FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
125 
country of the importance of fertilizer, 
even of the three main ingredients, Ni¬ 
trogen, Phosphoric Acid and Potash; 
these three ingredients did not seem to 
be understood at all by our Pilgrim 
Fathers when they first landed on the 
rather bleak shores of the New England 
coast. It must have humbled their pride 
and lowered their self-conceit when they 
had to turn to the Savages, as they 
termed them, for assistance to keep from 
starving; for it seems that a friendly 
Indian came to their aid and showed them 
how, not only to prepare the ground, but 
to fertilize it as well. So here was the 
beginning of “How to Fertilize,” so far 
as the people of this great nation are 
concerned. The advice as to how to pre¬ 
pare the ground was crude and the fertil¬ 
izing was then meager; but meager as 
it was then, it was in advance of what 
the colonists themselves knew; at least, 
thev had not been able to raise corn, the 
great staff of life, even more so then than 
now. So they were compelled to turn to 
the aborigines and learn of them, so when 
one Squanto, an Indian well versed in 
the mode of corn culture, came to their 
aid and gave them a practical lesson of 
the land to choose, and how to prepare 
it, then how to use the fertilizer so as to 
produce corn as well as stalk. This may 
be said to have been the first practical 
Farmers’ Institute ever held in America, 
and it seems odd to think that it was the 
Indian teaching the white man the art 
of successfully raising corn on the New 
England coast. Even at that day the fer¬ 
tilizing question was of great importance 
as it is today, for without the fertilizer 
the corn was so slow of growth that it 
failed to mature in their short season. 
It was much in knowing what kind of 
soil and where to locate it and how to 
prepare the land, crude though it was, 
yet it was vital to the colonists to learn 
even this much, and even more so to learn 
how to fertilize it; so you see the fertil¬ 
izer question was a vital one then, as it 
is today. The clearing of the land and 
burning of the brush on the ground was 
part of the fertilizing, but this did not 
seem to be thoroughly understood even 
by the teacher of the “Institute;” yet he 
did know it was necessary that the brush 
should be burned on the ground intended 
for corn, but the wherefore neither he nor 
his pale-faced pupils understood that it 
was the Potash and the Phosphoric Acid 
in the ashes of the hard wood burned on 
the ground that caused the grain to ma¬ 
ture; but he did know it was needful to 
burn the brush, and in this he was ahead 
of the Pilgrims. 
Then 2 again, he knew that fish was a 
good fertilizer for the corn, and while 
he did not understand, as we do today, 
that it was the nitrogen they contained 
that was needed to give the grain a more 
rapid growth, he did know and so taught, 
that “no fish, no corn.” This latter as¬ 
sumption on his part, it seems, was re¬ 
sented by the settlers at first, but after 
failing they were glad to take the advice 
from this first Institute and Experiment 
Station Instructor. So Squanto taught 
them to fertilize the hill for the corn with 
a couple of fish, first placing the fish in 
the soil, then covering it with dirt, then 
to drop the corn and cover with the fine 
soil, then to firm the soil with the foot 
and the operation was completed, and in 
due time the harvest, and thus ended the 
first Institute. 
And so the colonists thus had learned 
all there was to be learned in the art of 
fertilizing and growing corn; but once 
more they had to go to the Experiment 
