THE COMPOSITION OF FRUITS 



peach trees. In other words, the approximate total loss of 

 plant-foods in growing an acre of apple trees to their maxi- 

 mum size would be five to eight times the amount shown 

 in the table. This would make the total loss of fertility in 

 growing an acre of peach or apple trees to maturity approxi- 

 mately equivalent to the plant-food contained in 10 bushels 

 of corn. This is surprisingly small and shows very clearly 

 that soil exhaustion hi orcharding is almost entireh^ due 

 to the removal of plant-food in the fruit crop." 



Shutt ^ has determined the analysis of the leaves of 

 several standard varieties of apples in terms of composition 

 of the ash, as follows: 



Table III 



COMPOSITION OF APPLE LEAVES (AFTER SHUTT) 



From these data it will ])e seen that apple leaves, when 

 practically mature, contain 35.83 per cent organic matter 

 which may be returned to the soil, and that there is 2.48 

 per cent of nitrogen in the organic matter. Of the ash, 

 5.82 per cent is phosphoric acid and 11.63 per cent is potash, 

 or the relation of these two ingredients in the mature leaves 

 is 2 to 1. Thus it will be seen that there is twice as great a 

 demand on the soil for potash as phosphoric acid so far as the 

 leaves are concerned. As will be seen later, the ratio is still 

 greater in the ash of the fruit since there is six times as 

 much potash as phosphoric acid present there. 



1 Shutt, F. T. The chemistry of the apple. Ann. Rept. Can. Dept. 

 Agr. Ottawa. 1894. 



