A B C OF FLORIDA TRUCKING 39 



When you decide what crop you wish to plant, find what 

 kind of fertihzer is suited to make it to perfection, and give 

 it just what it needs. 



Stable and barnyard fertilizers are excellent for most 

 crops, if mixed with sufficient potash and phosphoric acid, 

 as they are a little weak in these two important elements. 

 You cannot use too much of them, but it will not pay you to 

 buy stable fertilizer unless you can get it delivered at your 

 farm for $2 per double team load or less. If you save stable 

 fertilizer from your own yards, be sure to see that the 

 pen you store it in has a good cover, as the sun and rain 

 take all the strength out of it. If you can gather oak leaves 

 convenient to your place and compost them with the stable 

 manure, it makes an excellent fertilizer, but you cannot 

 afford to buy them. 



Do not take vegetable matter of any kind off of your 

 land, but let it die and plow it under as it all helps to make 

 the soil rich. Cowpeas, velvet beans, rape, vetch and corn 

 stalks are all good. One thing that I should say right here 

 is that in plowing under vegetable matter do not turn any- 

 thing under that shows the least sign of disease, but pull 

 it up and burn it — the quicker the better. 



I know many of my readers who are not experienced 

 in farming as practiced here, will think I recommend using 

 too much fertilizer, and in order to prove it will pay to feed 

 your crops well I will give a little example. Suppose we 

 plant an acre of lettuce, using i,ooo pounds of fertilizer 

 at a cost of $17.00, the labor and other expenses of raising 

 the crop amounts to $50.00 ; we get a yield of four hundred 

 crates that sell for $1 per crate f. o. b. our station; this 

 will net us a profit of $333.00. Now, if we plant the same 

 acre in lettuce and use a ton of fertihzer at a cost of $34, 

 under the same growing conditions, the yield will not be 



