208 Fertilizers 



food from the stores of the soil, as may be illustrated by 

 wheat and Indian corn, which both contain a relatively high 

 I content of nitrogen. Under good conditions of soil, wheat 

 is specifically benefited by heavy dressings of quickly avail- 

 able nitrogen. Corn is not, and one reason is, that they 

 possess different powers of acquiring food, due, to a con- 

 siderable extent, to the difference in their time of growth, 

 as well as to the period or time of their most rapid growth. 

 This method may, however, be applied with very great 

 advantage in greenhouse work, or in growing market- 

 garden crops, where the amounts in the soil are not re- 

 garded as of importance, and excessive amounts of all are 

 added. The system has been elaborated to a great degree 

 of nicety for the growing of greenhouse crops, flowers and 

 foliage plants, so much so that now artificial manure car- 

 tridges are prepared, which contain the amounts and kinds 

 of food shown by the analysis of the different plants to be 

 needed for their growth and full development. "The 

 manure has the form of a fine powder, enclosed within a 

 metallic wrapper, and firmly compressed into the shape of 

 a cartouche or capsule, cylindrical in form, about three- 

 fourths inch across and one-half inch in depth. It is 

 simply thrust into the soil of the pot to a depth of one-half 

 or one inch, and allowed to remain. After a time it is 

 found that the fertilizer gradually disappears, and at 

 length nothing is left but the little pill-box-like wrapper, 

 which originally contained the mixed fertilizing powder." l 



A system in which the fertilizer is applied to the "money 



crop' 9 in the rotation. 



Another system is also recommended, which is well 

 adapted for "extensive" farming, where the majority of 



1 "The Gardener's Chronicle," London, England. 



