CHAPTER VIII. 

 FERTILIZATION. 



In the chapter on soils there has been given a glance at the 

 leading characteristics of California soils, including their endow- 

 ment of available plant food. This natural fertility is the explana- 

 tion of the fact that in this state up to this time the question of fer- 

 tilization has been of minor importance. The securing and husband- 

 ing of adequate moisture constitute the key by which native fertility 

 is unlocked and so long as this resource permits the gathering of 

 large crops of superior vegetable products without expenditure for 

 fertilizers it is obvious that we shall have the art of fertilizing under 

 our climatic conditions still to learn. We have, however, already 

 entered upon large expenditure for fertilizers for fruit trees, es- 

 pecially those of the citrus family, and the world-wide problem of 

 economical plant-feeding will reach all our producers, sooner or 

 later, as each has the hungrier plants or the thinner soils. The old 

 misconception of the pioneers that California climate and soil had 

 some sort of beneficent inter-relation and inter-action which in- 

 sured perpetual fertility, was merely a phase of the perpetual motion 

 vagary, as applied to agriculture. It was a sort of reaction from the 

 older view that California soil would produce nothing but winter 

 pasture. Of course all these early notions have passed away. It is 

 only a question of time when soil-building will be a regular Cali- 

 fornia effort but on some lands, and for some crops, it may be a 

 very long time before the problem will be pressing. 



And yet it would not be truthful to convey the impression that 

 fertilization is not undertaken at the present time. Reports made 

 under the California Fertilizer law indicate sales of over 36,000 

 tons during the year ending June 30, 1917. There has been great 

 progress during recent years in the utilization of natural manurial 

 supplies which were formerly allowed to go to waste. The demand 

 from orchardists has induced systematic search and traffic, and old 

 accumulations from the stock farming of our first thirty or forty 

 years have been put to good use, together with a considerable amount 

 of artificial fertilizers. There is also a constant demand for the 

 wastes of our towns and cities for gardening purposes. Our mar- 

 ket gardeners have zeal for collecting the cleanings of city stables 

 and our amateur gardeners, both in villages and on farms, make, as 

 a rule, good use of the animal wastes which are available. They 

 understand the advantage of intensive work and of bringing small 

 areas up to maximum production, and they know that to raise large 

 garden crops one must apply manure without stint, but our field 

 production of staple vegetables is not intensive as yet, except as 

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