86 
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Plant Foods and Feeding 
{Continued from page 54) 
to digestion take place, 
the inorganic plant food 
which has been absorbed 
from the soil being 
changed into organic 
forms. 
This elaborated plant 
food is in its turn redis¬ 
tributed through the 
plant to every part that 
is developing or making 
growth, and thus cells 
that are forming new 
tissue are fed. But an 
even more remarkable 
fact remains. The plant 
foods or nutritive ele¬ 
ments, once taken up, 
are transfused through 
the plant both’from the 
roots to the leaves and 
from the leaves back 
through the plant, inde¬ 
pendently of the flow of 
sap ! Tlie movement of 
the sap—-w h i c h is, of 
course, mostly water—is 
determined by the tem¬ 
perature, the amount of 
moisture in the soil, and 
many other controlling 
factors. At times it 
ceases altogether, but the 
distribution of the nutri¬ 
tive elements in the plant 
continues through a slow- 
process of diffusion in all 
directions. 
The plant foods which 
we have spoken of as 
being absorbed with the soil moisture 
by the roots, are a dozen or so of dif¬ 
ferent chemical elements. Most of 
these are present in every soil suit¬ 
able for garden purposes in suffleient 
The root system is wonderfully involved 
and yet admirahly efficient. This shows 
the below-ground yart of a corn seedling 
in forms that his plants can make use 
of. It is his further business to use 
every method he can of changing the 
unavailable plant foods already in 
the soil into available forms. This is 
quantities to supply all the plant's just as good as, and usually a good 
needs. There are three, how'ever, deal cheaper than, adding them from 
likely to run short: nitrogen, phos- the outside. 
phoric acid, and potash — and the You have probably heard or read 
worst thing about it is that if any in connection with the use of fertil- 
one of them is short, a superabun- izers that some of them are partic- 
dance of the others will not in the ularly useful because they are “quick 
slightest degree make up for it. acting.” This means simply that the 
Every plant that grows is so inde- nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash or 
pendent that it has to have what it lime which they may contain are in 
wants when and how it wants it, or forms which will at once dissolve in 
it will balk then and there! For the soil, or very quickly become so. 
that reason we call any of these food There is not space here to discuss 
materials which may be deficient the the various materials which are suit- 
“limiting factorfor until that de- able for making the soil richer, but 
ficiency is made up, the plant will not they have frequently been mentioned 
continue to make the greatest growth in this magazine. The practical ben- 
of which it is capable. So it behooves efit you can get from knowing these 
the gardener who w-ould grow the facts is that when buying any fer- 
biggest flowers and the best vege- tilizer the percentages put down as 
tables to see that the supply of none “available,” in the anal 3 "sis given, are 
of these foods in the garden cup- the ones which really count in deter- 
board runs low. 
That, 3-011 may say, 
simple matter ; but- 
While the number of plant foods. 
mining its value so far as 3 -our gar- 
should be a den is concerned. The plant foods 
already latent in your garden soil. 
Nature, herself, continues gradually 
or rather of food elements, is few, to make available, but one of the 
the forms or combinations in w-hich most important tasks of the success- 
they may lie found are innumerable. 
It is because they do not realize this 
fact that many gardeners get off the 
ful gardener is to speed up her 
leisurely methods of going about it. 
There are three chief factors 
Box 600 
UCROSSE.WIS. 
track in tr 3 -ing to keep their plants which help in this important w-ork: 
well fed and thriving. First, the more finely the soil par- 
CT,r,r„ tides are pulverized, the more quick- 
SuppLYiNG Available Foods ^ 
We have seen that the plant’s ical changes will take place, 
roots can take up only such food ma- Second, the conditions of moisture 
terials as are in solution—that is, as and heat favorable to chemical ac- 
I the soil moisture is capable of dis- tion should be maintained as far as 
solving. Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, possible. 
and potash also exist in many forms Third, the presence of bacteria in 
which are not affected by contact the soil which helps these changes 
with the soil, and therefore cannot should be increased in every way 
be used in that state by the plants, that is possible. 
Such materials are called unavail- All these things are expressed in 
able, because the plants cannot use terms of actual work in 3 -our garden: 
them until they undergo a chemical when you break up and till the soil; 
change which makes them soluble, when you cultivate it so as to con- 
It is the gardener’s business, there- serve moisture; when 3-0U introduce 
fore, in adding plant-foods to his bacteria through the liberal use of 
garden, to make sure that they are (Continued on page 88 ) 
