The Canadian Horticulturist. 



FERTILIZERS FOR ORCHARDS. 



S a fertilizer we have made use of unleached wood ashes. On most 

 soils no other fertilizer need be used for a number of years, but on 

 light or exhausted soils the application of perhaps twenty loads of 

 ^.Vjsd^ decomposed stable manure, or, if this cannot be obtained, of fifty 

 '^ pounds nitrate of soda and two hundred pounds of fine ground bone 



per acre which, with one hundred bushels of ashes, will make a com- 

 plete fertili/.cr. In case the fresh ashes cannot be obtained, two or 

 three times the (juantity mentioned of leached ashes would have a marked 

 efifect. Wood .ishes have a tendency to solidify and compact the soil, hence 

 they are excellent on light land, but care should be taken not to use them to 

 excess on heavy soils. 



Coal ashes have a similar effect on the physical condition of sandy soils, and 

 may be used for this purpose, but they do not furnish any food for plants, that is 

 of value. 



For young trees, the quantities mentioned are much too large, unless the 

 fertilizers are to be applied broadcast for other crops, but, in old bearing 

 orchards, the amounts can often be increased with profit, and it should be spread 

 over the entire soil, as the feeding roots of the plants are, for the most part, out- 

 side a circle ten feet in diameter drawn around the tree. 



Where potash is needed in the soil, as is frccjuently the case with bearing 

 orchards, and wood ashes cannot be obtained, it can be secured as muriate or 

 sulphate of potash. These are waste materials from German salt mines, and 

 sell at about $40 per ton for the muriate and $25 for the latter, the price vary- 

 *ing with the amount of potash they contain. It is from these salts that the 

 manufacturers of the high grade commercial fertilizers obtain their potash. 



Two hundred pounds of muriate of potash will supply an abundance of 

 potash for a bearing orchard, if the soil is moderately rich, while a much smaller 

 (}uantity will generally have a very marked effect on young trees. The other 

 materials most likely to be needed by trees, and in fact by all crops, are nitrogen 

 and phosphorus, and in case stable manure is not readily obtainable to supply 

 them, recourse can often be had with profit, to chemical fertilizers. As a rule, 

 the best source for nitrogen is in the form of nitrate of soda or, as it is commonly 

 called, Chili saltpetre. This costs from $45 to $50 per ton at the sea-board, 

 and, as not over 100 pounds per acre are usually required, the expense is not 

 great. Among the other materials rich in nitrogen, are sulphate of ammonia, a 

 waste product of gas houses, and dried blood, etc., from slaughter houses. 



As a source of phosphoric acid, fine ground I) one is largely used, although 

 dissolved bone black will give (juicker effects. 



From 200 to 400 pounds of these materials per acre should be enough. 



