10 FERTILIZERS A N 1> 
a pint to a plant, or a handful of wood ashes, will supply 
sufficient potash. Scatter the soot or the ashes about 
the plant and work it into the soil about flower-budding 
time. Commercial muriate of potash will probably 
have to be used by many, for soot and wood ashes are 
not so easily obtained nowadays. 
Plants need a balanced ration as much as animals 
do. What is excellent for a plant when mature is some- 
times quite unsuitable in its extreme youth. Plants 
do not have the same composition at different stages 
of growth. The plant increases in weight up to ma- 
turity. During the earlier life of the plant nitrogenous 
material is taken up more rapidly. Before the forma- 
tion of fruit the reserve material produced is stored up 
in leaves, stem, roots, or tubers. At the time of 
fruiting this reserve passes into flower and seed pro- 
duction. Experiments with corn have proven that it 
needs the largest amount of plant food just as the ear 
is forming. If an adverse season has stunted corn the 
crop can be most substantially helped if fertilizer is 
applied during the second, or the third cultivation, just 
as the ears commence to form. 
Nitrate of soda is a stimulant, and can be literally 
* 'fire- water" that intoxicates and hurts a plant just as 
whiskey does a man. The amateur gardener should 
never forget that the commercial fertilizers are much 
more concentrated than natural manures, and must be 
used very carefully, and in comparatively small quan- 
