228 



.'-Moiild be at the rate of 250 or 300 pounds per acre, either 

 t.eid phosphate or basic slag:, to supply the phosphoric acid. 

 Assuming again that the soil is light, I sl?duld prefer to use 

 some potash. I should recommend an equivalent of 100 

 pounds muriate of potash, possibly 150 pounds of muriate of 

 i'otash, per acre per annum, and I should also use preferably' 

 i«n the spring, nitrate of soda at the rate of 100 to 150 pounds 

 per acre, and the mixture then would be one of 600 pounds, 

 IJOO pounds of acid phosphate or basic slag, 150 pounds of 

 muriate of potash and 150 pounds of nitrate of soda, the ni- 

 trate to l)e applied preferably in the spring if the soil is 

 f-andy. If the orchard is on heavy land and, as often hap- 

 [)ens in our State, where the ground is inclined to be stony 

 and steep and the tillage of any considerable amount of it is 

 rather impracticable, I should prefer to use some cover crop 

 or animal manure or both reinforced with phosphoric acid. 



MR. PERKINS : Do you mix the 600 pomids together at 

 once? 



PROF. LIP:\rAN: No, for sandy soil I should prefer to 

 ajsply the phosphoric acid and potash in the fall, although 

 that is not absolutely necessary. Because of the character 

 of the mixture used, acid phosphate, nitrate of soda and 

 niuriate of potash, if the season is rainy, it will give you 

 trouble in passing through the fertilizer distributor. In that 

 case it might be well to use, instead of three hundred pounds 

 of acid phosphate, fifty pounds of bone shale and two hun- 

 dred and fifty of acid phosphate and one hundred and fifty 

 of each of the others. If you grow a cover crop, I should 

 prefer to use phosphoric acid and potash in the fall before 

 the cover crop.; it will depend on the size of the trees and 

 the amount of shading. We find that where the shading is 

 bad and the soil is light, the cover crop often fails to give 

 results, especially with the later variety of peaches, there is 

 so nuich tramping that even rye does not amount to much 

 and we have come to think that it would pay us to set our 

 peach trees further apart so as to be able to maintain the 

 vegetable matter in the soil hy means of cover crops. 



