MANURES AND FERTILIZERS 95 



cow manure alone, and doesn't have to pay much attention to so- 

 called commercial fertilizers or chemical salts as plant foods. With 

 cow manxu-e on hand — whether fresh and used in liquid form, or 

 well decomposed and mixed in with the soil in the benches or for 

 potting — we hardly need spoil a single crop. 



Conditions, however, have changed and are changing rapidly, 

 and it seems almost as if the automobile has not only done away with 

 the horse, but had also driven the cows away from the neighborhood 

 wherever a florist is located. There are really more cows in the 

 country than ever, only they are distributed differently, and for the 

 florist the cost of manure, if bought, is almost prohibitive. 



Gradually some of us are beginning to realize that we have to 

 find substitutes with which to supply the essential plant foods, 

 such as nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, one or the other of 

 which — or all three — are usually lacking in most soils. 



We are beginning to realize that we are creeping in the dark 

 as far as knowing the first thing about what the soil in our particular 

 section lacks in essential plant food requirements. Nor do we 

 intelligently go about applying fertilizer. We look upon a bag of 

 2-12-1 fertihzer with suspicion, just because it doesn't look Hke a 

 yard of manure, and we don't realize that the food values in that 

 bag are far greater than what is actuaUy available in that yard of 

 manure. Or we wiU use bonemeal, which contains a high per- 

 centage of phosphoric acid when the sofl really is in need of potash; 

 or we apply nitrogen in the shape of nitrate of soda when the soil is 

 really in need of available phosphoric acid, and so on. Even those 

 who do use fertilizers and salts to promote growth or flower develop- 

 ment, far too often take the stand that because the dose applied 

 hasn't killed the plants in the bench or made them look sick it na- 

 turally must have done them a lot of good; whereas, if the truth 

 were known, it was just money thrown away. 



Organic or Animal Manures 



I don't blame any man who can get all the cow and horse 

 manure he wants and obtains good success with his methods of 

 applying it, for sticking to what he may term "the safest way and 

 the easiest." However, the number of florists finding it more diffi- 

 cult to obtain manure is increasing greatly each year, and as there 

 is no set rule to go by in applying fertilizer, it is surely of enough 

 importance for every florist to try and get better acquainted with his 

 own particular requirements. You cannot obtain satisfactory 

 results by experimenting for just one season; it takes more than that, 

 and each class of plants we grow requires different treatment. Even 

 those who at present have aU the stable manure they need, often 

 can use commercial fertilizers and chemical salts in connection 



