2o6 An American Fruit-Farm 



crop from an acre of land varies, according to 

 the crop, from one to five tons of straw, or its 

 equivalent; from thirty to two hundred pounds of 

 potash ; from four to seventy pounds of phosphoric 

 acid, and from thirty to two hundred pounds of 

 nitrogen. Of course the greater part of every 

 crop is water, whether it be twenty tons of onions, 

 four hundred bushels of cherries, two tons of grapes, 

 or thirty bushels of beans. If, for example, thirty- 

 six tons of cherries be harvested from five acres, 

 this does not mean that in order to keep a right 

 account with the land you must return an eqtial 

 tonnage of fertilizer. We have rain and snow 

 for nothing; but the skies do not drop potash, 

 nitrogen, or phosphoric acid, or himius. These 

 the fruit-grower must supply in addition to what- 

 soever potash, nitrogen, and phosphoric acid may 

 fall to the ground as leaf, — ^for dropping foliage 

 contains some potash, nitrogen, and phosphoric 

 acid, — as much of these ingredients as are needed. 

 In practical fruit-farming, while undoubtedly 

 the laws of chemical action work precisely as in the 

 university, or the government laboratory, or at 

 the experimental farm, yet not every acre of cher- 

 ries is equivalent to every other acre in the country. 

 Trees vary in size, productivity, number per acre, 

 vigor, and so on in many details. But we know, 

 as a fair deduction from our own experience, and 

 from the record of the larger experience of others, 

 that to avoid cropping the land we must feed it, 

 not starve it; we must never take more from it 



