<^^PHOTb E'KTd 
VOL. LIII. No. 
NEW YORK. JANUARY 20, 1894. 
PRICE, THREE CENTS, 
$1.00 PER YEAR. 
PLANT FOOD FOR PARKS AND CEMETERIES. 
STABLE MANURE, WOOl) ASHES OR FERTI- 
I. IZER.WHICH? 
In all the range of soil culture, there are few more 
difficult problems than that of providing the proper 
plant focd for public parks and cemeteries at the 
North. The “ crops” at such places are grass, shrubs 
and flowers; grown for ornament rather than for 
utility. The springs are late, and the winters early— 
consequently it is necessary to secure a growth of leaf 
and flower as early in the spring as possible, and con¬ 
tinue it in a flourishing condition until frost. The 
“crops” return little or nothing to the soil, as do 
ordinary farm crops, and therefore, a full amount of 
plant food must be supplied every spring. The object 
of this inten¬ 
sive culture is 
to “produce - 
ornament and 
beauty,” and it 
will be interest¬ 
ing to see in 
what respects 
the feeding of 
such plants dif¬ 
fers from that 
of farm crops 
grown for util¬ 
ity. 
To obtain the 
following facts, 
I recently in¬ 
terviewed Mr. 
JohnF. Barker, 
superintendent 
of the famous 
Forest Hills 
Cemetery, near 
B jston. 
Taking a Les¬ 
son from 
Wood Ashes. 
‘•What do you 
use on your 
flower beds?” 
I asked. 
“ Well,” said 
Mr. Barker, 
‘•there is a long 
story about 
that which I 
must tell in 
order to make 
my point clear. 
Formerly w e 
used nothing 
but stable 
manure—t hat Flow 
seemed to be 
the standard of 
fertility. This manure was then bought from the 
farms about the cemetery. Within recent years the 
country about us has been rapidly built up ; the farms 
have largely disappeared, giving place to dwelling 
and business houses. This, and the change to elec¬ 
tricity as motive power on our street railroads has in¬ 
creased the cost of stable manure, and the trouble of 
getting it here.” 
“ How much did you use ?” 
“ Over 100 cords a year. A cord cost $4, with S2 
more for hauling and handling. A cord represented 
about two tons. A few years ago we had a gardener who 
might be termed a ‘ stable manure crank.’ He claimed 
there was nothing equal to stable manure, and lots of 
it, and he would have his way in preparing the flower 
beds. IJis method was to cover the ground six or eight 
inches deep with manure, and spade it in. We always 
trench our beds all over, which gives them a very 
thorough working. Of course this plan called for an 
immense amount of manure and work. We set out our 
plants as usual the last of May, and watched results. 
They made sn enormous growth of leaf and stem, but 
flowering was delayed, and not satisfactory when it 
did come; worse than that, the beds were fairly alive 
with insects, and a perfect mass of grass roots and 
weeds. Most of the horses about here are fed on old 
hay, with the seeds fully matured. Manured as these 
plots were, it was just like a heavy seeding to weeds 
and grass. We want grass on our lawns and not on 
our flower beds, and it kept us working all summer 
to keep them clean.” 
“ You didn’t try that plan the second year, then ?” 
Flower Bed at Forest Hills Cemetery, Boston, Mass. Fj 
“ Not much ! Once was enough of that. The beds 
were spaded or trenched as before, and then a dressing 
of good wood ashes was well raked in. The plants 
grew well, and the flowers were very satisfactory in 
everyway. Mind you, I did not expect the ashes t) 
prove a complete substitute for the manure, but I 
reasoned that there was manure enough still in the 
soil—left from the previous year’s manuring—and my 
idea was that the ashes would enable me to get along 
with much less manure than I was b'dying at that 
time. At that stage of the game I was not fully pre¬ 
pared to saj that I could obtain satisfactory results 
without any manure.” 
“ What do you say about it now ? ” 
“ Let me finish ! The ashes not only saved buying 
mamire, but they also reduced the number of weeds, 
Their use led me to investigate the subject of fer¬ 
tilizers, and it soon became evident to me ^vhy the 
ashes did best when used with more or less manure. 
They contained no nitrogen, and that was the needed 
element supplied by the manure. Then, I said, if we 
can supply nitrogen in some form to the ashes, we 
h'ave in a few bags all the plant food we get in the 
cord of manure The next thought was, will the 
ashes give, after all, the cheapest forms of potash and 
phosphoric acid ? A little figuring showed that pot¬ 
ash cost too much when purchased in the form of 
ashes. It was not unlike buying a sirloin steak, in 
order to get meat for a soup. This led mo to investi¬ 
gate the merits of a complete fertilizer—that is, one 
in which nitrogen, potash and phosphoric acid are 
combined. I therefore commenced using Bradley’s 
Phosphate, and 
stopped buying 
manure.” 
“ How did it 
work ? ” 
“So well, that 
I shall never put 
.stable manure on 
flowers again. I 
trenched the 
ground as usual 
and raked the 
fertilizer i n , 
making one ap¬ 
plication only. 
We never had 
better flowers. 
The growth of 
leaf and vine 
was not only 
ample, but the 
flowers bloom¬ 
ed earlier than 
before. lam 
confident' ’the 
fertilizer has 
tened the flow¬ 
ering by a week 
and this is a 
great point in 
our work. The 
soil is also much 
easier to handle 
and the insects 
and weeds have 
nearly disap¬ 
peared. My ex¬ 
perience has 
proved that 
these fertilizers 
cost less in all 
ways—m o ney 
and labor—and 
10 . are far more 
available as 
plant food than 
the manure. That is what we want in our business— 
quick acting plant food. As an item of expense, I can 
say that the change from manures to fertilizers saves 
the work of six or eight men—as it took that number 
to handle and care for the manure—aside from the 
extra work required in hoeing and weeding those 
manure-seeded beds.” 
“ Have you found any difference between the two in 
time of drought ? ” 
“ No, none to speak of. If anything, it is in favor 
of the fertilizers. Where the ground is so thoroughly 
fined and pulverized, as we have it, the least fall of 
rain will render the fertilizers available. This is an 
item, too, when water is used for sprinkling the beds 
—leiS is required, and the plants will feel it quicker 
when growing on high-grade fertilizers. I am certain. 
