AMOUNT TO APPLY 339 



Form of Fertilizer. The form of fertilizer for timothy meadow 

 is very important to consider. It should be soluble, since the fer- 

 tilizer is applied as a top-dressing. While a less soluble form would 

 be practical to use for cultivated crops where it was plowed in, such 

 forms would not be very valuable as a top-dressing on hay land. For 

 example, cottonseed meal is valuable when plowed into the soil for 

 corn, as it will decay fast enough to become available when the crop 

 needs it. However, cottonseed meal scattered on a hay meadow 

 would do little good, at least during the season applied. 



Soluble Fertilizers. The commonest forms of soluble fertiliz- 

 ing materials suitable for top-dressing meadows are : Sodium nitrate 

 and dried blood for nitrogen ; acid phosphate and treated bone for 

 phosphate; muriate of potash and sulfate of potash as a source of 

 potash; potassium nitrate for both potash and nitrogen. 



Amount to Apply. Generally the amount of each ingredient to 

 apply is determined by experience or experiment, rather than by 

 arbitrary rules. Even a soil analysis is very little help. Certain mix- 

 tures have been found to generally give good results and it is safer to 

 use these until experience has shown something else to be better. 



Sodium nitrate alone at the rate of 100 to 200 pounds per acre 

 is sometimes used. This will usually give a profitable return for a 

 year or two, but as the soil is soon depleted of the minerals the prac- 

 tice can not be continued. In many more cases a combination of 

 sodium nitrate and phosphate is profitable, and on soils well supplied 

 naturally with potash will be found satisfactory for many years. A 

 common application per acre would be : 



Minimum Maximum 



Sodium nitrate 100 200 



Acid phosphate 75 150 



175 350 



In practice it is best to use the minimum amount at first, but 

 experiment with the larger dosage to see whether the land and crop 

 will respond. 



In general, it is best to use a complete fertilizer, not only for 

 the grass crop but to leave the land in best condition for crops to 

 follow. The following formulae represent typical mixtures for grass 

 land, with the maximum and minimum quantity per acre: 



