Success with Small Fruits

by Edward Payson Roe

In many instances, however, home-made composts are wholly inadequate to supply the need, and stable manures are too costly or not to be obtained. The fruit grower should then go to those manufacturers of fertilizers who have the best reputation, and who give the best guarantees against deception. There are perfectly honest dealers, and it is by far the cheapest in the end to pay them their price for a genuine article. 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 should remember that the plant also requires nitrogen, which guano, or some form of animal manure, would furnish; lime, which is best applied to the strawberry in the form of bone meal, etc. The essential phosphoric acid is furnished in bone meal, the superphosphates, and also in wood-ashes. By referring to an analysis of the ash of red clover, it will be found to contain nearly everything that the strawberry requires.

The man who reads, observes, and experiments carefully, will find that he can accomplish much with lime and salt. If one has land full of vegetable or organic matter, an application of lime will render this matter fit for plant food, and the lime itself, in the course of a year or less, will be rendered harmless in the process. It also 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, prove very beneficial, especially on light upland. It tends to prevent injury from drought, and to clear the land of the larvae of insects. I am inclined to think that much can be accomplished with this agent, and hope to make some careful experiments with it. But it should be used very cautiously, or it will check or destroy growth.

I have received a letter from Mr. J. H. Hale, of South Glastonbury, Conn., that is such a clear and interesting record of experience on this subject that I am led to give it almost entire:

"We have always used Peruvian guano, fish scrap, and ground bone to some extent, but until the past five years have depended mainly upon stable manure brought from New York city on boats, using about fifteen cords per acre yearly, and always with satisfactory results, the only objection being the expense. The price ranged from $8 to $12 per cord, or on an average of $150 per acre; and in trying to reduce this expense we commenced testing different fertilizers, planting, in 1874, one acre of strawberries manured with two tons of fish scrap, at $20 per ton, and one hundred bushels of unleached wood-ashes, at 30 cents per bushel; making a total cost of $70. The result was a strong, rapid growth of plants early in the summer, but in September and October they began to show signs of not having plant food enough, and then we saw our mistake in using fish in place of bone, or some other slow-acting fertilizer that the plants could not have taken up so greedily early in the summer, but would have had to feed on slowly all through the season. The fruit crop the following year, as might have been expected, was not a success, being only about half a crop. In 1875, we planted another acre, using one ton of ground bone and one hundred bushels of wood-ashes, at a total cost of $73; the result was a fine, even growth of plants all through the season, and a perfect crop of fruit the following year, fully equal to that on adjoining acres that had been manured with stable manure at a cost of $150 per acre, to say nothing of the carting of such a great bulk of manure. In the spring of 1876, being so well pleased with the appearance of our 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 food for the berries, we would like to know what it was. The one mistake we have made is, I think, in not using six or eight hundred pounds of fish scrap or guano, and only 1,500 pounds of bone. The fish or guano, being such quick-acting fertilizers, would give the plants a much better start early in the season than would be the case if only the bone and potash were used. We shall try it the coming spring. In applying the potash great care should be taken to have it thoroughly incorporated with the soil, it being only about 55 per cent actual potash; the balance, being largely composed of salt, would, of course, kill the roots of young plants if brought directly in contact with them. In fields where we have used the potash, we have been troubled with white grubs only to a very limited extent, while portions of the same field where stable manure had been used were badly infested with them, and while I do not think salt will drive them ail out of the soil, I do believe it will do so to some extent. Besides the fertilizers I have named, we have in the past six years experimented in a small way with many others. Among them Stockbridge's strawberry manure and Mapes' fruit and vine manures, but have never had as good returns for the money invested as from the bone and potash; and yet, while they have proved of such great value to us, I would not advise you or any one to give up stable manure for them if you can get it at the same cost per acre, but if you cannot, then I say try bone dust and potash in a small way, until you learn just what your soil wants, and then supply it, whether it be 500, 1,000, or 2,000 pounds per acre."

Mr. Hale adds:

"The most of our soil is a sandy loam. We have some heavy loam and a few acres of clay gravel, and we have always had good results from the use of bone and potash on all of these soils.

"We have never used lime on our berry fields at the time of planting, and yet, as you know, all of our New England soils are deficient in lime. We use some indirectly, as we grow clover to plow 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 dressing of lime all around once in that time, and have never been able to see any ill effects from it. In fact, we believe it a positive benefit in helping to keep down sorrel, if nothing more."

There would be very few worn-out farms, or poverty-stricken farmers, if all followed the example of the Hale brothers.

The value of potash and bone meal is thus clearly shown, but the latter does not contain nitrogen in sufficient quantity. I think Mr. Hale is correct 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, cold, clay land to deal with, it is possible that he might find the stable manure the cheapest and best in the long run, even at its increased cost.

Mr. W. L. Ferris, of Poughkeepsie, writes to me that he has found great advantage in the use of the Mapes & Stockbridge special fertilizers. "My experience," he says, "is only as to strawberries, and on them I would say that 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 plants first starting. This does not apply to the first preparation of the ground. In this direction I propose to experiment. I have heretofore applied fertilizers early in spring by hand, distributing it along the rows."