hop-growers, who regularly used a variety of more or less 

 concentrated nitrogenous manures, chiefly of a slowly-acting 

 kind, such as shoddy, woollen rags, hoof and horn-parings, 

 feathers, fur trimmings, and the like, have systematically 

 neglected the use of phosphatic manure. Those who used 

 rape dust, fish guano, and purchased dung have, indeed, in 

 the form of these manures, been applying phosphates to their 

 land, but still in quantities quite insufficient to balance the 

 nitrogen contained in the fertilisers used ; and it is, compara- 

 tively speaking, only in recent years that the use of really 

 phosphatic manures, such as superphosphate, dissolved 

 bones, Peruvian guano, bone dust, or basic slag, has tended 

 to become at all general among hop growers. 



For years past the supply of nitrogen, being excessive in 

 relation to the supply of phosphates, was limited in its utility ; 

 and though, when it was in the form of such slowly-acting 

 manures as those above enumerated, the excess might often 

 do little harm, yet, if the excessive quantity of nitrogen, 

 unaccompanied by phosphates, were supplied in the more 

 active form of sulphate of ammonia, or in the still more 

 active form of nitrate of soda, the plant would naturally be 

 encouraged by the abundance of soluble nitrogenous food to 

 make a rapid growth that was incapable of being carried to a 

 proper conclusion, on account of the lack of mineral food. 

 Such spasmodic and irrational manuring might naturally be 

 expected to produce a forced overgrowth of bine and inferior 

 hops. Such cases, however, are in no way applicable as 

 precedents in considering the action of soluble manures like 

 nitrate of soda and sulphate of ammonia, when applied in 

 conjunction with proper quantities of phosphates, potash, and, 

 if necessary, lime. 



