THE CANADIAN HOEriCULTUEIST. 



165 



neglect with more equanimity than 

 many favorites, only dying of gas and 

 overheatine. — American Garden. 



NITRATES ARE NEEDED. 



Early in spring, the conversion of the 

 nitrogenous matter of the soil, or of 

 manure, into nitric acid, is exceedingly 

 slow. It needs heat and moisture, 

 bacteria and lime. In moist land, dur- 

 ing hot weather in summer and autumn, 

 the conversion takes place most rapidly. 

 This is an advantage to the grower of 

 winter wheat or winter rye. The 

 growing wheat or rye plants in the fall 

 take up the nitrates. I cannot go into 

 the subject now. What I want to say 

 is this ; ordinary farming can avail 

 itself largely of the natural fertility of 

 the soil. We can grow crops of corn, 

 and wheat, and grass, for many years 

 without manure. But not so the 

 market gardener. No soil in the world 

 is naturally rich enough to grow garden 

 crops to advantage and profit. Why 1 

 Not because garden peas require any 

 more or different plant-food than field 

 peas, or garden beets any more than 

 mangel wurzels. It is because the 

 gardener desires early crops. He 

 desires to get the growth at a season of 

 the year when little or no nitrates are 

 formed in the soil. To attain his 

 object, he puts into the soil a mons- 

 trous quantity of manure. To grow a 

 crop of early cabbages, or early cauli- 

 flowers, it is almost impossible to make 

 the land rich enough. At any rate, we 

 find that the richer the land is made, 

 the earlier and better are the cabbages, 

 and the more profit. We have to 

 furnish three or four times as much 

 manure as the crop needs. Why 1 

 Because the soil is cold and no nitrates 

 are formed. We try to furnish the 

 plants with all needed nitrates by an 

 excessive application of manure — better 

 apply the nitrates direct. This is not 

 theory. I have been trying for years 



to grow good celery plants in the open 

 ground. I could succeed only where 

 the gi'ound had been excessively 

 manured for some years past. I have 

 plowed in, the previous autumn, 

 seventy -five to one hundred tons of the 

 richest, well-rotted manure, and had 

 " fair to good " celery plants. Now, 

 by the use of nitrate of soda I can get 

 celery plants earlier, larger, and every 

 way better, at less than one quarter of 

 the cost. There is no mystery about 

 this. I presume we apply more nitrates 

 than three hundred tons of manure per 

 acre would furnish early in the season. 

 Later, of course, when the manure 

 commences to decompose an abundance 

 of nitrates would be formed, but then 

 early garden crops want the nitrates 

 while the soil is so cold that nitrification 

 cannot take place. — Joseph Harris in 

 American Agricultitrist 



AUTUMN TRANSPLANTING. 



Ben Perley Poore, in the American 

 Cultivator, says : "Autumn is, so far as 

 my experience teaches me, a better sea- 

 son for transplanting trees and shrubs 

 than spring. Any trees, even the most 

 delicate, may be successfully trans- 

 planted in autumn, if a little protection 

 is afforded them by covering the root 

 during the first and most ti-ying winter. 

 Where complete success is hoped, it is 

 best to shift their locality in the fall, if 

 possible. The protection of most trees, 

 shrubs and woody plants may consist in 

 spreading a few inches of litter from the 

 stable around the trunk and over the 

 roots. Delicate plants are sometimes 

 supposed to be destroyed by too much 

 protection after being transplanted, 

 when, in fact, they perish for want of 

 it, being killed by the alternate freezing 

 and thawing of the earth and its sur- 

 face. This difficulty might have been 

 easily obviated by covering them with 

 evergreen boughs or meadow moss. 



