Judsonia weekly advance., 1916-04-19
5. FERTILIZERS AND HORTiCUL.
 TURF

The fruit and vegetable growers are always leaders ill the use of plant l 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 1 it. In the present paper we are to | tell more particularly about fruit
 trees and other horticultural plants. The relation of apple growing 10 l fertilizers has never been very care 1 fully worked out. We know that the
 use of fertilizers with fruit trees, and
 especially apples, pays, but we have
 not yet worked out the best formulae 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 trees large quantities of manure should be used in preparing the place for planting. These manures should 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
 in various forms, and mix with leaf
 mold and manures. Brisbin also rec 1 ommends that weeds should not be al 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 fruit is to keep the field or orchard
 clean by growing other crops which
 require constant attention and culti
 vation Most farmers and horticul- 1 turists fertilize the crops that grow in the orchard, and in this way save the expense of fertiiiZing the fruit trees again In many instances le- gumes are grown as a cover crop,
 and incidentally, to furnish nitrogen
 The orchard cannot be cultivated too
 deeply, or injury will result It needs to be cultivated shallow, and manures
 or fertilizers applied in reasonable
 quantities. While it is necessary to
 put fertilizers near the trunk of the
 tree, yet the roots scatter pretty we'll
 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- phoric acid, and unless this is sup l piled from time to time, the trees will 1 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 | plant food that make the fruit on l such trees. Besides, such fruit is rarely ever as excellent and delicious l as that grown in a well-kept orchard i Fruit, like all other kinds of field and | garden crops, must be forced more 1 or less to measure up to high stan- | dard To force the fruit, and at the
 same time keep the land fertile, we 1 must apply to the soil as much fertil- izer as the crop takes from it. 1 Fruit trees demand in their growth | a fertilizer rather rich in potash and ] phosphoric acid, but not very rich in l nitrogen. It was found that the citrus l trees in California at the Riverside l Experiment Station grew better fruit
 and did better every way with a com. | plete fertilizer than with any single l plant food element, or any incomplete
 combination. It was also found that
 the acid requirements of these trees
 were more completely supplied with
 sulphate of ammonia than from any
 other nitrogen source.
 Many of the experiment stations
 have secured good results from fertil- | IZluS OICudIuS, Dut llOuc Qult6 SO ROOu
 as the Ohio station. F. H. Ballou, in
 charge of work with apples, says: "To sum up the results in increased Fruit production from the use of chemical fertilizers on the very thin orchard land in southeastern Ohio taking into consideration all our diff ferent plots at the various places coy- ering 60 miles of country, we have } the following:
 Average per acre, per year fertil- } ized, 100 barrels.
 Average per acre, per year unfertil- ized, A barrels.
 Gain per acre. per year, from fertil- ization, 56 barrels.
 Cost of gain per barrel, per year, ITS cents.
 This is the strongest endorsement
 for the use of commercial fertilizers n orchards that we have yet seen,
 and shows how it is possible to in-
 ,rease the incomes from an orchard hxr tho uica 1lse 0f tha rrouar Lipdc