4.3 THE FRUIT GROWER'S GUIDE. 



deficiencies of soil constituents can only be ascertained by analysis, and it is often 

 difficult even then to ascertain what are the ingredients it is essential to apply. Yet an 

 analysis of soil by a competent authority is a great aid to the cultivator. It expresses 

 the fitness of the soil or otherwise for the profitable growth of fruit, denotes the 

 degree of its probable remunerative employment, indicates the lines on which the 

 after-management as regards manures must be conducted, and does away with the 

 uncertainties and perplexities of having to find out by experiment or empirical 

 methods the soil's capabilities of production, and the measure of its suitability for a 

 special crop. 



Not only is a knowledge of the soil's capabilities or deficiencies for the production of 

 crops essential to the general purposes of cultivation, but it becomes more apparent when 

 applied to special objects of culture. All plants take from the soil constituents in the 

 building of their structure, converting inorganic into organic matter. These in Nature 

 are for the most part restored, so that soils naturally are not impoverished, but through 

 the accumulation of animal and other organic remains, increase in fertility. In cultiva- 

 tion this state of things is reversed. Every crop removed represents so much loss of 

 soil constituents. In the case of fruit trees the wood takes some, the leaves more, and 

 the fruit most of the mineral substances (except lime) abstracted by the roots. The 

 amount of potash, soda, magnesia, lime, iron, phosphorus, sulphur, and silica taken off 

 the ground in the shape of fruit from an acre of trees in full crop is very great, and in 

 the course of years enormous ; and as this does not represent the whole that is taken 

 away when the trees are in grass, and that cut and removed, we get the key to the 

 decrepid condition of so many orchard trees. Happily, a very different state of things 

 obtains in gardens, and in some of them more fertility is returned to the soil in the 

 form of manure than has been removed by the crops. An excess of manure is more 

 prolific of wood than of fruit. To prevent disaster and practise successfully, cultiva- 

 tors must have recourse to the resources of science. Apples may be taken as illustrative. 

 Wolff, the great authority, gives in his Aschen Analr/sen, the following constituents of 

 the wood of the apple: Potash 12-0, soda 1-6, magnesia 5-7, lime 71-0, phosphorus 

 4-6, sulphur 2-9, silica 1-8, and chlorine 0-2 percent. The constituents of the fruit 

 will be found on page 53. 



Those results point to the need of lime phosphates and potash as most desirable and 

 necessary in the cultivation of apples, and this is well attested in practice. The other ele- 

 ments are, as regards culture, and particularly garden culture, usually given in ordinary 



