FERTILIZERS FOR THE GARDEN— V. 



FORTY years' experience FERTILIZ 



iTlE HAVE endeavored to show that, 

 for economical use in the garden, 

 many of the commercial fertili- 

 zers are too poor in nitrogen. In 

 order to get the necessary amount 

 of nitrogen, we are obliged to use 

 far more phosphoric acid and potash than our 

 plants need. 



The practical deduction from these facts is, that we 

 should ( i) buy nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash sep- 

 arately and do our own mixing, or (2) if we buy them 

 mixed and ready for use, we should select those brands 

 which, in addition to phosphoric acid and potash, contain 

 the highest percentage of nitrogen . 



As things now are, most gardeners will find it more 

 convenient to buy their fertilizers ready mixed. And we 

 may congratulate ourselves that, as a rule, our fertilizer 

 manufacturers are giving us just what they promise us, 

 and at rates which are not unreasonably high. If we do 

 not get what we want, and thus waste our money, we 

 have no one to blame but ourselves. If we want to put 

 on an acre 50 lbs. of nitrogen, 30 lbs. phosphoric acid 

 and 30 lbs. of potash, and buy a " complete fertilizer " 

 guaranteed to contain 2 per cent of nitrogen, 10 per 

 cent, phosporic acid and 4 per Cent, potash, we should 

 have to use, in order to get the 50 lbs. of nitrogen, 2,500 

 lbs. of the fertilizer. If we bought a fertilizer contain- 

 ing 4 per cent, nitrogen, and a proportionally less 

 amount of phosphoric acid and potash, we should need 

 to use only 1,250 lbs. in order to get the same results. 

 If we bought a fertilizer containing 5 per cent, of nitro- 

 gen, and a proportionally less amount of phosphoric 

 acid and potash, we should need to use only 833 lbs. of 

 the fertilizer to produce just as much good as 2,500 lbs, 

 of the fertilizer containing only 2 per cent, nitrogen. 



There is this to be said, however, in favor of using 

 fertilizers containing an excess of phosphoric acid and 

 potash. If we use more nitrogen than we need, we run 

 the risk of losing it by leaching the next winter, while if 

 we use too much phosphoric acid and potash, they are 

 converted into insoluble compounds in the soil and are 

 not liable to wash away. Sooner or later they will 

 become available for future crops. 



Hence, a safe rule is to make sure of having sufficient 

 phosphoric acid and potash in the soil, or in the manure, 

 and then buy nitrogen at the cheapest rate and in the 

 most available form. Practically, as things now are, 

 this means buying the so-called "high grade " fertil- 

 izers, or fertilizers containing, besides phosphoric acid 

 and potash, the highest percentage of nitrogen. 



On our own farm, we do not use these high grade fre- 



ER VALUES THE ACTION OF NITRATES. 



tilizers. We buy a superphosphate which furnishes the 

 greatest amount of soluble phosphoric acid at the cheap- 

 est rate. For potash, we depend principally on the 

 store left from previous applications of barn-yard 

 manure or from that supplied by the soil itself. On 

 poor, sandy soil, we would furnish it in wood ashes or 

 (cheaper still) in potash salts. 



Tlie nitrogen can be purchased in many forms, such as 

 dried blood, sulphate of ammonia and nitrate of soda. 

 Last spring nitrate of soda was very high. This .spring, 

 at the present time, it is lower than ever before. At 

 the head of our article in the February number of The 

 American Garden, the editor, probably in order to call 

 more attention to it, wrote "forty years' experience." 

 It is true that we have been using commercial fertilizers 

 for 45 years — commencing with Peruvian guano, then 

 superphosphate, potash, soda, magnesia, sulphate of 

 ammonia and finally nitrate of soda. But to-day we 

 feel as keen an interest in the subject as ever, and are 

 looking to our experiment stations for reliable informa- 

 tion on many points not fully understood. And we 

 were particularly pleased with the experiments of Prof, 

 Bailey, of Cornell University, on tomatoes, and not less 

 so with those of Prof. E. B. Voorhees, of the N. J. Experi- 

 ment Station, an account of which is just received. 



It was at one time thought that tomatoes required poor 

 land — that if the land was rich the plants would run too 

 much to vines and produce little fruit, and that little 

 late. When ordinary stable manure is used there is 

 some truth in this opinion — as there is in all opinions 

 based on experience. The remarks we made last month 

 in regard to the importance of getting early growth and 

 the difficulty of getting this early growth by the use of 

 common manure without producing an injurious late 

 growth, apply to tomatoes and probably to many other 

 garden crops At any rate, we have made the land for 

 tomatoes rich with nitrate of soda and superphosphate, 

 and have had dark-green leaves and luxuriant growth of 

 vines without injury to productiveness or maturity. 



Prof, Voorhees' experiments were admirably planned, 

 and were carefully carried out by Mr, Housell, and clearly 

 demonstrate that we can make land rich for tomatoes 

 without injury and with decided profit. And, of course, 

 when we say "make land rich," we mean the use of 

 some manure or manures that furnish nitrogen . There 

 is no way of making land rich for garden crops without 

 using nitrogen. Both Prof. Bailey and Prof. Voorhees 

 selected nitrate of soda as the source of nitrogen, and 

 this was the fertilizer, in connection with superphos- 

 phate, used at Moreton Farm. 



We have thus three independent experimenters, all 



* American Garden. February number, page qi. 



