CHAPTER XIV 

 FERTILIZERS FOR TREES AND VINES 



It was a popular doctrine among early Californians that Cali- 

 fornia soils would never need fertilization, and that there is some- 

 thing in our soil and climate which releases us forever from repay- 

 ing anything to the ground for the wealth of produce which we 

 take from it. Such a view is, of course, without foundation, and 

 yet it is not difficult to see how it arose. Early attempts to enrich 

 the soil by the turning under of coarse stable manure, as is done 

 in other countries, was undertaken here on light soil in a region 

 rather short of rainfall. The manure did not decompose, and its 

 coarse materials made a soil, already too light to retain moisture 

 well, so open and porous that its moisture was quickly carried away 

 by evaporation, and crops did not grow so well as upon adjacent 

 land which had not been manured. So the fiat went forth against 

 manure. The corrals* became undisturbed guano deposits, and 

 manure piles were fired in dry weather to get the soil poison out 

 of the way. Innumerable tons of bones were gathered and ground 

 in San Francisco and shipped away to countries which need fertil- 

 izers. Nature did much to foster the popular delusion, for field 

 crops were gloriously large, and trees and vines grew rampantly 

 and bore fruit the weight of which they were unable to sustain. 

 How could there be more conclusive evidence that manure was a 

 detriment to California soils? 



A few decades of experience have swept away such fallacies 

 and now California growers, especially those handling citrus fruits, 

 are not- only freely investing in commercial fertilizers but are buy- 

 ing and shipping considerable distances all available animal 

 manures. They are also untiring students of the art of fertilization 

 and the sciences underlying it. It was in response to their demand 

 that the California Legislature of 1903 passed a fertilizer control 

 law giving the University Agricultural Experiment Station regu- 

 lation of the trade in fertilizing materials. All dealers are required 

 to register and submit samples of their brands and there is con- 

 stant inspection to detect departures. Semi-annual reports are pub- 

 lished for public information and these, with special instructions for 

 taking samples when purchasers desire analyses on their own ac- 

 count, can be had by application to the Experiment Station at 

 Berkeley. The total amount of sales reported under the law for 

 the year ending June 30, 1908, was 31,228 tons. 



* Inclosures for live stock of any kind. 

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