Fertilizers 45 



necessary then, if one would have a really successful 

 garden, no matter how small it is, to add plant foods 

 to the soil abundantly. When you realize, ( i ) that 

 the number of plant foods containing the three es- 

 sential elements is almost unlimited, (2) that each 

 contains them in different proportions and in differ- 

 ing degrees of availability, (3) that the amount of 

 the available elements already in the soil varies 

 greatly and is practically undeterminable, and (4) 

 that different plants, and even different varieties of 

 the same plant, use these elements in widely differing 

 proportions; then you begin to understand what a 

 complex matter this question of manuring is and 

 why it is so much discussed and so little understood. 

 What a labyrinth it offers for any writer — to say 

 nothing of the reader — to go astray in! 



I have tried to present this matter clearly. If I 

 have succeeded it may have been only to make the 

 reader hopelessly discouraged of ever getting at any- 

 thing definite in the question of enriching the soil. 

 In that case my advice would be that, for the time 

 being, he forget all about it. Fortunately, in the 

 question of manuring, a little knowledge is not often 

 a dangerous thing. Fortunately, too, your plants do 

 not insist that you solve the food problem for them. 

 Set a full table and they will help themselves and 

 take the right dishes. The only thing to worry 

 about is that of the three important foods men- 



