78 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The wood of our Russet apple tree contains in its ashes about 

 19| per cent, of potash, while its fruit requires 34 per cent , or 

 nearly twice as much. You will find only a trace of soda in the 

 tree, while the fruit requires as much as 25 per cent, of soda, in- 

 dicating that if you have a barrel of waste brine, or a bushel of 

 dirty salt, you would apply it to your fruit bearing trees, and not 

 to those still in a growing condition. On the other hand, while 

 there is less than 5 per cent, of lime in the fruit, the wood contains 

 as high as 63 per cent., and would indicate a supply of that sub- 

 stance in soils when it is deficient. The fruit demands as high as 

 15 per cent, of phosphorus, while the wood requires only one- 

 third as much, or 5 per cent., indicating that you would apply 

 bone manure and superphosphate of lime to your bearing, and not 

 to your growing trees. These facts are instructive to us as indi- 

 cations of what we may do. 



Agriculture not an Exact Science. 



You must have noticed that I have frequently used the mild 

 word indicalions, in pointing out to the pomologiwt the character 

 of his soil. That is as far as we are warranted in going at present. 

 In our weather report we have only the word Prohabililies writ- 

 ten over the morning bulletin. No man yet dares foretell how 

 many inches of snow or rain will fall on a certain spot to-morrow, 

 nor whether this or that local spot will certainly have snow or 

 rain at all. Notwithstanding these minor defects, the sea captain 

 consults the weather chart and the cautionary signal, before he 

 decides whether or not he shall set sail. If he fails to do this, he 

 runs the risk of losing his insurance, so great is the dependence 

 placed on these reports by the underwriters. 



Just so with the intelligent pomologist. He will perfectly 

 understand me when I tell him that he cannot measure out just 

 80 much of one substance and so much of another, and expect to 

 receive an exact mathematical product in return. The highest 

 human attainment is that of exact mathematical measurement, yet 

 no civil engineer ever measured a distaiice of one hundred rods 

 the second time and came out with his first result. The cultivated 

 musician measures with his ear the precise length of his string, in 

 order to procure the exact number of vibrations in a second, yet 

 he is never absolutely perfect. Chemists have been hard at work 

 for a century endeavoring to find the exact weight of an atom, yet 



