FERTILIZING. 93 



Some of the commercial manures are valuable, 

 when used in combination with other things, but 

 none of them contain in the right proportions all the 

 elements needed for the orange. The writer has 

 used and seen used a large variety of these fertil- 

 izers, and some benefit has been derived from most 

 of them. From others no advantage has been dis- 

 coverable. A good article of ground bone, where 

 the oils and phosphoric acid have not been too 

 generally expelled by burning ; Peruvian guano, 

 and potash, both the nitrate and sulphate, are very 

 good when combined with muck. These are es- 

 pecially valuable when early vegetables are to be 

 grown among the orange trees, as they highly stim- 

 ulate the soil and hasten forward both the vegetables 

 and orange trees. 



Land plaster should be especially mentioned as 

 beneficial to our sandy soil, as it not only furnishes 

 an important element to the soil, but in the ab- 

 sence of clay in most of our soil furnishes a valuable 

 absorber and retainer of the volatile manures so 

 easily expelled by our abundance of sunshine. The 

 writer thinks he has seen another advantage in the 

 use of land plaster in the check which the sulphur, 

 contained in the plaster, has upon some of the in- 

 sects which damage the trees. 



Green crops turned under are highly beneficial 

 to young trees. Rye, oats, and barley, sown in the 

 fall and turned under in the spring and followed by 

 one or two crops of cow peas during the summer, 



