554 
TIIE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
Aug.  27 
A  Discussion  of  Fertilizers. 
Part  II. 
( Continued .) 
Nitrogen. — This  is  the  most  expensive  fertilizing 
element  of  plant  food,  costing  iu  the  most  active  form 
from  13  to  17  cents  per  pound.  A  little  less  than  one- 
third  of  the  cost  of  ordinary  commercial  fertilizers 
goes  for  nitrogen.  It  is  a  very  necessary  element  of 
plant  food,  in  fact,  plants  cannot  grow  without  it, 
and  they  need  considerable  quantities  of  it,  too.  Fifty 
bushels  of  corn  and  the  stover  contain  about  72  pounds 
of  nitrogen,  worth  about  $11.  Two  tons  of  clover  hay 
contain  about  80  pounds,  worth  more  than  $12. 
But  now  we  come  to  a  singular  fact.  There  is 
plenty  of  nitrogen  in  the  air,  nearly  four-fifths  of  its 
weight  being  nitrogen.  That  is,  over  every  acre  of 
your  farm  there  are  nearly  38,000  tons  of  it !  When 
you  grow  a  crop  there  is  plenty  of  this  necessary 
element  of  plant  food  all  about  it,  but  the  trouble  is 
that  plants  generally  cannot  avail  themselves  of  this 
nitrogen  in  the  air.  There  are  some,  however,  which 
can  take  it  from  the  air  and  appropriate  it  for  their 
own  use.  Furthermore,  these  or  some  of  them,  leave 
in  their  roots  and  stubble,  a  large  amount  of  nitrogen 
in  the  soil  for  a  succeeding  crop.  Again,  there  are 
some  which  in  many  snls  seem  to  get  along  very  well 
without  nitrogenous  fertilizers,  and  there  are  ways  of 
roots  of  one  acre  of  some  common  crops  is  as  follows  : 
Red  Clover,  180  pounds;  peas,  53  pounds;  buckwheat, 
45  pounds.  One  way  of  growing  clover,  vetches,  etc. ,  is 
to  sow  them  upon  grain  fields  in  the  spring,  and  after 
the  grain  is  harvested,  they  will  produce  a  good  crop 
for  plowing  under  late  in  the  fall  or  the  clover  may 
remain  until  spring. 
A  very  important  question  is:  Does  the  corn  crop 
need  nitrogenous  fertilizers  ?  Perhaps  I  cannot  answer 
this  question  better  than  by  giving  an  extract  from 
an  address  by  Prof.  W.  O.  Atwater,  delivered  in  Hart¬ 
ford,  Conn.,  in  1887.  (See  Connecticut  Board  of  Agri¬ 
culture,  Report  for  1887,  page  113,  ff.)  “  Farmers  in 
Connecticut,  Massachusetts  and  other  States  have 
been  in  the  way  of  spending  millions  of  dollars  every 
year  for  nitrogen  in  fertilizers.  Corn  contains  a  good 
deal  of  nitrogen,  and  a  great  deal  has  often  been  put 
intoofej-tilizers  for  it.  The  question  whether  corn  can 
jjatnlr  its  own  nitrogen,  like  clover,  or  demands  an 
artificial  supply,  like  wheat,  whether  it  is  an  exhaust¬ 
ing  or  a  renovating  crop,  has  been  much  discussed. 
Upon  its  answer  depends  in  large  degree  the  success 
of  corn-growing  in  our  older  States.  The  experi¬ 
ments  referred  to  bear  emphatic  testimony  upon  this 
point.  The  corn  has  almost  uniformly  refused  to 
respond  to  nitrogen  in  fertilizers,  and  persists  in  get¬ 
ting  on  well  without  any  artificial  supply.” 
have  some  distinguishing,  warning  mark  on  them,  so 
that  uninformed  people  would  not  blunder  into  their 
cultivation. 
The  last  meeting  of  the  Amer'can  Pomological 
Society  recommended  the  Dominie  apple  for  New 
Jersey  and  Virginia.  It  is  possible  that  our  Jersey 
orchardists  can  successfully  grow  this  apple,  by  spray¬ 
ing  early  for  the  moth  with  arsenical  solutions  and 
later  with  the  copper  solutions  to  ward  off  the  scab. 
