Field Truck Crops 241 



made, and though it can be readily seen that if conditions 

 should not be favorable, the larger amounts would be pref- 

 erable. The result of investigations of this point by the 

 Geneva Experiment Station showed that an addition of 

 fertilizers above 1000 pounds to the acre, or 40 pounds of 

 nitrogen, 80 of phosphoric acid and 100 of potash, was 

 not as profitable as 1000 pounds. It must be remembered, 

 however, that these experiments were conducted upon light 

 soils, and on these entire dependence must be placed upon 

 added plant-food. 



In the best potato sections of New Jersey, the applica- 

 tion of a fertilizer of this composition ranges from 1000 

 to 2000 pounds to the acre, while the larger part of the 

 growers use the smaller rather than the greater quantity. 

 (See Fig. 19, Plate IX.) Many use the larger, and are 

 of the opinion that it is a profitable practice, because of 

 the greater certainty of securing a good potato crop, and 

 because the unused residue provides for large yields of 

 the subsequent crop without further applications. The 

 growers of potatoes in the vicinity of Norfolk, as well as 

 farther south, also find it profitable to be generous in the 

 use of fertilizer for this as well as for other crops of high 

 commercial value. 



The growers of Maine use the larger quantity and many 

 are now gradually changing the composition of the fertilizer 

 applied by increasing the nitrogen to 5 per cent and de- 

 creasing the potash to 7 per cent. It is not uncommon in 

 Maine to make two applications during a season. This 

 method has become known as the Aroostook County 

 method. In some cases the fertilizer is merely divided 

 into two parts and put on at intervals of three weeks or a 

 month, but in other cases the first application made at the 

 time of planting contains only organic nitrogen, whereas 



