The Vegetable Garden: What, When, and How to Plant

by Anonymous

The kind of fertilizer employed has a marked influence upon the character and quality of the vegetables produced. For the garden only those fertilizers that have been carefully prepared should be used. Fertilizers of organic composition, such as barnyard manure, should have passed through the fermenting stage before being used. The use of night soil generally is not to be recommended, as its application, unless properly treated for the destruction of disease germs, may prove dangerous to health.

BARNYARD MANURE.

For garden crops there is no fertilizer that will compare with good, well-rotted barnyard manure. In localities where a supply of such manure can not be secured it will be necessary to depend upon commercial fertilizers, but the results are rarely so satisfactory. In selecting manure for the garden, care should be taken that it does not contain any element that will be injurious to the soil. An excess of sawdust or shavings used as bedding will have a tendency to produce sourness in the soil. Chicken, pigeon, and sheep manures rank high as fertilizers, their value being somewhat greater than ordinary barnyard manures, and almost as great as some of the lower grades of commercial fertilizers. The manure from fowls is especially adapted for dropping in the hills or rows of plants.

COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS.

Commercial fertilizers are sold under a guaranteed analysis, and generally at a price consistent with their fertilizing value. No definite rule can be given for the kind or quantity of fertilizer to be applied, as this varies with the crop and the land. At first the only safe procedure is to use a good high-grade fertilizer at the rate of from 1,000 to 2,000 pounds to the acre and note the results. Market gardeners frequently apply as much as 2,500 pounds of high-grade fertilizer per acre each year. Farmers who do not have sufficient barnyard manure for their crops should begin gradually to use the commercial fertilizers.—(F. B. 255.)

PROFITS FROM THE USE OF FERTILIZERS.

The aim usually in the use of artificial fertilizers is to so supplement soil supplies of plant-food as to obtain a profit, and, as already intimated, the profits for the different crops will be in proportion to their economical use of the desired constituent. Still, one should not be deterred from the use of fertilizing materials, even if the conditions should render the application apparently wasteful—that is, the farmer should estimate the increase that it is necessary for him to obtain, in order to be regarded as profitable, and if only this is obtained, he should not be discouraged. Many persons seem to have gotten the impression that the use of fertilizers is a gamble at best, and are not satisfied unless the returns from the investment in fertilizers are disproportionately large. We very often hear the statement that by the use of certain fertilizers the crop is doubled or tripled, as if this were a remarkable occurrence, and partook of the nature of a mystery. Such results are not mysterious; they can be readily explained. In an experiment on celery it is shown that the weight of celery from an application of 400 pounds per acre of nitrate of soda is two and one-half times greater than on the land upon which no nitrate was used, and that very great profit followed its use. This result is not mysterious—the nitrogen applied, if all had been used by the crop, would have given a still greater increase; it simply shows that where no extra nitrogen had been applied the plant was not able to obtain enough to make the crop what the conditions of the season and soil, in other respects, permitted. These favorable conditions, however, are not uniform, and variations in return from definite application must be expected.

It is quite possible to have a return of $50 per acre from the use of $5 worth of nitrate of soda on crops of high value, as, for example, early tomatoes, beets, cabbage, etc. This is an extraordinary return for the money invested and labor involved; still, if the value of the increased crop from its use was but $10, it should be regarded as a profitable investment, since no more land is required, and but little more capital with this return. The waste of nitrogen does not result in loss.

DANGER OF LOSS OF NITRATES BY LEACHING.

The chief difficulties in the use of nitrate of soda are due to promptness in its solubility and availability. The fact that it is so soluble carries with it the very grave danger that losses by leaching may occur if the conditions of soil and crop at the time of its application are not favorable for a rapid absorption of the nitrate by the plant. This danger is greater if it is applied to the soil before rapid growth, when there is a limited number of plants that have not made much growth, or whose roots have not taken possession of the soil, as in the case of the vegetable crops. In meadows, on the other hand, or in grain crops, where there are a large number of plants per unit of area, and in orchards or berry patches, where there are fewer plants, but a wider distribution of the feeding roots, losses are not so liable to occur. There may be, therefore, great disappointment in the returns from the use of nitrate of soda, if opinions as to its usefulness are based entirely upon its availability. Nevertheless, because no unknown conditions enter in, in reference to its availability, it is possible to avoid, in a great degree, the losses liable to occur, and thus to secure a maximum return from the application of this form of nitrogen.