. For this reason, the fruit grower will concern 

 himself, in the first place, with such methods as Avill enable 

 I'.im to utilize in a more thorough way, the plant food in the 

 soil. 



Prof. Gourley is here from the New Hampshire Station, 

 tind he was telling me this morning that fertilizers on the 

 granitic soils in their orchards did not seem to show much 

 increase in the production of apples. Prof. Hedrick, of the 

 Geneva Station, had experienced something of the same 

 sort, but Prof. Gourley will admit to you, as will Prof. 

 Hedrick or Prof. Stewart, of the Pennslyvania Experiment 

 Station, that after all is said and done, orchards that are 

 tilled will produce more fruit and better fruit than orchards 

 that are not tilled, and there may be a few striking excep- 

 lions of tillage, and Ur. Thatcher pointed out 100 years ago 

 that tillage simply stimulates those chemical and bacterio- 

 logical changes in the soil which make for the production of 

 larger amounts of available plant food, and unless you can 

 have fertilization beyond the actual needs of crops, you are 

 rot going to get the best results nor the largest crops. We 

 have more than enough. Tillage then is one of the factors 

 which, I believe, progressive fruit growers will recognize as 

 essential in successful production. 



