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THE HUNDRED PER CENT 
GARDEN 
.' ■’ _ 
lH$j' . S 3 
THE SECOND TWENTY PER CENT—SOLVING THE PLANT FOOD PROBLEM- 
NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL MANURES—MOISTURE SAVED BY CULTIVATION 
by F. F. Rockwell 
Note: Heretofore the home garden has been looked upon by many people as more or less of a hobby, and deserving only as much attention 
as one usually gives to the pursuit of recreation. That it deserves to be taken up seriously, studied in all its details, and developed to the limit of 
efficiency, is a new presentation of the subject. How to have the very best garden possible, on a business basis, is the theme of the present articles, 
which take up carefully and practically one detail after another in natural succession, to the completion of the hundred per cent, garden. The first 
twenty per cent, dealt with sowing seeds indoors and appeared in February. The third twenty per cent, will deal with the sowing and planting of 
hardy vegetables. 
F ertility of the 
soil is the secret of 
success with the crops. 
This is not to say that a 
well fertilized garden will 
necessarily mean that 
your vegetables ,B;nd flow¬ 
ers are bound to do well 
in it; for your neighbor 
over the fence -.who may 
have been able to afford 
only half the amount of 
manure or fertilizer which 
you use, but who has 
taken more thorough care 
of his crops, may be 
able to outdo you when 
the results come to be 
counted. It does mean, 
however, that if you have 
put only enough plant 
food into your soil to 
produce a fifty per cent, 
crop no amount of care 
can make it yield a hundred or even a seventy-five per cent, 
crop. So the second step to be taken in the direction of that one 
hundred per cent, garden which we have decided to aim at is to 
provide an adequately rich and thoroughly prepared soil. 
The plant food problem, however, is by no means as simple as 
it appears at first glance. Science put on its spectacles and after 
many years of painstaking and careful research, discovered that 
the growing bean, potato or peanut plant, in order to develop un¬ 
checked, and bring its crop to maturity, must derive from the soil 
a certain fractional part of a pound of this, that and the other 
chemical elements and compounds. Why not then simply dump 
enough of these things into the soil to produce a maximum crop 
and think no more about it. The answer is not so simple as the 
question, but unless one is willing to give at least a little time 
and thought to it, he will not be proceeding upon the right track 
to get the most out of his garden—and as we have already in¬ 
dicated, in these days of the high cost of food-stuffs, the efficient 
garden is not a matter of pleasure or sentiment alone, but of 
dollars and cents. 
There are three plant foods, or nutritive elements which must 
be furnished in definitely fixed proportions, if the plants are to 
attain their maximum pos¬ 
sible development. There 
are several of minor im¬ 
portance, but as these are 
usually already contained 
in the soil, in sufficient 
amount, we need not con¬ 
sider them here. The 
three nutritive “elements” 
are nitrogen, phosphoric 
acid and potash. All soils 
capable of supporting 
plant life contain these, 
but in varying degrees. 
And that these are what 
plant life feeds upon is 
proved by the facts that 
chemical analysis always 
finds them in plant 
growth, and that plants, 
even trees, have been 
grown for several genera¬ 
tions in water with these 
plant foods in it. 
The first distinction we have to make in plant foods, is that 
between available and unavailable, that is between foods which 
contain the elements in such form that the plant may immediately 
make use of them; and foods which must undergo a change of 
some sort before the elements in them can be taken up by the 
plant, assimilated and turned into a healthy growth of foliage, 
fruit or roots. It is just as possible for plants to starve in a soil 
abounding in plant food if that food is not in available forms, 
as it would be for you to go unnourished in the midst of soups 
and meats, if the latter were packed up in cans which you had 
no means of opening. 
Plants must take up all their nourishment in the form of solu¬ 
tions, and very weak solutions. Their food must be taken through 
innumerable and microscopic feeding rootlets, or pores, which 
possess the power of absorbing moisture. Plant food to be avail¬ 
able at all must first of all be soluble, and second, the elements 
in it must be in such forms chemically that the plant can utilize 
them. Experiments have proved, for instance, that they refuse 
to take nitrogen in some forms, while in others they accept it 
readily. 
The number and the quality of the meals you will get from 
The availability of plant foods depends on careful cultivation 
( 1 7 2 ) 
