Success with Small Fruits

dealing with this subject, however, I think we tread upon uncertain ground. There is a great deal of apparent accuracy of figures and analyses

is like the lawyer who tries to practice with barely a knowledge of the few laws revealed by a limited experience. In contrast, there are others who read and theorize too exclusively, and are inclined to assert that concentrated fertilizers supersede all others. They scout the muck swamp, the compost heap, and even the barnyard, as old-fashioned, cumbrous methods of bringing to the soil, in tons of useless matter, the essentials which they can deliver in a few sacks or barrels.

, when indisposed or imagining themselves so. In either case there is almost entire ignorance of the nature of the compound or of definite reasons for its usefulness. Both the man and the field

enrichment of the soil is the very cornerstone of success, and more fail at this point than at any other. While I do not believe that accurate and complete directions for the treatment of every soil can be written, it is undoubtedly true that certain correct pr

s also equally plain that the supply of these essential elements should be kept up in continued cultivation. Therefore, the question naturally arises, what are strawberry plants and fruit made of? Modern wine, we know, can b

re, a French writer. "Pierre," says the professor, "gives a statement of the composition, exclusive of water, of the total yield per hectare of fruit, taken up to June 30, and of leaves,

rop (except roots), at the middle of Augus

Fruit

lusive of nitrogen

88.5 16

manganese oxides

c acid 35

02.7 7

a 16.1

89.1 19

6.4 .

ters 120.

ce 4770.7 1

trogen and potash in large proportions; and if these had been employed with the superphosphate, the result probably would have been very different. Superphosphate contains nitrogen, but not in sufficient degree. These considerations bring us to the sound conclusion that in enriching our land it would be wise to use complete fertilizers as far as possible; that is, manures containing all, or nearly all, the essential ingredients of the strawberry plant and fruit. If we could always know just what elements are lacking in our soils, we could merely supply these; but frequent analyses are expensive, and often misleading, at best. The safest plan is always to keep within reach of the plants the food we know they require, and the roots, with unerring instinct, will attend to the proportions. Hence the value of barnyard manure in the estimation of plain common-sense. A sensible writer has clearly shown that from twenty-three cows and five horses, if proper absorbe

. If such concentrated agents are used in connection with a green crop like clover, land can be made, and kept productive continuously. In the use of commercial fertilizers, there should be a constant and intelligent effort to keep up a supply of all the essential ingredients. Wood-ashes is a specific for strawberries. I have never found any one thing so good, and yet it is substantially but one thing, potash, and I

lso sweetens and lightens heavy, sour land, and thus, in time renders it better adapted to the strawberry; but lime should not be applied directly, in any considerable quantity, to strawberry plants, nor should it be used on very light soils deficient in vegetable matter. The judicious use of salt in small quantities will, I think,

bury, Conn., that is such a clear and interesting record of ex

one acre manured with bone and ashes, we planned to fertilize all of our fruits in the same way. Then the question arose, where were we to get the ashes? We could buy enough for an acre or two, but not enough for our whole farm. What were we to do? Potash we must have, as that is the leading element of plant food required by small fruits of all kinds. We found we must look to the German potash salts for what we wanted, and we therefore bought several tons of High Grade (80 per cent) muriate of potash at $40 per ton, using 1,000 pounds per acre, and one ton of bone at $35, making a total cost of only $55 per acre. The plants did not grow quite as well early in the season as those on the fields where ashes were used, but later in the season they made a very fine growth, and at fruiting time, in 1877, we harvested a full and abundant crop of strawberries and raspberries. Since that time we have used nothing but ground bone and muriate of potash to manure all of our berry fields with, and continue to get fully as satisfactory results as in former years, when we depended upon stable manure at more than double the cost per acre. Some parties who have been looking into the matter suggest that possibly our satisfactory results are owing not so much to the fertilizers as to the liberal supply of stable manure used in former years. Yet the past season we picked 143 bushels of Charles Downings per acre, from a field manured with bone and potash, so poor and worn-out that two years before it would only produce six bushels of rye per acre. That land had no stable manure on it, and if it was not the bone and potash that furnished fo

Hale

m and a few acres of clay gravel, and we have always had good

ow under, and usually give at that time a good dressing of lime. As we try to have a new clover field every year, we get all around the farm in six or eight years, and we therefore get a dres

or poverty-stricken farmers, if all fo

t in the opinion that he can secure better results by using at the same time some nitrogenous manure, like fish scrap, guano, etc. If he had heavy,

hat the result of applying equal values of manure-stable and commercial-as to cost, would be from ten to twenty-five per cent in favor of the commercial, as a stimulant to apply in the spring, or, in small quantities, to

nure in which the strawberry especially delights, I should answer unhesitatingly, the well decayed and composted production of the cow-stable, and if the reader had seen Mr. Durand's beds of the Great American variety in bearing, after being enriched with this material, he would be well sat

as well as good food. The physical condition of the soil, as well as the chemical, must receive attention; and we know of nothing s