152 FOOD FOR PLANTS 



rather liberal to prevent the total absence o£ a crop 

 the following year. 



Professor Fred C. Sears, Professor of Pomology, 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College, in his book on 

 Productive Orcharding, states: 



"The best fruit men practice fertilizing. Go into 

 any orchard section and you will find that the most 

 progressive and successful growers, as a rule, are the 

 men who fertilize highly. Usually the man succeeds 

 in proportion as he fertilizes. The man who ferti- 

 lizes year after year, whether he has a crop of fruit 

 on his trees or not, is the man who usually has a 

 crop. The man who is noted in a section as apply- 

 ing fertilizers in large quantity is usually also noted 

 as a man who harvests bumper crops. This is not 

 conclusive proof, because these men also care well 

 for the orchards in other ways. But it is very sug- 

 gestive, particularly the fact that the generous feeder 

 usually succeeds better than the* moderate feeder." 



In Cornell Extension Bulletin No. 75, published by 

 the New York State College of Agriculture at Cor- 

 nell University, Ithaca, N. Y., Mr. Joseph Oscamp 

 says: 



"Fruit growers have been urged in the past to 

 apply potash, phosphorus, and lime to their soils. 

 However, there has been no pronounced indication 

 that the application of any of these elements to the 

 orchard has been directly profitable on any but the 

 most impoverished soils. Nitrogen is the only ele- 

 ment that, without question, has produced beneficial 

 results when applied to apple trees, and even this 



