1899 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
219 
8,000 pounds—four tons—of leaves, and that in them 
there would be 33 pounds of nitrogen, 13 of phosphoric 
acid, and 40 of potash. A larger amount probably 
than would be found in them either earlier or later in 
the season, and probably a good deal more than they 
would take from the tree when they fell in Autumn. 
What About It ?—But what has all this talk of 
root systems and tree trunks and leaves to do with 
fertilizers for fruits ? Why, everything to do with it! 
It is the knowledge of the book farmer, which is ap¬ 
plicable not simply to one orchard, one soil, one set of 
conditions, but to all orchards and all soils. Now let 
us see if from it all, we can gather any practical sug¬ 
gestions which may serve to quiet those who “ Seek 
after a sign ” ; an agricultural recipe, definite and con¬ 
cise ; n o cure, no pay : 
First.—Broadcast fertilizers in orchards. It is bet¬ 
ter policy than to sow around each tree separately. 
Of course, if you want to try doctoring a sick tree, 
that is another thing—but a better thing is to pull 
out the tree, and set another. But you can’t throw 
bone dust and potash salts into any part of a thrifty 
orchard where the tree roots will not get at it. 
Second.—If you cultivate, plow under the fertilizer 
deeply, right after sowing. It keeps the main roots 
down where they belong, and if the fertilizer is turned 
in just above them, it will sink somewhat as it dis¬ 
solves, another annual rootlet and root hairs will 
come up to get it, and if they are cut by next year’s 
plowing, there is no harm done. Put your fertilizer 
where you want your roots, and you will get them 
there. You can call them as you can call a flock of 
hens. If you only top-dress, which is all you can do, 
unless you cultivate, the tree roots will come to the 
surface, where they will suffer from drought some¬ 
times, and from competition with grass roots at all 
times. 
Third.—Don’t forget lime in some form, as a neces¬ 
sary plant food. If you are using wood ashes freely, 
as many of our orchardists are doing, your orchard 
gets all the lime it needs. Over one-third of ordinary 
Canada unleached ashes is carbonate of lime. But 
if you use muriate for potash instead of ashes, try 
putting on half a ton of lime to the acre every few 
years. It will settle the lime question, and will very 
likely make your fertilizer nitrogen more available. 
Fourth.—Don’t be afraid to put on nitrogen, quickly - 
available nitrogen, and plenty of it. Don’t pay too 
much thought to the talk that nitrogen makes the 
tree run to wood and leaves—soil does—and not to 
fruit—soil doesn’t. A peach crop takes off from the 
orchard nearly as much nitrogen as it does potash. 
We found 20 pounds of nitrogen in a peach crop, and 
22 of potash. We found twice as much nitrogen in 
peach twigs and small branches as potash. In the 
roots, limbs and trunks of the apple, Prof. Roberts 
found as much nitrogen as potash, and in the green 
leaves, two-thirds as much nitrogen as potash. Your 
crop doesn’t grow on air. It must grow on sound, 
lusty wood, and only there, and sound wood has got 
to have plenty of nitrogen for its growth. A well- 
balanced fertilizer will not make a tree “ run ” to this 
or that; a well-fed tree will do what it was meant to 
do from the beginning, and unless you starve it in one 
direction, you cannot make it run perversely in an¬ 
other. Nitrate of soda has been used on nurEery stock, 
and also on peach orchards in bearing, with excellent 
effect. Cheaper forms of nitrogen may, also, be used, 
especially where the orchard is cultivated in early 
Summer. 
Fifth.—Remember that cultivating is fertilizing. 
Dried blood, bone, cotton-seed meal and all the or¬ 
ganic forms of nitrogen are thrown away in a soil too 
wet or too dry, or not well supplied with air. They 
need to be tickled with the cultivator, and to have 
the soil above them lightened to let in air, so that, by 
microbe action, their nitrogen may take the form of 
nitrate, and go to feed the trees. 
Does Green Manuring Pay ?— Sixth.—Does it 
pay to practice green manuring with rye or with 
Crimson clover ? Sometimes, and then again, 
sometimes not. Think first what green manur¬ 
ing does—that is book farming—and then think 
whether your land needs that thing done—that is 
practical farming. What does it do? Either crop 
gets a start in midsummer or early Fall. Now before 
either clover or rye does much of anything above 
ground, they 6end out and down a very large root sys¬ 
tem below ground. While the crop looks as though it 
were standing still for several weeks, it is growing 
tremendously below ground, and reaching out and 
laying hold of all the available food which it can get 
hold of. It takes very little moisture out of the sur¬ 
face soil in the Fall of the year, but takes up availa¬ 
ble plant food rapidly. If the crop is clover, and if 
the soil is not rich in available nitrogen, and it is not 
likely to be, considerable nitrogen may be taken out 
of the air and fixed by the clover for its use. When 
Spring comes, assuming that the crop is not winter- 
killed, a rapid growth begins above ground. The 
green crop still draws some food from the soil, and as 
its foliage increases, pumps water also out of the soil 
at a pretty rapid rate. This goes on until the crop is 
turned under. Then decay begins, going on much 
more quickly in clover than in a grain crop, and grad¬ 
ually the plant food of this green mass is turned over 
to the growing trees. 
How soon the matter of a green crop becomes avail¬ 
able to plants, after plowing under, we cannot tell. 
