Judsonia weekly advance., 1916-04-12
5. FERTILIZERS AND HoRTiCUL.
 TURF.

always leaders in the use of plant foods for their crops. This is espe- cially true of the vegetable growers. What they wish is rapid growth in their produce, so that they will get the vegetables on the market in the shortest possible time from the time of planting. This is the secret of success with vegetables, and the only
 way to meet such conditions is to ap- ply fertilizers in large quantities. In the next paper we shall tell about the
 home garden" and how to fertilize l it. In the present paper we are to 1 tell more particularly about fruit l trees and other horticultural plants. The relation of apple growing to
 fertilizers has never been very care 1 fully worked out. We know that the
 use of fertilizers with fruit trees, and l especially apples, pays, but we have
 not yet worked out the best formula 1 for the various kinds of trees, nor the
 amounts which pay bept Brisbin
 says, in his book On Trees and Tree | Planting" that in planting young 1 trees large quantities of manure l should be used in preparing the place 1 for planting. These manures should i be rich in plant food elements if the | trees are expected to make rapid
 growth. The best way to increase the plant food in manures is to add to the manures the mineral elements l in various forms, and mix with leaf
 mold and manures. Brisbin also rec ommends that weeds should not be al- l lowed to grow around the apple trees,
 as they will take up the plant food which is put down for young trees.
 The best method of producing l fruit is to keep the field or orchard 1 clean by growing other crops which require constant attention and culti-
 vation. Most farmers and horticul- turists fertilize the crops that grow
 in the orchard, and in this way save l the expense of fertilizing the fruit 1 trees again. In many instances le- 1 gumes are grown as cover crop, 1 and, incidentally, to furnish nitrogen. The orchard cannot be cultivated too 1 dCGkIS5 VI AllJ LII ' VIII lOpuAl. It ICOdo 1 to be cultivated shallow, and manures or fertilizers applied in reasonable l quantities. While it is necessary to ] put fertilizers near the trunk of the
 tree, yet the roots scatter pretty well
 over an orchard, and the plant food
 that happens to fall further away
 from the trunk is not lost.
 A large crop of apples or peaches
 takes from the soil much plant food,
 such as nitrogen, potash and phos- l phoric acid, and unless this is sup i piled from time to time, the trees will prove less fruitful and finally bear
 very little fruit, and what they do
 bear will be of poor quality. The ar gument that old trees in pastures
 bear good fruit is not sound be-
 cause conditions prevail in many iso- lated places this way that cannot be
 duplicated in the orchard Many
 times it is the natural leaf mold,
 woods earth, droppings from animals, and other materials carrying available 1 plant food that make the fruit on such trees. Besides, such fruit is 1 rarely ever as excellent and delicious i as that grown in well-kept orchard i Fruit, like all other kinds of field and
 garden crops, must be forced more
 or less to measure up to a high stan-
 dard. To force the fruit, and at the
 same time keep the land fertile, we must apply to the soil as much fertil- izer as the crop takes from it.
 Fruit trees demand in their growth
 a fertilizer rather rich in potash and pbosphoric acid, but not very rich in nitrogen It was found that the citrus 1 trees in California at the Riverside Experiment Station grew better fruit and did better every way with a com | plete fertilizer than with any single plant food element, or any incomplete com bination. It was also found that 1 the acid requirements of these trees 1 u'Sre more completely supplied with | sulphate Of ammonia than from any
 other nitrogen source.
 Many of the experiment stations i have secured good results from fertil- l izing orchards, but none quite so good 1 dS Iut OlIIU 0ltitlOu' H. Ddllou, kii
 chasGe of work with apples, says:
 .soTo sum up the results in increased
 rruit production from the use of chemical fertilizers on the very thin
 orchard land in southeastern Ohio, taking into consideration all our diff
 f.rent plots at the various places GOV
 ering 60 miles of country, we have
 the following:
 Average per acre, per year fertil-
 ized, 100 barrels
 Average per acre, per year unfertil- 1 ized, fl barrels.
 Gain per acre, per year. from fertil-
 ization, 56 barrels.
 Cost of gain per barrel, per year, 1 IFS cents.
 This is the strongest endorsement 1 for the use of commercial fertilizers 1 in orchards that we have yet seen, l .nd shows how it is possible to in-
 ,rease the incomes from an orchard l 1F Iii 1,