IZ GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



When peas, clovers, and other leguminous plants are 

 cultivated they have the power of drawing from the 

 atmosphere abundance of nitrogen by means of the 

 peculiar construction of their roots. If a healthy, vigor- 

 ously growing pea-plant is carefully drawn from the soil 

 and the roots washed, a large number of small tubercles 

 or enlargements will be noticed varying in size over all 

 rootlets. These are storehouses of minute germs which 

 have the power of extracting from the atmosphere quan- 

 tities of nitrogen, which is absorbed by the plant. When 

 the plant is turned under the soil it not only supplies the 

 needed organic matter, but also, in its decay, leaves in 

 the soil the nitrogen extracted from the air by the germs 

 developed in its roots. Under these conditions it is pos- 

 sible to secure from the air one of the most expensive 

 fertilizers. 



3.— PHOSPHORIC ACID. 



The apparent effect of phosphates applied to the soil 

 is to stimulate vegetation and to promote the formation 

 of roots. If used for the drainage of pots in the form of 

 broken bones, or at the bottom of vine borders, the roots 

 soon find their way down to, and extract nutriment from 

 them. 



The phosphates, like all other plant food, to be of ser- 

 vice, must be within the reach of the roots of plants. 

 Fertility is not to be measured by the quantity of plant 

 food a soil contains, but only by that portion which exists 

 in a finely divided state, as it is only with such portions 

 that the rootlets of plants can come in close contact. An 

 ounce of bone in a cubic foot of soil produces no marked 

 effect upon its fertility if unbroken. Dissolve it and let 

 it be distributed through the soil, and it will suffice for 

 the food of one hundred and twenty wheat plants. The 

 most abundant application of earthy phosphates in coarse 

 powder can, in its effects, bear no comparison with a 