It is not, probably, very prompt in its action. By 
July, we believe our fruit trees have a larger amount 
SCATTERING WITH A FREE HAND. Fig. 83. 
of nitrogen and mineral plant food in their leaves 
than in any other month. From then on, they are 
passing it back into this growing wood. Their great¬ 
est demand on the plant food of the soil has been met 
for the year. It is generally believed, too, that a 
large supply of soluble plant food in the soil, later in 
the season, may stimulate growth too much, and leave 
too little time for the wood to ripen and harden up 
before Winter. This is a point where careful experi¬ 
ment is needed, but in the light of our present knowl¬ 
edge, it would seem that a green crop growing rap¬ 
idly in late Summer would serve to absorb the soluble 
plant food of the soil, which might otherwise unduly 
SOWING BY RULE OF THUMB. Fig. 84. 
stimulate growth of wood in the trees, and to hold 
this store of food till the trees needed it again. This 
I conceive to be one of the uses of a green crop in the 
Fall. In the Spring, I would not call it any great 
loss if the crop dies—as Crimson clover is so likely to 
do after living all Winter. The plant food is there 
in its roots ready to be taken up by the trees. But if 
the crop is all there in the Spring, how long shall we 
let it grow ? Some do not plow till the middle of 
May, when the clover is in full bloom. I question 
whether, when turned under as late as that, the trees 
will get very much plant food from it the same year. 
If the land is inclined to be dry, harm may be done by 
drying out the soil too much with this lush crop. If, 
on the other hand, the land is very moist, the green 
crop, by standing till full grown, may be a benefit, 
playing the part of a temporary underdrain. 
A General Fertilizer. —Seventh.—Is there any 
formula which may serve as a general guide in fer¬ 
tilizing orchards ? I have none to recommend. In 
New Jersey, Prof. Voorhees, who has had as good a 
chance for study and observation on this matter, says 
these proportions have been found very serviceable : 
One part or 100 pounds each of ground bone, acid phos¬ 
phate and muriate of potash, or 150 pounds of ground 
bone to 100 pounds of muriate, i. e., four parts of 
nitrogen, 50 parts of potash, and from 22 to 36 of 
phosphoric acid. On soils of good character, for apples 
and pears, Prof. Voorhees would use 400 pounds of 
either of the above mixtures, beginning when the 
trees reach the bearing period. As they grow older, 
and bear more, increase the dose. He says, however, 
that the best growers use from 1,000 to 1,500 pounds 
of this mixture, annually, and find their profit not 
only in larger yields, but in quality of fruit and in in¬ 
creased tendency to continuous crops and longer life 
of the irees. On lighter, sandy soils, he would use 
even more of this “ basic ” formula, and with it, at 
least 20 pounds of nitrogen in some form, equivalent 
to 125 pounds of nitrate of soda. For peaches, he 
recommends still heavier fertilization, because the 
cropping is more exhaustive, and the tree matures 
more rapidly. Here, too, he would use quickly avail¬ 
able nitrogen like nitrate of soda. 
The only careful and continuous experiment on the 
fertilization of a peach orchard, of which we have full 
record, was made by Prof. Voorhees. The fertilized 
plot received annually 150 pounds nitrate of soda, 350 
pounds dissolved boneblack, and 150 pounds muriate 
of potash per acre. The manured plot had 20 tons of 
manure each year per acre, and another plot received 
no manure. 
In seven crop years, the yield without manure aver¬ 
aged 86 baskets per acre annually ; with fertilizers, 
262 ; with manure, 277. 
In a very favorable season, the plot without fertil¬ 
izer or manure yielded only 11 baskets ; fertilized, 152; 
manured, 162. 
He found that, on unmanured and unfertilized land, 
the crops, after eight years, were so small as to reduce 
the average of the whole period ; while on the manured 
or fertilized land, the average was not only not re¬ 
duced, but actually increased, i. e., after the unfertil¬ 
ized trees had practically ceased to bear, the fertil¬ 
ized trees were bearing better than ever. It is, also, 
noteworthy that fertilizers tided the trees over un¬ 
favorable seasons, making them moderately fruitful, 
while the crop of unfertilized trees was a failure. 
Connecticut Ex. Station. [prof. | k. h. jknkins. 
“A SOWER WENT FORTH TO SOW.’’ 
SOME SUGGESTIVE SEED SOWERS. 
At Figs. 83 and 84, are shown two operations that 
are of tremendous importance to the farmer and gar¬ 
dener. The proper sowing of the seed goes far to in¬ 
sure a remunerative crop. Carelessness here may 
mean great loss. Modern mechanical devices are of 
great help in evenly scattering and properly covering 
the seed both in field and garden. But the old-time 
methods were more laborious, and required greater 
skill and experience. 
To many a man, the sower with the bag over his 
shoulder will recall wearisome days spent in tramping 
over the soft, newly-plowed earth, lugging a heavy bag 
or basket of grain, with eye fixed on a distant stake 
to insure perfect distribution of the seed. Unless 
great care and exact judgment were used in pacing 
off the distance and in throwing the seed, the grain 
would come up in streaks, and until the harvest, 
would stand as a monument to the imperfect work of 
the sower. Then the wind often helped to make the 
task more difficult, for not in every case could one 
sow “with the wind”, even though he were ambi¬ 
dextrous, and could use either hand equally well. 
What a source of pride was it to the farmer boy when 
he could scatter the seed so that the verdant grain 
should show an even surface ! Pride in his work was 
his greatest incentive, that thus he might add to the 
chance of an abundant harvest. 
The other picture suggests a back-breaking job. 
The straight furrows are carefully made in the mel¬ 
low soil. The character of the seeds must determine 
the number to let slip between thumb and finger. It’s 
very particular business, and requires accuracy of eye 
and touch, that the seeds be scattered not too thickly, 
yet in sufficient numbers to insure a good stand of 
plants. Then the covering of soil must be nicely 
graduated, from a mere dusting to, perhaps, an inch 
or more for the coarser seeds. On light soil, the firm¬ 
ing after the covering plays an important part, if one 
expect the seed thus sown to bring forth, “some thirty, 
some sixty, and some an hundred fold.” 
