320 Report oF THE HorTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT OF THE 
APPLICATION OF RESULTS. 
The returns obtained in this twelve-year experiment are nega™ 
tive from a practical standpoint. This experiment shows that 
it is not profitable to apply potash, phosphoric acid, or lime to 
the soil of the Station orchard. Fifty-seven years of orchard 
cropping has not reduced this soil to the condition where it 
needs a “complete” fertilizer, yet the leguminous cover crops 
plowed under in the orchard have usually produced beneficial 
effects the same or the next season. This seems to show that 
the orchard is having a one-sided wear. It needs nitrogen, or 
humus, or the physical condition to be obtained by plowing 
under organic matter. It would be an assumption to say 
whether it is the food, or the condition of the soil brought 
about by the organic matter, or both, that has proved beneficia! 
when cover crops were plowed under. 
“Potash for fruits” has been the cry for so long that many 
fruit growers are misled as to-its use. It is true that the 
“out-go”’ of potash from the soil is relatively great, as shown 
by analyses, and if the soil lacks this ingredient, trees are not 
fruitful. But it is becoming more and more apparent that in 
many orchard soils potash is more abundant, or more available, 
or is less needed by the trees, than was formerly thought. 
Orchard practice, as well as the present experiment, has demon- 
strated that the plea for potash in orchards may not always be 
founded on a real need. 
It must not be concluded, because the effects from the ferti- 
lizers applied were scarcely apparent in the ‘Station orchard, 
that they would be ineffectual in all orchards, or necessarily 
for.all time in this orchard. Plants require food, and the fact 
that certain nutrients added to this soil gave no results must 
mean that this particular soil contained an abundance of the 
elements added when the experiment was begun. Since, now- 
ever, the soil of the Station orchard is an average piece of land 
for western New York —no better, no worse — there must be 
many other orchards in the State that do not need these fer- 
tilizers. In view of the fact that fertilizers are now very gen- 
erally used in growing apples, it may be that considerable sums 
of money are wasted in buying and applying fertilizers which 
are not needed. 
The fertilizers that have been misapplied to orchards have 
not been absolutely thrown away. ‘The phosphoric acid put in 
