Niter in Fertilizing. 



Food for 

 Plants 



86 



(Bulletin 24, California State Mining Bureau, May, 1902.) 



By Dr. GILBERT E. BAILEY. 



All plants require light, air, heat, water, cultivation, and 

 a fertile soil. Every crop removes from the soil a portion 

 of the plant-food contained therein, and continuous crop- 

 ping will, in time, exhaust the richest soil, unless the 

 nutritive elements are restored ; therefore, the truly- 

 economical farmer will feed the growing plant or tree with 

 a generous hand. The literature on this subject, while 

 voluminous, is so scattered as to be difficult of access to the 

 general reader, and the following notes are added in order 

 to give some general idea of the value of Nitrate of Soda in 

 fertilizing. 



The most important materials used to supply Nitrogen, 

 in the composition of commercial fertilizers, are Nitrate of 

 Soda and sulphate of ammonia. Nitrate of Soda is particu- 

 larly adapted for top-dressing during the growing season, 

 and is the quickest acting of all the Nitrogenous fertil- 

 izers. 



Dried blood, tankage, azotine, fish scrap, castor pomace, 

 and cotton-seed meal represent fertilizers where the Nitro- 

 gen is only slowly available, and they must be applied in 

 the fall so as to be decomposed and available for the follow- 

 ing season. Nitrogen in the form of Nitrate of Soda readily 

 leaches through the soil and is at once available during the 

 growing and fruiting season, possessing, therefore, a decided 

 advantage over all other Nitrogen plant-foods. 



The following list of materials used as a source of 

 Nitrogen, in making commercial fertilizers, shows the 

 percentage of Nitrogen in each : 



