Food for when to use lime. Details of excellent grass experiments, 

 ^^^°*^ to be found in recent Bulletins issued by the Rhode 

 78 Island Agricultural Experiment Station, Kingston, Rhode 

 Island, tell about Nitrate of Soda. 



Nitrate of Soda l^ '^Y T ''^°"' f. ^l^f^ ^^'^ '"^ "'^"' 

 00 TToo^ ;« fion the fact that Mr. dark s success m 



Clark's Grass obtammg remarkably large yields of hay 



Cultivation ^'^^ ^ number of years, an average of 9 tons 



of cured hay per acre for 11 years in suc- 

 cession, has been heralded throughout the United States. 

 He attributes his success largely to the liberal dressings of 

 Nitrate of Soda which he invariably applies to his fields 

 «arly in the spring, and v^^hich start the grass off v^ith such 

 a. vigorous growth as to shade and crowd out all noxious 

 weeds before they get fairly started and which result in a 

 large crop of clean and high priced hay. 



r f 1 ^^^^ ^^^^ known that many who have tested 



. his methods have met with failure chiefly 



. . , . , because they neglected to supply the voune 



May Aid in the , / -^i rr • . r 



fj Ki TT grass plants with a sumcient amount of 



readily available food for their use early in 

 of Nitrate. .u • u v • j j j 



the spring when it is most needed, and 



before the organic forms of Nitrogen, which exist in the soil 



only in an insoluble form and which cannot be utilized by the 



plants as food, until converted into soluble Nitrates by the 



action of bacteria in the soil. This does not occur to any 



great extent until the soil warms up to summer temperature 



when it is too late in the season to benefit the crops' early 



spring growth. 



It is important that we always bear in mind the fact 



that our only source of Nitrogen in the soil for all plants 



is the remnants of former crops (roots, stems, dead leaves, 



weeds, etc.) in different stages of decomposition, and that 



in the early spring there is always a scarcity of Nitrogen 



in the soil in an available form, for the reason that the most 



of that which was converted into soluble forms by the action 



of the soil bacteria during the warm summer months of the 



previous year was either utilized by the plants occupying 



the ground at that time or has been washed down below the 



reach of the roots of the young plants by the melting snow 



and the heavy rains of late winter and early spring. 



