X 



FEEDING THE TREES 



There has long been a feeling in agricultural circles 

 that chemistry ought to furnish the key to the success- 

 ful management of the soil. This was tlie idea attend- 

 ing on the work of Liebig and all the earlier agricul- 

 tural chemists ; and even Horace Greeley supposed that 

 the chief secrets of plant growth were to be solved 

 whenever a complete knowledge of the chemistry of 

 plant foods should be available. 



It must be said at once that agricultural chemistry 

 has not thus far justified the high expectations enter- 

 tained of her. Chemistry has not yet given us a single 

 receipt for the fertilization of our arable lands, and 

 does not seem likely to. Our knowledge of the use of 

 fertilizers is still fragmentary and empirical. We 

 know in part and we prophesy in part — in a very small 

 part, too. We know almost nothing except what we 

 gather from experience, and experience is so scant and 

 contradictory that her teachings are hard to follow. 

 A recent extended inquiry among leading American 

 fruit growers shows nothing so emphatically as that 

 there is little agreement in practice. It is plain also 

 that very few men have thought out and adopted a 

 complete and consistent system for their own orchards. 

 It will therefore be manifestly impossible to outline a 

 definite schedule of practice which can be ada])ted to 

 all sorts of soils, with all classes of fruits, in various 

 climates, and by all kinds of fruit growers. Only the 



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