302 Fertilizers 



that it adds no essential fertility element, and its indirect 

 benefit may be obtained more cheaply by the use of other 

 materials, which contain salt as a normal ingredient, 

 for example, kainit, the crude potash salt, which is one- 

 third salt, though its market price is based solely upon its 

 potash content. 



Fertilizers which have been found very useful for 

 asparagus are those which contain food both in immedi- 

 ately available and in gradually available forms. During 

 the early growing season, the available food may be 

 appropriated rapidly enough to cause an increase in the 

 yield of shoots of that year; and inasmuch as the plant 

 continues to grow until winter, the food that becomes 

 gradually available is appropriated later, and contributes 

 to the strength and vigor of the roots upon which the next 

 year's crop depends. Furthermore, because the crop is 

 gathered from the early shoots, which are continuously 

 removed for from one to two months, the root is continu- 

 ously drained of its stored-up material, and at the end of 

 the cutting season it has been very much reduced in 

 vitality ; wherefore it is particularly desirable that avail- 

 able food be applied at this time also, in order to encour- 

 age a rapid and vigorous growth of the top, which aids in 

 the storing up of food in the root. A fertilizer containing 



Nitrogen 4% 



Phosphoric acid 8% 



Potash 10% 



the nitrogen to be drawn from both soluble and organic 

 sources, and the phosphoric acid from both superphosphate 

 and ground bone, or tankage, and the potash from muriate, 

 may be applied at the rate of 1000 to 1500 pounds to the 

 acre, and thoroughly worked into the soil at the time of 