I  hope  they  will  try.  I  have  neither  seen  nor  been 
able  tQ  buy  a  barrel  of  fine  Dominies  in  many  years.  I 
rate  them  as  one  of  the  finest  dessert  apples  on  the 
list.  Of  medium  size,  streaked  and  splashed  with  red, 
when  perfect,  they  are  handsome  indeed.  But  when 
along  in  January  you  bite  into  a  sound  specimen,  you 
cannot  but  be  delighted  with  the  quality.  The  flesh 
is  white,  tender  and  crisp,  of  a  mild  sub-acid  flavor, 
and  they  are  most  palatable  indeed.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  they  are  getting  to  be  little  more  than  a  memory 
in  our  markets. 
Ives’s  Seedling  grapes  have  been  plentiful  in  our 
markets  lately,  but,  as  is  usual  with  this  variety,  they 
are  cut  before  they  are  ripe  and  are  consequently  too 
sour.  They  are  not  a  bad  sort  when  well  ripened. 
The  pulp  is  a  little  inclined  to  be  tough,  but  the  flavor 
is  very  good  indeed.  Those  spoken  of  as  being  in  the 
markets  are  from  North  Cai'olina.  Concords  from  that 
ROTHAMSTED  MANOR  HOUSE.  HOME  OF  SIR  J.  B.  LAWES.  Fig.  231. 
obtaining  nitrogen  for  crops  which  require  it,  far  more 
cheaply  by  those  who  keep  stock  than  it  can  be  bought 
in  commercial  fertilizers. 
The  plants  which  are  able  to  acquire  nitrogen  from 
the  air  are  peas,  beans,  vetches,  cow  peas,  alfalfa,  ser- 
radella,  etc.  These  belong  to  the  class  called  renovat¬ 
ing  crops.  Instead  of  making  the  soil  poorer,  they 
make  it  richer,  and  not  only  so,  but  they  also  furnish 
protein  for  cattle  foods.  The  signs  of  the  times  in¬ 
dicate  that  this  class  of  crops  is  to  play  a  leading  part 
iu  the  farming  of  the  future.  Just  where  clover  gets 
its  nitrogen,  the  scientists  have  not  fully  decided,  but 
it  seems  to  be  pretty  well  estiblished  that  peas  and 
most  other  leguminous  plants  obtain  theirs  directly 
from  the  air.  It  does  not  matter  so  much  to  the  farmer 
where  they  got  it,  as  it  does  whether  they  get  it,  and 
this  they  most  certainly  do — enough  for  their  own 
needs  and  a  big  lot  left  over  for  hungry  plants  and 
animals.  Some  of  our  best  writers  seem  to  be  over¬ 
looking  the  fact  that  the  very  crops  they  are  recom¬ 
mending  farmers  to  grow  to  supply  protein  are  just 
the  best  crops  to  supply  nitrogen,  so  that  by  growing 
peas,  beans,  clover,  etc.,  we  can  kill  two  birds  with 
one  stone — get  food  and  fertilizer  of  the  highest 
quality.  Of  course,  a  whole  crop  can  be  plowed  under 
at  once,  and  sometimes  this  may  be  the  best  way,  but 
where  a  crop  is  cut  and  fed — I  mean  a  leguminous 
crop — a  large  amount  of  plant  food  will  be  left  in  the 
soil.  The  Storrs  Station  found  over  83  pounds  of 
nitrogen  in  the  stubble  and  roots  of  one  acre  of 
Timothy  and  Red  Top,  taking  the  first  six  inches  of 
soil.  Going  down  three  feet  it  amounted  to  90  pounds. 
The  amount  of  nitrogen  found  in  the  stubble  and 
Further  on  he  says  that  in  95  trials  with  24  pounds 
of  nitrogen  per  acre  the  nitrogen  paid  for  itself  in  21 
trials,  and  failed  to  pay  in  74.  The  average  loss  in 
the  several  trials  was  $2.62.  In  76  trials,  with  48 
pounds  of  nitrogen,  it  paid  for  itself  iu  13,  and  failed 
to  pay  in  63,  the  average  loss  being  $6.76.  In  42  trials, 
with  72  pounds  of  nitrogen,  it  paid  in  four  trials,  and 
failed  to  pay  in  38,  the  average  loss  being  $11. 22. 
