March 15, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest 



121 



will be reflected. The spouts, too, should be of metal. The 

 best tub now made is of the best iron dipped in a solution of 

 white metal, which renders it rust-proofand a non-conductor of 

 heat. Tubs made of wood, if thoroughly painted and kept 

 painted, will be very good and serviceable. Every sap-tub 

 should have a cover easily and quickly adjusted to the tree 

 above the tub, and disconnected with it, but so set as to ex- 

 clude snow or rain, falling bark, floating leaves and other im- 

 purities. The best covers that I have seen are made in Stowe, 

 Vermont, of wood, painted white. 

 Waterbtiry Centi-e, vt. Timothy Wheeler. 



Phosphate for Fruit. 



DR. G. C. CALDWELL, of Cornell University, read a paper 

 before the Western New York Horticultural Society on the 

 fertilizer known as Basic Slag Phosphate, Thomas Slag Phos- 

 phate, as well as by other names. This is made from the slag pro- 

 duced by a process for making Bessemer steel from ore so rich 

 in phosphorus that they are unfit for steel made by the usual 

 process. Nearly all the iron ores of the southern states are of 

 this character, so that the prospect is that great quantities of 

 this ore will be utilized. About all the phosphorus of the ore 

 goes into the slag, and when the product is ground very fine 

 it may contain as much as twenty per cent, of phosphoric 

 acid. In 1880, fifteen thousand tons of this phosphate were 

 used as a fertilizer in Europe, and ten years later 783,000 tons 

 were used, an increase which speaks strongly forits usefulness. 



In comparing the different forms of phosphates, it is proba- 

 ble that the trade value of a pound of phosphoric acid in this 

 slag will not differ much from that of the so-called reverted 

 phosphate. The solubility of the phosphate in slag differs so 

 little from that of the reverted phosphate that there will be 

 little reason for any difference in this respect. As there will 

 probably be a great demand for it, methods of adulteration are 

 already sought. As it comes from the furnace it is not all 

 equally good, so that the best can be easily mixed with ground 

 rock phosphate, which is very inferior to it in value. Wlien it 

 comes on the market, therefore, it ought to be subjected to 

 the scrutiny of the agents of the experiment stations. Experi- 

 ments in Germany seem to show that this phosphate is espe- 

 cially useful on bog lands and on irrigated meadows, or on 

 such as are periodically overflowed. On dry lands, or in dry 

 seasons, it is apt to fail, although its effect may appear in the 

 following year, so that there will be no loss. It has been tried 

 with success on every crop that is usually benefited by phos- 

 phoric acid, and two hundred pounds of slag-flour, ground 

 very fine, has given as good results as one hundred pounds of 

 superphosphate. The European chemists consider it one of 

 the best materials to use for the purpose of stocking the soil 

 with a desirable surplus of phosphate of a suitable degree of 

 assimilability. 



After giving a very complete account of the experience with 

 this slag in Europe, and assuming that the product which is 

 beginning to come into the market in this country is about of 

 the same quality. Dr. Caldwell continued : 



Now as to the use the horticulturist can make of this fertilizer, 

 I have nothing but suggestions to offer. For most of the 

 crops that he raises, it would seem to me that he requires a 

 fertilizer that acts slowly ; his berry-bushes, his vmes and his 

 trees grow slowly, as compared with the crops that tlie farmer 

 raises, and especially compared with those of the market 

 gardener. For him a fertilizer that comes somewhat slowly 

 to an assimilaiile condition is at least just as good as one that 

 is all or mostly soluble, and assimilable when he applies it ; 

 and if the first is cheaper than the second, while supplying, for 

 the money invested in it, a larger amount of the valuable 

 constituent for which it is bought, than he can get in the 

 second, it is the best manure for him to get. In the papers 

 that I have read, or the talks that I have given here or at 

 farmers' institutes, on conmiercial fertilizers, I have advised 

 my hearers to give up such exclusive use of the ordinary 

 superphosphate as is commonly practiced, and to experiment 

 on their soil with their own mixtures of the three plant-foods, 

 phosphate, potash and nitrogen compounds, for the reason 

 that the ordinary superphosphates contain all three of these 

 substances ; that the cost of the fertilizer is based on tiie 

 quantity of each of them that it contains ; that it may often be 

 tne case that a particular soil or crop to which this coinplete 

 fertilizer is applied, does not require some one or another of 

 these foods, and if so, will not yield in return, and that, there- 

 fore, all the money paid for the hundred pounds, or two 

 hundred pounds, or more in each ton of the fertilizer bought, 

 may be entirely thrown away for the time being. This slag 

 phosphate is a good material with which to begin to carry out 

 this idea. It contains no other plant-food than phosphate, and 



that exists in it in a very useful form ; it is very probable that 

 in many cases it would do its best work not alone, but either 

 with nitrogen compounds, or potash, especially ashes, or both. 

