268 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



light dressing of 50 pounds per acre of nitrate of soda at time of setting the 

 plants, on the surface around them, but not in contact with the roots. Xo 

 further dressing will be needed and for this climate this is far better than 

 a heavy application of a complete commercial fertilizer. In old gardens that 

 have been manured for years with stable manure, we would use no nitrogenous 

 fertilizer whatever, but would use a good dressing of acid phosphate and 

 potash, say 400 pounds of acid phosphate and 100 pounds of sulphate of 

 potash per acre. 



We would note that in the South the organic forms of nitrogen in a 

 tomato fertilizer are of far more importance than in the North. Otherwise, 

 in the very hot weather we are apt to have in June, the plants will fail if no 

 nitrogen but that from the nitrate is at hand. In the North the case seems 

 different, and it is found undesirable to keep up too much growth rather than 

 devote the whole energy of the plant to fruiting. 



THE FIELD CROP OF TOMATOES. 



This crop is produced for the canning establishments, and earliness is 

 not an object. The plants are grown in beds in the open ground and trans- 

 planted to the field when large enough, setting them in rows five feet apart 

 and four feet in the rows. Cultivation is as for a crop of corn. The same 

 fertilizer mixture advised for the early crop will do as well for the 

 canning crop, but the second application of the nitrate of soda will not be 

 needed nor profitable. On soil that will make a good crop of corn 500 pounds 

 per acre of the mixture will be ample. We have found that for this summer 

 crop a top' dressing of stable manure between the rows is a great advantage 

 in our dry and hot summers, as a mulch as well as plant food. Prof. Vor- 

 hees shows that a good crop of ten tons of tomatoes per acre, with their vines, 

 would contain 57 pounds of nitrogen, 16 pounds of phosphoric acid and 94 

 pounds of potash. This shows very well the relative importance of the differ- 

 ent food constituents, and that nitrogen and potash are the largest part of the 

 food consumed by the tomato. 



THE SOUTHERN BLIGHT. 



While this work is not intended to take up plant diseases, which would 

 take a volume for the proper treatment, we must, nevertheless, say a few 

 words in regard to this terror of the Southern tomato grower. 

 There is more than one blight which attacks the tomato, but the one 

 known distinctively as the "Southern blight" is a bacterial growth in the tis- 