Several  years  ago  Prof.  J.  W.  Sanborn  wrote  :  “Corn, 
by  Prof.  Atwater's,  mine  and  others’  experiments,  is 
shown  pretty  conclusively  to  have  power  to  gather 
oue-lialf  to  two-thirds  or  even  more,  varying  with  the 
season,  of  its  nitrogen  supply  from  natural  sources.” 
These  words  are  true  of  some  of  our  New  England 
soils,  are  they  true  of  the  corn  crop  in  all  parts  of  the 
country  ?  This  and  other  questions  relating  to  ni¬ 
trogen  must  be  discussed  in  another  article. 
Lamoille  County,  Vermont.  j.  w.  newton. 
Horticultural  Gossip. 
Among  the  fruits  recently  shipped  to  London  from 
California,  were  a  lot  of  Souvenir  de  Congress  pears 
This  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  largest  of  pears, 
and  at  the  same  time  about  the  very  poorest  in  quality. 
It  is  the  very  quintessence  of  insipidity  and  he  who 
buys  one  lot  will  fight  shy  of  them  forever  after.  But 
they  are  very  beautiful  indeed.  I  noted  several  re¬ 
markably  handsome  plates  of  them  at  the  New  York 
State  Fair  last  year,  at  Syracuse,  and  nothing  elicited 
more  praise  than  their  appearance.  Hundreds  of 
people  copied  the  name  from  the  card  and  doubtless 
have  set  out  trees  of  the  variety  by  this  time.  Such 
beautiful  fruits  of  such  miserable  quality  ought  to 
State  are  also  on  hand.  A  basket  of  them,  procured 
a  few  days  ago,  developed  a  new  trait  for  Concords — 
that  of  dropping  from  the  bunch.  Half  the  grapes 
fell  off  on  removing  them  from  the  basket.  I  sus¬ 
pected  from  this  trait  that  they  might  be  Hartfords, 
but  a  close  examination  showed  them  to  be  Concords 
beyond  a  doubt.  The  very  hot  weather  and  the  long 
distance  tliej1,  were  shipped  may  be  responsible  for  this 
feature. 
I  have  read  with  especial  pleasure  The  Rural’s 
announcement,  of  a  new  gooseberry  that  promises  to 
be  of  general  utility.  1  am  a  lover  of  finely  ripened 
gooseberries,  though  I  very  seldom  get  any.  The  few 
growers  of  them  never  send  them  to  market,  except 
when  green.  I  earnestly  hope  this  coming  berry  will 
popularize  the  fruit  and  that  we  shall  be  able  in  the 
near  future  to  buy  them  in  our  markets,  ripe  and  sweet. 
In  a  recent  number  of  The  Rural  I  noted  an  adver¬ 
tisement  of  the  Board  of  Trade  of  Orange,  N.  J.,  call¬ 
ing  for  estimates  on  a  lot  of  1,000  shade  trees,  among 
them  to  be  a  lot  of  swamp  and  silver  maples.  I  think 
our  Orange  friends  are  making  a  mistake  in  setting 
out  these  soft  maples.  They  grow  rapidly,  it  is  true, 
but  they  are  very  brittle,  and  are  among  the  first  to 
break  down  when  ice  storms  come  or  heavy  winds 
prevail.  There  are  lots  of  them  iirPort  Jervis,  N.  Y., 
and  they  are  there  considered  a  nuisance,  and,  as  fast 
as  is  convenient,  are  being  supplanted  by  other  and 
more  desirable  sorts.  The  tulip,  hard  maple,  elm  and 
ash  are  all  desirable.  The  white  ash  is  seldom  planted 
as  a  shade  tree,  yet  it  is  one  of  the  finest  of  our  native 
trees,  and  I  have  never  known  its  foliage  to  be  dis¬ 
turbed  by  caterpillars  or  other  pests.  F. 
