202 MANURES FOR FRUIT TREES 



therefore require providing with tnose plant foods 

 essential to their proper growth. 



Mr. T. W. Sanders, in an excellent paper, says : 

 " We are daily seeing evidence of the fact that if 

 we wish to make the land of this country more 

 productive in the future, we, as gardeners, or 

 farmers, must go in more largely for direct plant 

 food-manures that wiU supply just what the crop 

 needs to enable it to attain its highest develop- 

 ment in the shortest period of time. We cannot 

 afford to wait, as of yore, several seasons for the 

 soil to be enriched by the aid of successive ap- 

 plications of farmyard manure before we get 

 decent crops. We want something that will act 

 quickly and produce immediate results. Moreover, 

 we want to be able to get first-class crops (fruit, 

 etc.) year after year from the same plot of land, 

 and thus dispense with the old practice of fallow- 

 ing, which had for its main object the accumula- 

 tion and storage of food for future crops. Slowly, 

 but surely, we shall see intensive cultivation taking 

 the place of extensive cultivation in our market 

 gardens and in our farms. And the principle of 

 getting the most out of the land will compel 

 cultivators more than ever to study the principles 

 of plant life and its cognate subject, plant foods " 

 (manures). 



