26 THE RURAL LIBRARY. 



a firmer texture and a higher color where fertilizers are used. To re- 

 call Mr. Wygant's analogy, the peach tree responds to different forms 

 of fertility, about as the cow gives butter of varying quality and 

 appearance as she is fed sour brewers' grains or sweet corn meal and 

 clover hay. 



As to tile relative cost of fertility in fertilizers and manure, if any fair 

 estimate is to be given for the cost of handling the latter, the cheaper 

 price of nitrogen, potash and phosphoric acid in the former will be 

 easily seen. A ton of manure containing 10 pounds of nitrogen, 6 

 pounds of phosphoric acid and 12 pounds of potash, costing $3 a ton, 

 means 21 cents for nitrogen, 8 for potash, and 14 for phosphoric acid- 

 altogether too much as compared with the fertilizer. This figuring is 

 on the assumption that all the nitrogen, potash and phosphoric acid in 

 stable manure is in an available condition, whereas, in /act, as the long 

 continued experiments of Dr. Lawes show, only one fifth of the nitro- 

 gen and one half of the potash and phosphoric acid can be depended 

 upon for the first crop. At the same time stable manure is the cheapest 

 mulching material and the best source of humus these farmers can 

 obtain. Of course, where one has land enough to grow crops to be 

 plowed under for green manuring, so much stable manure is not 

 needed, but most fruit growers are intensive farmers and cannot spare 

 the land for growing green crops. 



The use of good fertilizers is sure to increase as farmers become 

 convinced that it is possible to provide a substitute for manure. A 

 thorough knowledge of the possibilities of chemicals will work great 

 changes in Eastern farming. Many hillsides, at present neglected, 

 because of the great cost of restoring their fertility with stable manure, 

 can be turned into profitable fruit farms with fertilizers. There are 

 such slopes and hills fronting the sun that might be turned into veri- 

 table gardens in a few years by the judicious use of fertilizers. There 

 should be no rivalry between manure and fertilizers. Each has its 

 legitimate place in agriculture. The greatest mistakes are made when 

 farmers through prejudice against fertilizers ascribe to manure ficti- 

 tious properties and values. 



It seems to me that too little prominence has been given by fruit 

 growers to the matter of feeding their trees and vines in the most 

 scientific way. When fruit growers meet in convention or in private 

 most of their talk is given to discussions of varieties or methods of 

 pruning or cultivating. Manures and fertilizers are discussed in a 

 general way, but not in anything like the detail in which other matters 

 are handled. For example, when Mr. J. H. Hale makes the statement 

 at these meetings that he would arrest a man who hauled stable 

 manure into his peach orchards, most of those who listen fail to see 



