How to Have Big Cabbages In this concluding article, the preparation of soil with phosphoric acid and potash is discussed.
Tt will be remembered by those who have persevered through to last week's article that nitrogen, being very easily lost from the soil, must be used sparingly at first if applied soluble form and deficiencies made up during the course of growth, or alternatively must be supplied in a form—such as beancake—which only yields up its nitrogen gradually.
The position with regard to pho phone acid and potash is different. Both these elements: remain in the soil in an unavailable condition and are rendered available for plant food not by bacterial action (like nitrogen), but by chemical.processes. The most active process in changing these elements from an unavailable'to.an available state is by some action, which is not clearly understood, which takes place in the vicinity of the root hairs.
{is obvious therefore that there is much difference between nitrate (soluble), nitrogen and the other two elements, To sum up, the soil must be pre pared with 3 certain amount of nitrate nitrogen, otherwise the plant.
make no growth. At the same time, there must be stocks of phos phic acid and potash within reach fof the plant as soon as it starts to grow and has exhausted the nourish. mant contained in the seed.
A large and continuous supply of nitrate nitrogen will give the plant increasing its ty for absorbing nitrogen and potash. If the sell is well stocked at the beginning with Phosphoric acid and potash, there will be no danger of the plant run ning off into " pure nitrogen diet, which is all very well for Cabbage, lettuce and other leat vegetables Dut is fatal to good flower and seed production.
Remember that a good supply phosphoric acid and potash and of garlic nitrogen will take @ con-iderable time to exhaust and gives 4 definite value to your soil, This is legally recognized when farms change hands, the "unconsumed portion of the ration" of fertilizer being held to be an asset, to be taken over ay market price by the new owner.
There are a number of phosphatic fertilizers to choose from such as superphosphate, bone meal and bon flour, phosphatic bird guano, basic stag, fish guano, ete. Of these, superphosphate is the only one that contains water soluble phosphoric acid, it is useful therefore for supplying rapidly available phospt food to soil that was either deficit therein to begin with, or that is carrying a crop which' needs an additional phosphatic dressing during growth. The fact of its water solubility doos net, however, modify its value as an ingredient of soil preparation, because once the solution establishes proper contact with, the soil particles, the phosphoric acid rapidly preeipitgtes in a fair-divided, unsoluble, form and tays put" until further orders. 'When sulphate or muriate of potash are applied, the crystals, being solu-in water, are thus readily distributed through any decently eultivated soil, but once they are absorb-by the clay a tropical thunder~ storm will not' wash the potash The other phosphatic fertilizers can all be. very. profitably incor porated in the flower or vegetable beds right at the beginning, or pre= ferably one or two weeks beforehand, For instance bone flour is always more rapidly relieved of its insoluble hurriment than bone meal, The finer a product is ground the more surface is exposed.to the action of the oats.
Remember, finally, that economy in the water supply. is bad, when applying concentrated chemical fortilizers in elution, Tt-may be a wearisome business to tread the path to the water tap so frequently and the arms ache with the weight of many canfuls, but it will reply you, BInDWooo.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.