Food for Always use Chemical Fertilizers for all Market Garden 



Purposes Without Fail. 



54 



HoAv to Use Chemical Fertilizers 

 to Advantage. 



All p Crops grow only in consequence of the 



How All l^rOpS rii 1 I'l* 1 'ii 



lood placed at their disposal; practicallv, 

 Grow. Lrji r • L- 



the food plants consist or certain combina- 

 tions or mixtures of ammonia, phosphoric acid and potash. 

 Not any one, nor any two, but all three. AH soils contain- 

 some of these plant foods, and few soils contain them in very 

 large quantities. Fortunately for the permanence of agri- 

 culture, nature does not permit these natural supplies to be 

 drawn upon freely, and any attempt to overforce the soil 

 by injudicious farming is met by a temporary exhaustion. 



The so-called"artificial manures"are simply 



As to the Na- u • i • u . u- u 



chemical or organic substances which con- 



ture of Chemi- ^ . r .u .u i . r 



tain one or more or the three elements ot 



cal Manures. i ^ r j 



plant rood. 



The use of Nitrate of Soda is well known 

 Nitrate as a ^^ ^ top-dressing for small grains. Wheat 



lop-Dressing ^^ strong clay will repay an application of 



for Grains, jqq pounds of Nitrate per acre, even if 



Grasses, Root- already heavily manured. 

 Crops, Pas- Yqt Roots lOO pounds at seed time and 



tures, Soiling jqq pounds after thinning is found profit- 



Crops, able. 



The form of ammoniate most active as 



plant food is the Nitrated form, namely; 



ncreases Nitrate of Soda. All other ammoniates 



ea rops. must be converted into this form before 



they can be used as food by plants. Sir John Lawes wisely 



remarks: "When we consider that the application of a few 



pounds of ammonia (Nitrogen) in Nitrate of Soda to a soil 



which contains several thousand pounds of ammonia in its 



organic form, is capable of increasing the crop from 14 to 



40, or even 50 bushels of wheat per acre, I think it must be 



