February 5, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



5^ 



tance of thorough mixing depends on the solubility of the 

 plant-food. If the water dissolves it as soon as it goes into 

 the soil, then that distributes it more efficiently than can be 

 done in any other way. This solubility affects the nitrogen 

 most, and this is the constituent which the manufacturers 

 claim they can furnish in better condition than the farmers 

 can. In the home-made fertilizers seventy-two percent, of the 

 nitrogen was available, while only twenty-eight per cent, was 

 available in the manufactured fertilizers. Ot the home-mixed 

 material only twenty-eight per cent, needed to be made fine 

 and mixed tiioroughly, while in the manufactured article 

 seventy-two percent, required such treatment. Sixty percent. 

 of the price of average fertilizers is paid for nitrogen. By the 

 proper growing of certain Leguminous crops much of this may 

 be saved. 



The farmers of New Jersey who have been doing so much 

 of this home-mixing feel satisfied that the results are better 

 and cost less than their former practice. Of course, each man 

 must experiment on his own land by excluding one plant nu- 

 trient and thus ask if his land wants this, that or the other of 

 these three important constituents. It is bad practice to be 

 stingy with applications of fertilizers. It should be remem- 

 bered that there are three and a half million pounds of soil on 

 an acre, taking one foot in depth, and then one can estimate 

 how small an amount of food 700 pounds to 1,000 pounds of 

 fertilizer will furnish when it contains only five per cent, of 

 nitrogen, ten to fifteen per cent, of phosphoric acid, and 

 ten percent, of potash. 



THE EVOLUTION OF TILLAGE. 



Professor Bailey began his address on this subject with 

 the statement that tillage, as we understand it, was not 

 known till two hundred or three hundred years ago. The 

 physical necessities of killing weeds, putting in the seeds and 

 getting the crops out was all that was aimed at. Two hundred 

 years ago Tull observed the tillage of vineyards in the south 

 of France, and as a result published a book in 1733 known as 

 Horse-hoeing Husbandry. His theories were that by tillage 

 soils might be forever reinvigorated and renewed. Some 

 thought the necessary elements for plant-growth were nitre, 

 water, air, fire and earth. Tull ruled out the air. He said that 

 the plant is earth. He thought they fed on earth, and hence 

 it was necessary that it should be finely divided, so it might be 

 taken up by the mouths of the roots. The value of ashes was 

 entirely due to their fineness. He observed also tliat tillage 

 made the soil moist. He thought the moisture came from 

 the air. 



We have now learned to till for the sake of tillage. At Cor- 

 nell, TuU's system of growing Wheat in rows and cultivating 

 has been followed by taking a piece of ground and dividing it 

 into strips five and a half feet wide and planting alternate 

 strips each year with Wheat, and keeping the vacant land culti- 

 vated. The result is as heavy crops as the average ones of 

 New York state the last five years on the same piece of ground. 



By failing to cultivate well, farmers are borrowing money 

 when they already have a lot in bank not drawing interest. 



The lailure of apples is due to the neglect orchardisis have 

 shown tor the last twenty-five years, and now they are reaping 

 the harvest. They should use the deposit in the bank first ; 

 get the most possible out of the land by tillage. Some hold three 

 or four years of such treatment to mean failure afterward. 

 But we need not expect to correct the wrongs of a quarter of a 

 century in three or tour years. Nine-tenths of all the orchards 

 in New York are in grass, and half of these yield annual crops of 

 liay. We are hunting fungi with spray guns and forget to feed 

 our crop-producers. If an orchard is worth planting it is 

 worth caring for. 



It is impossible to begin cultivating an old orchard because 

 the roots have come to the surface. In Erie County, on a light 

 soil, one grower had plenty of berries in a dry year by keeping 

 the soil in good condition by cultivation. He held the mois- 

 ture from the rains by constant cultivating so as to interrupt 

 and break the capillaries which drew the soil-water to the sur- 

 face, where it evaporated and was lost, and at the same time 

 he spread over the land a porous blanket two or three inches 

 thick. In the Pecos Valley, now becoming famous, the yearly 

 rainfall is five or six inches, but they keep it all by cultivation, 

 and yet here we are complaining of trees shriveling and dry- 

 ing up with forty-eight inches rainfall. 



All the growth of an orchard should be made by August. 

