226 



FERTILIZERS FOR VEGETABLES 



Professor Van Slyke : A fertilizer containing from three 

 to four per cent, of nitrogen, about eight per cent, phosphoric 

 acid, and ten per cent, potash. 



President Greffrath : Have you any special source from 

 which you v^ould recommend getting the nitrogen? 



Professor Van Slyke: In that case it would be well to 

 have about half of it in the form of nitrate of soda. I should 

 put on most of it before the crop is planted. It might be 

 well to supplement with some nitrate of soda after the crop 

 is well started. 



Cyanamid. 



President Greffrath : I would like to ask if there is any 

 member present who has used cyanamid instead of nitrate 

 of soda or other sources of nitrogen? I heard of a party 

 last year who had received a sample bag of that from the 

 manufacturers at Niagara Falls, and he used it on a portion 

 of the crop of lettuce, marking the rows on which he used 

 it. He claimed that he had very little need of marking them, 

 for it apparently killed the lettuce plant, so there was very 

 little left but the heart. He sowed it broadcast, also the 

 nitrate of soda, which I think is a very bad plan. It is likely 

 to burn. He used the cyanamid in the same way, and in a 

 very short time it seemed to destroy the plant and he thought 

 it was a total loss. The other crop came on, and the first re- 

 covered but it was about ten days later than the other crop, 

 but he said the quality was so much better than anything he 

 had ever seen he was going to use it this year. 



Professor Van Slyke: I have not known in particular 

 about the effects of cyanamid on lettuce. In the literature I 

 have been following the effects of cyanamid for ten years or 

 so, and I avoid recommending it at the present time, for the 

 reason that we do not know enough about it to use it indis- 

 criminately. It is generally recognized that if it is put on 

 the soil at the time of seeding, it will injure the seed serious- 

 ly; and so it is generally put into the soil one or two weeks 

 before seeding, in these cases the seeds not being injured. 

 But it is being used in some of our mixed fertilizers quite 

 extensively as a source of part of the nitrogen, though, of 



