CARE TAKING 



do is to look to the drainage, tillage, and health of the trees first, 

 and to the more expensive and less-certain fertilizers afterward. 



, As good a commercial fertilizer formula as any for 



Fertilizers ^^^ average plantation of fruit trees is: 3.50 pounds 



of acid phosphate and 200 pounds of muriate of 

 potash to the acre, with 500 pounds of dried blood or 3.50 pounds 

 of nitrate of soda to supply nitrogen. In lieu of these commercial 

 fertilizers, and much better, from six to ten tons of well-rotted sta- 

 ble-manure might be used to the acre. 



Commercial fertilizers should be applied in the spring as soon as 

 the ground can be worked, spreading them about the trees over an 

 area considerably greater than that covered by the spread of the 

 branches. The manure should be put on before plowing; the fer- 

 tilizers immediately after to be harrowed in. If the orchard is being 

 double-cropped, these quantities of fertilizers must be increased 

 somewhat to meet the double demand. 



rp It is hard to wait for things to happen in an orchard. 



Often Waste and the impatient tyro attempts to push his plants 

 Their Substance with heavy doses of fertilizer. Reveling in abun- 

 in Riotous dance, trees so treated delay fruiting still longer and 



l^ivmg Yg^y waste their powers in luxuriant foliage and lusty 



wood. Truth is, the average soil of which home gardens are composed 

 is a little too rich for most fruits. Putting fertilizer on such soils is 

 like gilding the rose or throwing perfume on the violet. 



"But fertilizers are good for farm crops and vegetables ! Why not 

 fruits?" It takes but a few words to answer the question. 

 _ ,. Ti t,-t Trees have a preparatory time of several seasons 

 of Fruits before fruit-bearing begins; farm and truck crops 



Compared with make their growth, bear a crop, and pass away in a 

 Those of season. Trees begin early in the spring and continue 



Farm Crops and ^^ ^^.^^ ^^til late fall, so that fruit, leaf, and wood 

 ege a es have a long time to develop; annual and biennial 



crops must develop in a much shorter time. The roots of trees run 

 deeper and spread farther than those of succulent plants. Trees are 

 very heavy drinkers and transpire water more rapidly than herba- 

 ceous plants, so that the nutritive soil-solution need not be so 

 concentrated for fruits as for grains and vegetables. 



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