8o Success with Small Fruits. 



keep within reach of the plants the food we know they require, and the 

 roots, with unerring instinct, will attend to the proportions. Hence the 

 value of barn-yard manure in the estimation of plain common sense. A 

 sensible writer has clearly shown that from twenty-three cows and five 

 horses, if proper absorbents are used, $5.87 worth of nitrogen, potash and 

 phosphoric acid can be obtained every twenty-four hours, estimating these 

 vitally important elements of plant-food at their wholesale valuation. In 

 addition, there are the other constituents of the yard manure which, if not 

 so valuable, are still very useful. To permit the waste of any fertilizer that 

 can be saved or made upon our places, and then buy the same thing with the 

 chance of being cheated, is thus shown to be wretched economy. Com- 

 mercial fertilizers can never supersede the compost heap, into which should 

 go everything which will enable us to place in the soil organic matter and 

 the other elements that were given in the analysis ; and if all the sewage and 

 waste of the dwelling and the products of the stable, stys and poultry-house 

 were well composted with muck, sod, leaves, or even common earth, and 

 used liberally, magnificent and continued crops of strawberries could be 

 raised from nearly all soils. 



In many instances, however, home-made composts are wholly inade- 

 quate to supply the need, and stable manures are too costly or not to be 

 obtained. The fruit grower should then go to those manufacturers of fer- 

 tilizers who have the best reputation, and who give the best guarantees 

 against deception. There are perfectly honest dealers, and it is by far the 

 cheapest in the end to pay them their price for a genuine article. If such 

 concentrated agents are used in connection with a green crop like clover, 

 land can be made and kept productive continuously. In the use of com- 

 mercial fertilizers, there should be a constant and intelligent effort to 

 keep up a supply of all the essential ingredients. Wood ashes is a specific 

 for strawberries. I have never found any one thing so good, and yet it is 

 substantially but one thing, potash, and I should remember that the plant 

 also requires nitrogen, which guano, or some form of animal manure, 

 would furnish ; lime, which is best applied to the strawberry in the form of 

 bone meal, etc. The essential phosphoric acid is furnished in bone meal, 

 the superphosphates, and also in wood ashes. By referring to an analysis 

 of the ash red clover, it will be found to contain nearly everything that 

 the strawberry requires. 



The man who reads, observes and experiments carefully, will find 

 that he can accomplish much with lime and salt. If one has land full 

 of vegetable or organic matter, an application of lime will render this 

 matter fit for plant food, and the lime itself, in the course of a year or 



