FRUIT CULTURE 147 



experimental evidence, I think, in favor of the sulphate as against 

 the muriate. The muriate is selling this year $10 a ton less than 

 the sulphate, which is in favor of the muriate, but if the prices are 

 running uniformly, as they usually do, I should say that the sul- 

 phate was the best. I should say in a bearing orchard that you 

 ought to use two to three hundred pounds of that material. I 

 think we are well agreed on the sulphate of potash. Of the phos- 

 phoric acid there are two or three forms, but I think basic slag is 

 very good, which is the source of phosphoric acid. Of course you 

 can have acid phosphate, and I think for young trees acid phosphate 

 is the form to use, because in young trees the roots are rapidly 

 moving out from year to year. In commercial orchards I might 

 use basic slag, and they use from four to five hundred pounds, 

 and up to a thousand pounds per acre. I think al)Out an average 

 of five hundred pounds per acre would be about right. Mr. Hale 

 told me a few years ago that he was using five hundred pounds. 

 I think three to four of phosphate of sulphur and five of bone meal 

 would be about the average. The slag and bone meal, I should 

 advise to put them on in the spring. They can be put on the first 

 thing in the spring and plowed down. I should, of course, advise 

 plowing them in. There are a few orchardists, and very few, who 

 think they can, by reserving a part of their potash and putting on 

 some the first of August, that it will do a little better, but I think 

 that that is strictly theoretical. Yet those men are practical 

 growers. 



Question. Would you expect to put that amount of fertilizer 

 on every year? 



Prof. Sears. I think so, Mr. Chairman, yes. And that is the 

 custom with these men I speak of, who fertilize year after year. 

 They adopt some definite amount to put on, and put that amount 

 on each year, whether they get a good crop or not — some more 

 or less — but the quantity I suggest would be about as I have 

 indicated. 



Mr. Wheeler. There is one thing I want to add to that, and that 

 is that lime of some form, I think, ought to be used, particularly 

 in bearing orchards. 



Question. I would like to ask how soon after the orchard is 

 sprayed is it safe to cut the grass for use. 