 The rule should be to begin early, plow deep, and follow rains 

 closely with a cultivator. He had found roots of two-year-old 

 Plum-trees eight feet from the trunk, while the top only ex- 

 tended four feet, thus showing that the root extended farther 

 than the top. In the early part of the season the tree-roots 



catch food, while later the trees should be checked by Crimson 

 Clover, which takes the available food and moisture, and 

 gathers food into a better shape for trees. It should be sown 

 in August, but it ought to be either long before or after the 

 fruit is gathered. ■ ■ ■ -' 



Pruning is a means of tillage ; it concenfratesfood In a short 

 space. After all this has been done, then spray. When an 

 orchard in sod is doing well it merely shows that the land there 

 has superabundant fertility. Half of the old orchards should 

 be cut down. Those which cannot be plowed should be 

 dragged and have an application of 500 pounds of superphos- 

 phate and half as much potassium chloride to the acre. Feed 

 the crops, not the land ; apply 200 pounds every year, not half 

 a ton every five years. 



In the discussion which followed this paper, Mr. Tabor sug- 

 gested that cultivation may stimulate the production of trees, 

 rather than of fruit, tending to push the tree with the greater- 

 amount of nitrogen it secured as food. An orchard in Dutchess 

 County was thoroughly cultivated and dressed with 1,500 

 pounds of bone and 500 pounds potassium chloride. Another 

 iiad a good dressing of stable-manure. The orchard treated 

 with potash and bone ga.-e glossy, firm, high-colored apples, 

 while the one dressed with barnyard-manure gave larger, but 

 less highly colored, apples, which slirank more, and did' not 

 carry to England as well. He thought the nitrogenous manure 

 keeps the wood growing late, so that it does not ripen well, 

 and immature buds mean poor fruit. To this Professor 

 Bailey replied that he would supply potash and phosphoric 

 acid, but would not buy nitrogen. Sometimes, when lands are 

 rich in nitrogen, and an orchard is too rankly growing, then 

 seeding it down to grass might be its salvation. This, how- 

 ever, is a special case ; as a rule, cultivation is better than 

 grass. 



A THOUSAND DOLLARS AN ACRE FROM BLACKBERRIES. 



This was the rather startling title of a paper read by Mr. 

 C. E. Chapman, of Peru. In recounting his experience Mr.' 

 Chapman said that he had heard that Blackberries would grow 

 anywhere, and he, therefore, bought some plants of Kittatiny, 

 took no particular pains to set them, and many died. He used 

 on the ground a quantity of raw, coarse manure, and the next 

 year many of the canes broke. He then concluded that to 

 grow Blackberries required some study. As a result of the 

 study he prepared a piece of chestnut loam, put it in prime 

 condition, bought some plants of Agawam and Snyder from 

 good, careful growers, at prices that would warrant him in 

 expecting good plants. He set them carefully in trenches 

 seven feet apart and eight inches deep in the trench. He found 

 these varieties deep-rooted and thritty, and where mulched, 

 pruned and not fed too much raw manure he had little trouble 

 irom winter-killing. Wlien setting his plantation he applied 

 eight hundred pounds of potash to the acre. He was careful 

 to have all plants well set, and he frequently clipped the tops. 

 All weak canes were cut out. Every spring he applies a light 

 dressing of commercial fertilizer. Immediately after fruitino- 

 he cuts out and destroys all the old canes, as these are the 

 seat of nearly all the troubles of this fruit. During the winter 

 he mulches heavily and leaves tlie mulch on late in the spring 

 to prevent early staiting. 



Although he did not believe a thousand dollars an acre 

 could be realized under ordinary conditions, yet this was an 

 achievement worth striving for, and small patches had been 

 made to yield at that rate. It required the right combination 

 of man, soil, variety and cultivation, but it could be done. 



Crimson Clover was much talked of at this meeting, as it 

 always is nowadays at any gathering of farmers or fruit-grow- 

 ers, and it was suggested as the best crop to cover the ground 

 in winter and catch nitrogen, because it will grow all through 

 the winter and be ready to plow under in the spring. There is 

 danger of its dying as far north as New York state, according 

 to Professor Waite, who said it had been killed out near Wash- 

 ington by a temperature of six degrees below zero. This may 

 have been due, howev^er, to the warm weather preceding it. 

 Professor Bailey said it liad not been winter-killed in New 

 York during the last three years when raised from home- 

 grown seed. Dr. Caldwell spoke of it as a quick-meal crop, 

 and valuable because it worked when nothing else could, and 

 his advice was to secure nitrogen by some leguminous crops, 

 and apply phosphoric acid and potash, trying every possible 

 combination. The nitrogen in dried blood or in bone-meal 

 could be used any time in the year, but sodium nitrate could 

 only be applied about the time of sowing or after a crop was 

 under way, so that it could be taken up at once by the plants 

 before it leached out and ran to waste. 



