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