SORGHUM. 41 



time before the crop is to be planted, lest its more 

 valuable ingredients should filter into the drainage 

 water and pass away before they can be appropriated 

 by the plants of the crop which is to follow. It is 

 not a good plan to top-dress the seed bed which is 

 to receive sorghum seed with any kind of farmyard 

 manure, because of the prevalence of weed seeds in 

 the same. But it may in some instances serve an 

 excellent purpose, to top-dress sandy soils with 

 farmyard manure in the autumn, and then to bury 

 the manure that has been so applied in the early 

 spring. The surface soil will thus be so far enriched 

 , as to promote a rapid growth. 



Commercial fertilizers may be applied alone, or 

 in conjunction with farmyard manure. Complete 

 fertilizers are more commonly used, but the exact 

 nature of the product to be applied will depend upon 

 the extent to which the soil is wanting in the various 

 leading elements of fertility. The aim should be to 

 apply these fertilizers so tjiat they will stimulate vig- 

 orous growth in the plants when they are young. 

 since, if they have thus been made strong while yet 

 young, their power to extract plant food from the 

 soil at a later period of development will be greatly 

 enhanced. The fertilizer should therefore be sowri 

 when practicable at the same time the seed is sown, 

 and in near proximity to the same, but not too close 

 to it when the fertilizer is possessed of any ingre- 

 dients of a caustic nature. 



For several years the question of fertilizers for 

 sorghum is not likely to give much concern to the 

 growers of the same in the upper basin of the Mis- 

 sissippi river. It is very different, however, with the 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



