26 THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



lime, form the bulk of plants as a whole, the three former, to 

 a large extent, play distinct parts in their development, and 

 an abundance of all is absolutely necessary to healthy foliage 

 and full crops of fruit. The office of ammonia is chiefly to 

 make growth, phosphoric acid to make fruit, while potash 

 heightens the color and quality of the fruit, and contributes 

 most largely to the general health of all plants. Just in pro- 

 portion as one or the other of these elements is lacking in 

 soils, will there be a deficiency in the corresponding particu- 

 lar. Everyone has noticed that a heavy dressing of stable 

 manure, with its ammonia, will make tomatoes, for instance, 

 run all to vine, and continued applications ''burn" anything 

 it is put around. 



Now, at the time I write of, I did not know all this, and 

 especially the office of and need of potash. Nor, in fact, did 

 anybody else know it. Peter Henderson and every farmer 

 knew that the continued use of guano would "burn," barn- 

 yard manure in excess produce club-root, bone meal fail in 

 its effect if used continuously, stable manure cease to produce 

 healthy crops if applied in succession on the same ground, 

 and so on, but the only distinct recognition of the value of 

 potash as a fertilizer thirty years ago was for onions. All the 

 writers on gardening invariably noted that onions could be 

 grown year after year successfully on the same ground, and 

 farther on the remark always followed : "Ashes are a special 

 manure for onions." 



But to the balance of my story. Year after year, in continu- 

 ally increasing quantities, I applied first one and then another 

 of the above manures, except potash, including nitrate of 

 soda, all abounding in ammonia and phosphoric acid, but, 

 with the exception of a small amount in stable manure, 

 entirely deficient in potash. Beginning with the third year, 

 my cabbage and cauliflower commenced to spot and shed 

 their lower leaves when half grown, split open and rot in the 

 stems, the tomatoes went mostly to vine, and the fruit rotted 

 badly at the blossom end, the melons set less fruit and failed 

 to grow large, and the vines took the "die back" and eel 

 worm, an almost microscopic little creature that infests both 



