CHAPTER VIII 



FERTILIZER GARDENS 



Offers of special prizes for gardens enriched with 

 commercial fertilizers led to their extensive use, espe- 

 cially by contestants in the eastern states. The season 

 being a very dry one was for that reason unfavorable to 

 chemical manures, since it is claimed that manure of 

 animals improves the drouth-resisting power of the 

 soil. The accounts showing best results from fer- 

 tilizers usually described gardens with soil full of 

 vegetable fiber ; very often it was fresh plowed sod 

 land, and the results give the impression that chemi- 

 cal fertilizers are most profitably used on light, loose, 

 rather moist soils that have been recently in sod. 



In many gardens, fertilizer was lavishly used, one 

 of the offers requiring the application at the rate of 

 two tons per acre. The results often showed that the 

 quantity and quality of the crop justified such an out- 

 lay at the start, while in other cases it failed to pay. 

 From the representative accounts following may be 

 judged something of the various conditions and results 

 in the fertilized gardens : 



The First Priz,c for fertilizer gardens was awarded 

 to E. R. Flagg, Worcester county, Massachusetts. This 

 garden was fresh-turned grass sod, a gravelly, yellow- 

 ish loam worth fifty dollars per acre. The plot con- 

 tained one thousand square feet. It received one hun- 

 dred and fifty pounds high grade fertilizer, besides 

 twenty- two pounds of lime to correct the sourness of 

 the soil. The garden was plowed deeply May 5, and 

 the turned sod well worked with a horse cultivator 



