690 
Tfll TRbWCAL AQRICULTURSST, 
[March i, 1893. 
tained only when potash is used in conjunction with 
phosphoric acid; sour meadows likewise need a sup- 
ply of lime. A normal amount of fertilizer per acre 
is 400 to 600 pounds of kainit (this salt is preferable 
for meadows) and 250 to H50 pounds of 12 per cent, 
acid phosphate. This application should bo repeated 
every year, while the amount of phosphate given per 
acre may last for two years. The best time of 
applying is the fall. The best effect of fertilizers 
upon meadows rarely appears the first season, but 
one should not become discouraged for the benefit is 
a lasting, which will show more iu the second than 
in the first season. 
Clover, Peas, Luwnes, and other Legumes. — 
Potash-phosphate fertilization will suffice to supply 
the needs of these plants which directly acquire their 
nitrogen from the air. They should receive 400 
to 500 pounds of kainit per acre (or 11)0 to l.SO of 
muriate) and 300. to 400 pounds of 12 per cent, acid 
phosphate. The lupine needs no phosphoric acid for 
fertilization ; the power of the roots of this plant to 
assimilate phosphoric acid from the soil is so great, 
that a phosphate fertization is apparently without 
effect, and potash alone will produce large crops. 
Potatoes.— Care should be exercised in applying 
potash salts to the potato crop, otherwise damage 
will ensue by the chlorine, lessening the amount of 
starch contained in the mature tuber. This in- 
iiu-y can be avoided either by using the more ex- 
pensive sulphate of potash, or by applying the potash 
fertilizer to the preceding crop, or it can be lessened 
by spreading broadcast the previous autumn, by 
which the chlorine has time to v/ash into the subsoil 
during the winter. An average potato fertilizer is 
the following; 140 pounds of sulphate of potash (27- 
per cent, potash), 300 pounds acid phosphate (12 per- 
cent ), 125 to 250 pounds nitrate of soda, or 250 to 500 
pounds of cotton-seed meal. 
Tobacco.— What has been said about the potato 
applies equally to the tobacco, e., that chlorine 
works injm-y to the quality in respect to combusti- 
bility and flavor. The difficulty is to be avoided in 
the same manner as in that of the potato, while no 
really good tobacco can be grown without the use of 
potash. The quantity per acre is 275 pounds sulphate 
of potash (low grade), 250 pounds acid phosphate (12 
per cent.), 100 pounds sulphate of ammonia. 
Garden Crops and Vegetables.— Potash is im- 
portant in gardening, especially upon sandy soil. 
The requirements of different crops and soil are so 
varying that no universal formula can be given. For 
asparagus it is well to note that a heavy application 
of kainit (1,000 pounds per acre) together with a large 
amount of nitrate of soda has yielded large profits of 
a large and excellent crop. . 
Fruit Trees.— Potash fertihzation pays well m 
fruit culture as is well understood by every intelli- 
gent producer, and upon sandy soil a marketable 
article is impossible without it. The quantity may 
be varied as conditions vary ; on an average 500 to 
1 000 pomids of kainit (or 130 to 250 pounds of muriate 
of potash, or 240 to 470 pounds of low grade sulphate.) 
The quantity of acid phosphate (12 per cent.) may be 
varied from 300 to 600 pounds per acre. Nitrogen is 
chiefly supplied to orchards by manuring with lugumi- 
nous pants (cow peas, vetch, crimson clover) combined 
with an occasional liming. Nitrogen fertilizers must be 
used where green manuring cannot be practiced— m 
strawberry culture, for example. 
potash salts as manure preserves. 
All kinds of animal manure when exposed 
to the elements lose a considerable part of their 
organic matter and nitrogen by decomposition. 
This loss which usually amounts to about 25 per cent, 
of the nitrogen, can be entiioly prevented by the use 
of kainit, which has the property of absorbing and 
retaining nitrogen and preventing a harmful fermen- 
tation which likewise causes a loss of organic mat- 
ter in the use of kainit for this purpose, it is to 
be 'sprinkled daily in the stable, Mj to 2 pounds for 
every full-grown animal being a fair average, iiy 
this proceeding not only a lar{,'o amount of organic 
matter and valiial,lc nitrogen is retained, but the 
manure produced is also enriched by potash. 
potash salts as insecticides and FUNGICIDEtr. 
