FERTILIZERS FOR VEGETABLES 



223 



ed largely by the results of your own experience and by the 

 special circumstances under which you are working. How- 

 ever, a few suggestions may be offered in addition to some 

 that have already been dropped. Place the fertilizer where 

 it will, first of all, be at hand to furnish food to the feeding 

 rootlets as soon as they are formed ; that is, with most veget- 

 able crops, in the row and distributed through the layer of 

 soil surrounding and just below the seed. The extent of the 

 root system of a plant will indicate how widely to apply the fer- 

 tilizer. As to whether the application shall be made entirely 

 at the time of planting or part at that time and part later, 

 this must depend upon the amount and kind of fertilizer 

 used and also upon the crop. When applications of more 

 than one thousand pounds an acre are used, it is better to 

 apply not more than one-half or two-thirds at planting time 

 and the balance when the crop is well started. 



Top-dressing. 



Before closing, a word should be said about top-dressing. 

 Only soluble plant-food materials should be used, and it is 

 well to work them into the surface soil a little. When sodium 

 nitrate, which is the material most commonly used for top- 

 dressing, is applied, it is advisable to put on not more than 

 one hundred pounds an acre at one time ; it is also important 

 never to put it on undiluted, if it is not to be worked into 

 the soil, but to mix it with two to four times its bulk of any 

 fine, dry, inert material previous to distributing. This dilu- 

 tion enables one to distribute it more uniformly and largely 

 prevents injury to plants by spatterings of the dissolved 

 nitrate, if the surface application is followed by a hard 

 shower. Similar precautions are advisable in the case of 

 top-dressing with any high grade or concentrated fertilizer, 

 when it is to be placed on the surface near growing plants. 



Summary. 



In conclusion, I will summarize briefly the ground that I 

 have attempted so hastily to run over. 



(1) The effective use of fertilizers depends upon many 

 other conditions, especially soil, climatic and physiological. 