 With a little patience in putting the question two or three 

 times to his soils or to some special crops, by experiments in 

 the field, any farmer or horticulturist can get satisfactory 

 answers to his questioning, and learn how to feed his crops, 

 less like a mere machine, and more like an intelligent reason- 

 ing man. 



Notes on the Forest Flora of Japan. — VIII. 



JAPAN and eastern North America are equally rich in 

 species of Holly, there being thirteen or fourteen in 

 each of the two regions. In Japan, however, Hollies 

 grow to a larger size than they do in North America, there 

 being eight or nine trees in this genus in the Mikado's 

 empire, and only four in the United States ; and some of 

 the Japanese Hollies are much larger and far more beauti- 

 ful than any of our species. The most beautiful of them all 

 is certainly the southern Ilex latifolia, an evergreen tree now 

 occasionally seen in the gardens of southern Europe, where 

 it was first carried more than fifty years ago. Although a 

 native of southern Japan, Ilex latifolia appears perfectly at 

 home in Tokyo, where it is often seen in large gardens and 

 temple-grounds, and where it occasionally makes a tree 

 fifty to sixty feet in height, with a straight tall trunk cov- 

 ered with the pale smooth bark which is found on those of 

 most plants of this genus. The leaves are sometimes six 

 inches long and three or four inches broad, and are very 

 thick, dark green, and exceedingly lustrous. The large 

 scarlet fruit of this tree, which does not ripen until the late 

 autumn or early winter months, and which is produced in 

 the greatest profusion in nearly sessile axillary clusters, re- 

 mains on the branches until the beginning of the following 

 summer. Ilex latifolia is probably the handsomest broad- 

 leaved evergreen tree that grows in the forests of Japan, 

 not only on account of its brilliant abundant fruit, but also 

 on account of the size and character of its foliage. It may 

 be expected to prove hardy in Washington, and will cer- 

 tainly flourish in the southern Atlantic and Gulf states. 



Ilex integra is also a beautiful and distinctly desirable 

 ornamental tree, often cultivated in the temple-gardens of 

 Japan, where it frequently reaches a height of thirty or 

 forty feet. The leaves are narrow, obovate, three or four 

 inches long, and apparently quite entire. The fruit, which 

 is rather long-stalked, is nearly half an inch in diameter, and 

 very showy during the winter. A variety of this species 

 (var. leucoclada, Maxm.), a shrub two to three feet high, 

 with narrower leaves and smaller fruit, is a northern form, 

 growing as far north as southern Yezo. On Mount Ha- 

 koda, near Aomori, we found this plant in full flower and 

 with ripe fruit on the 2d of October, and secured a supply 

 of the seeds, so that its hardiness can be tested in the 

 northern states. It must be remembered, however, that, 

 although this plant, and several other broad-leaved ever- 

 green shrubs, including two or three species of Holly, grow 

 in Japan in a higher latitude than Massachusetts, they are 

 protected, as Maximovvicz has already pointed out, during 

 the winter hy an undisturbed covering of snow, and are 

 not exposed, therefore, to the changes of cliiTiate which en- 

 danger the existence of many plants in eastern America. 

 In Japan, moreover, ])lants do not suffer from the summer 

 and winter droughts, which often sap their vitality in the 

 United States, and which are often more directly responsi- 

 ble for the apparent want of hardiness of many plants than 

 intense winter cold. 



A third Japanese evergreen species, Ilex rotunda, is also 

 occasionally cultivated by the Japanese, although I only saw 

 two or three specimens of it ; these were handsome trees, 

 thirty to forty feet in height, with well-formed trunks twelve 

 to thirteen inches in diameter. The leaves of this tree are 

 broadly ovate to nearly orbicular, with entire thickened 

 margins, and are very dark green and lustrous, although 

 not thick nor very coriaceous. The fruit is smaller than 

 that of the two species already mentioned and rather ob- 

 long in outline. 