The Experiment Stations of Texas, Louisiana and 
North Carolina and many observant farmers 
have directed attention to the use of kainit upon 
cotton fields, and its effect in materially checking 
the much dreaded disease of cotton blight. Some 
fruit growers think that the use of potash salts 
prevents rot and certain fungus diseases of the peach 
and orange. An interesting bulletin of the New 
Jersey Experiment Station (Bulletin No. 75) lately 
issued, gives the results of experiments, indicating 
that potash salts, and kainit in particular, destroys 
scales upon pear trees, grubs and cutworms in corn, 
plant lice, wire worms in potatoes, and caljbage mag- 
gots, and that no injury follows their judicious use. 
WOOD ASHES, OOTTON SEED HULL ASHES AGD TOBACCO 
STEMS AS POTASH FERTILIZERS. 
These materials are valuable for their contents of 
potash, and may be used as sources of this plant 
food in place of Strassfurt Salts. An objection to 
their use consists in the inequality of the composi- 
tion, especially that of wood aslies. Their contents 
in potash varies from 3 to 8 per cent., while there 
is no difference in appearance to indicate the differ- 
ence in quality. The contents of potash in cotton 
seed hull ashes range from 17 to 42 per cent., that 
of tobacco stems from 4 to 9 per cent. The great 
variability in composition of these fertilizers should 
therefore caution the farmer to buy only from the 
basis of a chemical analysis. 
B. voN Hebff. 
Washington, D. C. 
— F/orida A(i ric alt n fiat. 
Mr. D. Hooper, the Government Quinologist, has 
drawn attention to a report sent to the Board of 
Revenue on the Vinca pusiUa. This plant is allied 
to the British Periwinkle and is called in Tamil 
Mulakapoondoo It is said to be an excellent remedy 
for lumbago and is used largely on the western 
coast as an external remedy for moh. The ryots 
of the South Arcot District say that it cattle graze 
upon it they beoome giddy and die. The sample 
forwarded by the Board for analysis to Mr. Hooper 
proved that the poisonous property of the herb 
was an alkaloid. Vicine is proposed by Mr, Hooper 
as the name of this new alkaloid. — Madras Times, 
Feb. 16th. 
Chewing Tka in Upper Siam. — In the paper 
read by Mr. Ernest Satow, cm a., before the feociety 
of Arts on 12th Jan., on "The Laos States of 
Upper Siam," the following occurs : — 
Just at the bottom of the hill we passed a plan- 
tation of 7iiic)it/, or Lao tea. The natives call these 
plantations pa-mieny, or tea-forest, if pa be rendered 
literally, this term causing it to be generally sup- 
posed that the meing grows wild. Laos tell you that 
it is found growing in commixture with other trees, 
which are cut down, leaving the tea-tree to benefit 
by the additional air and sun. But this account 
seems doubtful. It is possible that the Laos of 
Chiengmai, when the country was resettled, found 
old tea-trees growing in this way, and cleared them 
from the jungle which enveloped them, but the 
arrangement of the trees is too regular to allow of 
our supposing that they were planted by the mere 
hand of nature. Many were twelve to fifteen feet 
high, with stems two-and-a-half to three inches in 
diameter, and they were evidently not pruned. 
Some were in bud or flower, and others bore the half- 
ripe berry. The leaf is longer and more pointed than 
that of the Japanese tea-plant, and the foliage ia 
less dense. But of its being a species of tea there 
can be no doubt whatever. The Laos do not drink 
the infusion, but prepare the leaf for chewing by 
burying it in pits, and it is one of their indispensabl* 
luxuries. You see a man put a lump of the fermented 
leaves in one cheek, which he leaves there while he 
proc eda to chew betel or smoke a cigarette, looking 
for all the world as if his face were distorted by 
the mumps. 
