R. M. KELLOGG^ GREAT CROPS OF 
Fottr-flfths of the atmosphere is pure 
nitrogen but plants cannot appropriate it until 
it is combined with something else to produce 
a nitrate. 
After these minerals are dissolved in the soil 
SUNNYSIUE. 
water they are taken up by the roots and 
carried up through the center of the tree or 
plant to the leaves where they are combined 
with the carbon and other gassesof the air and 
digested. 
The leaves perform the same office as the 
lungs and stomach of an animal. This sap 
then passes downward under the bark to form 
fruit and wood cells which constitute the 
growth of plant and fruit. 
This work cannot go on without bright sun- 
light. A plant would starve to death with 
everything for food present if it stood in total 
darkness. It will make a feeble growth if only 
in moderate shade. 
A series of careful experimeats has shown 
strong fruit buds will not form in the shade, 
hence, when we allow runners of a strawberry 
plant to mat closely together and exclude the 
The Wm. Belt. 
light, we get a spindling or feeble growth. 
This weakens the plant and soon destroys the 
tendency to develop fruit. This is one of the 
causes why cheap matted plants have no value. 
The strawberry plant droops its leaves natur- 
ally, so the sun can shine on the crown and all 
the foliage, and they should be kept far enough 
apart to permit the sun's rays to reach every 
leaf and bud, while growing in the propagat- 
ing bed. All cheap plant growers mat them 
solid so the leaves shut the light from the 
crown and they lose their tendency to form 
fruit buds. 
SELECTING A SITE. 
I do not care to spend much time on this sub- 
ject. Everybody knows good land when they 
see it. How would it do for a garden? Hard, 
flinty clay or light, drifting sand are bad. A 
light clay or sand loam are best. Stony land 
is good if it does not interfere with cultivation. 
Cold, springy land is bad. High land, that is, 
laud which is higher than any in the immediate 
vicinity, is best. Cold air runs off the hills 
onto low land precisely the same as water, so* 
that a low piece of ground with high land all 
around it should not be selected. Level land 
with no high hills near it will do. A south 
incline matures fruit earU- and a north incline 
makes the same variety later. 
MANURING THE GROUND. 
Stable manure is the best. I should prefer 
to have it well rotted, but that cannot always 
be had. Get the best you can find, even if you 
have to draw it as fast as made. Spread it 
evenly over the ground during the winter and 
early spring. Do not put in piles. The deep 
snow is no objection to spreading it. The win- 
ter and spring rains will wash the juices into 
the ground so it will be incorporated with the 
soil where the plants can use it. Before plow- 
ing rake off all coarse straw, so that capillary 
attraction which draws water from the lower 
subsoil shall not be cut off. Water will not 
pass up through a mass of straw if plowed 
under. Be very careful about this. If you 
can't get stable manure, apply broadcast from 
four to eight hiindred pounds of pure, fine 
ground bone meal and not over fifty bushels 
per acre of unleached hardwood ashes and cul- 
ivate in before plowing. 
WHY WE PLOW AND SUBSOIL. 
There are two reasons why we plow. If all 
plant food was soluble so the plants could use 
it at once, the rains would quickly wash it all 
out and the land become barren, and so to pre- 
serve it for the use of plants it becomes insolu- 
ble in water. At the same time a resolvent 
was provided which should make it available 
in small quantities so that the present needs of 
the growing plants could be supplied. This 
great resolvent is the oxygen of the atmos- 
phere, and must come in contact with every 
particle of earth, before the plant can take up 
the food. 
The lower subsoil contains an immense 
amount of plant food washed down into it 
where it becomes insoluble and remains there. 
By breaking up the subsoil we admit the air, 
dissolving this food, and the water returning to 
the surface by capillary attraction (see engrav- 
ing) it is carried to the upper soil where the 
plant can use it. 
Again we plow and subsoil because in so 
doing we separate the particles of earth so they 
will contain many times as much water as in 
their natural dense condition. In subsoiling 
we actually create a reservoir under the plant 
which will hold enough water in suspension 
