240 



your feeling that your fertilizer prices have gone up very 

 much, to at least offer you the consolation of telling you 

 that all those increases in prices, with the exception of the 

 nitrate situation, are for the account of the Americans en- 

 tirely, you are taking it out of one hand and putting it in 

 the other. Whether you'd rather have the money or let the 

 Jertilizer companies have it is for you to decide, 



MR. SMITH: I have in mind a Seckle pear tree and ii 

 Las been liberally provided with stable manure, ground 

 bone and wood ashes and refuse from the garden, so it ought 

 to be in good condition, but the tree has not grown for the 

 last seven years, it is not any larger now than it was then. 

 Now I should like to ask what is the matter? And the cur- 

 rants are the same way, they don't grow. 



PROF. LIPMAN: I should not think, from your de- 

 scription, that it is a plant food difficulty, because you stat- 

 ed that you had used in addition to stable manure, wood 

 as'hes and bone meal, but on the other hand I receive a good 

 many complaints in the course of the year, from people in 

 our State Avho have small gardens, and the story seems to 

 be the same, "We used to grow good crops, we use manure, 

 two or three loads of manure every year on a small garden, 

 but now we have gotten to a point where, the more manure 

 we use, the worse it gets." Now and then we get a sort of 

 a soil indigestion where Ave use too much organic matter. 

 Whether that is your case or not, I don't know, but if it is 

 not, then I should be inclined to ascribe the difficulty to an 

 injury either l)y disease germs or some mechanical injury of 

 the roots or some material in the subsoil, a hardpan of some 

 sort, or possibly the water table being too near the surface. 

 There may be various reasons entirely apart from plant food 

 why crops would not thrive. 



MR. SMITH: Would you advise trying lime? 



PROF. LIPMAN : With the wood ashes that you use and 

 I'one meal I should not imagine it would be a case of acidity, 

 still, not knowing the exact conditions, I am not able to find 

 the cause. 



