A«c;u9t, 1918 



THE GARDEN AND FIELD. 



109 



n.iiuii", aro C'lsily tliiowii oui of bal- 

 ,uuo by iinproi)cr fertilising;. 



■1"1r- i)Ossil>ilitics o{ tlio small fruit 

 aroa under ideal conditions is almost 

 limitless. No one element has any 

 more to do with the success of this 

 \> nture than does a thoroughly con- 

 m nial soil. 



In a general way we must have a 

 ^ soil provided with enough humus or 

 ^ vegetable matter to make its mechani- 

 , cal condition perfect but not over- 

 ; done in this line. The last state is 

 1^ often worse than the first. Closely 

 i connected with this vital supply of 



■ vegetable elements is a sufficient 

 '< amount of nitrogen to run the fruit 



plants to their highest degree of 



■ fruiting excellence. To do this re- 

 quires close observations in all lines 

 to guard against an overgrowth of 



■ vines at the expense of fruit buds. 

 Too much nitrogen is likely to throw 

 the fruit plant out of balance and so 

 produce an excessive amount of 



k spindling foliage with a correspond- 

 ; ing decrease of fruiting impetus, usu- 

 I ally made evident by imperfect 

 crowns, poorly developed fruit stems, 

 and often few and unsatisfactory blos- 



Isoms. 

 Stable manure may furnish too 

 much vine producing food with com- 

 ^ paratively little phosphoric acid and 

 I potash. In the case of the soil not 

 having liberal quantities of the latter 

 '. mentioned elements naturally sup- 

 plied a liberal dressing of stable man- 

 ure may be worse than no fertilising 

 at all. In order to determine the 

 amount of available phosphoric acid 

 in the soil it is well to experiment in 

 r a small way with those foods to prove 

 the soils. 



By using these elenjents separately 

 ■and in combination in experimental 

 :ways on small plats with ample space 

 Eleft for checks where no minerals are 

 osed, every fruit-grower can soon de- 

 termine for himself, just the limita- 

 tions of these elements on the diflfer- 

 ;ent kinds of soil. A few experiments 

 that this scheme naturally suggests 

 can be developed and carried out by 

 each fruit-grower for a series of years 

 to the marked benefit of the operator. 

 A ready mixed feriliser unless it has 

 a formula especially compounded to 

 reach one's local conditions must be 

 regarded as unsuited for this kind of 

 work. A little acid phosphate and 

 potash in some form quite free from 

 - the other elements, used in connec- 

 tion with stable manure in varying 



liroportions will give us definite rc- 

 .Milts cither for or against increased 

 expenditures in this line. 



Another element tiiat vitally affects 

 soil building and crop feeding is the 

 character of the season. With the de- 

 licate structure of small fruits it is 

 quite easy to over-fertilise in wet sea- 

 sons and consequently under feed in 

 dry seasons, hence in any system of 

 experimental fertilising the character 

 of the season must be taken into con- 

 sideration. Again, in a cold, back- 

 ward spring a very light application 

 of a thoroughly soluble fertiliser may 

 help the starting vines forward to an 

 unexpected degree by simply furnish- 

 ing a bit of available fertility at a 

 period when, owing to unfavorable 

 climatic conditions the plants make 

 very slow progress for the want of 

 available plant food at a critical time 

 when but little natural food is in con- 

 dition to be ertracted from the soil. 



Arsenate of Lead. 



Perhaps the reason that arsenate of 

 lead was first used was the fact that 

 Paris green, while it did the insect 

 killing, settled so badly that it lost a 

 great deal of its value in big spraying 

 work. For a man using insecticides 

 in a small way Paris green was very 

 satisfactory, but when he began to 

 use it in a big tank and big spraying 

 outfit, it was troublesome, so the 

 chemist and horticulturist looked 

 around for some other poison, which 

 would spray better, which would stand 

 suspension better, and still kill, and 

 among other things they hit on arsen- 

 ate of lead. They ran over the other 

 various arsenate compounds and fin- 

 ally the concensus of opinion decid- 

 ed that arsenate of lead was the safest 

 and most effective. To my mind you 

 can make a comparison between ar- 

 senate of lead and Paris green in this 

 way: — Paris green when examined 

 under a microscope appears like a 

 hailstone, and arsenate of lead when 

 examined in the same way looks like 

 a snowflake; there you have the rela- 

 tive settling qualities of the hailstone 

 and the snowflake, and if you examine 

 Paris green under the microscope it 

 is a perfectly round green sphere, a 

 round ball; arsenate of lead has a 

 soft, irregular, what we call amor- 

 phous condition, just like a piece of 

 newly-fallen snow, and for that rea- 

 son it was very much better in our 

 spraying mixtures; it settles very 

 slowly. You stir up arsenate of lead 



and it takes about ten times longer 

 to sittle down into the same density, 

 the same space as I'aris green will, 

 and when it is settled down, it is very 

 much easier to stir up, it never settles 

 hard. 



Another advantage in the use of 

 arsenate of lead over Paris green is 

 the fact that it is safer to use; you 

 can use it in very much larger quan- 

 tities than you can Paris green or 

 any other insecticide that is known. 

 Suppose you want to use a very ra- 

 dical amount of any other of these in- 

 secticides, you may run into serious 

 trouble in burning foliage. That ap- 

 plies to Paris green or any of them, 

 but arsenate of lead you can. use un- 

 der ordinary conditions in almost un- 

 limited strength, and you do not risk 

 the burning of the foliage. That is 

 another great advantage of this ma- 

 terial. 



In regard to the use of this material, 

 in combination with other spray mix- 

 tures or fungicides, arsenate of lead 

 can be mixed readily with Bordeaux 

 mixture, but cannot be mixed with 

 lime sulphur. The use of arsenate of 

 lead with lime sulphur spray almost 

 always results in a black precipitate, 

 wherein the virtue of both the sul- 

 phur and arsenate of lead are lost, 

 chemical reaction takes place which 

 makes an injurious mixture, but the 

 combination of arsenate of lead with 

 Bordeaux mixture is very satisfactory. 

 The Bordeaux is made up in the u?ual 

 way, and then use about two to three 

 pounds of arsenate of lead, putfng 

 the arsenate of lead with the lime, 

 there is no chemical action takes 

 place between the lead and the lime, 

 and when the mixture is completed 

 with the bluestone, no action takes 

 place, but if the arsenate of lead is 

 mixed with the bluestone, then there 

 is likely to be trouble; it is not very 

 definite trouble, but there is likely to 

 be a little of it, but made up in the 

 proper way, arsenate of lead gives 

 splendid results with the Bordeaux 

 mixture. — Exchange. 



♦ 



GRAFTING WAX. 

 " Alfalfa " writes:— Your leng,tliv 

 recipe for making grafting w^ax re- 

 minds me of my own discovery in 

 this connection — and as it is a 

 fraction of the troiible and just as 

 ellective, T pass it on pro liono 

 public. Plain beeswax placed in a 

 tin, and melted on the stove in a 

 pot of water, and painted on the 

 graft after securely t\nng 'same is 

 all that is required. This has 

 never failed me in dozens of oper- 

 ations. 



