The Oakley Eagle

Ashes for Fruit Trees.

I have found out by experience that wood ashes is the best fertilizer that we can put around our fruit trees. Ashes should be placed closer to the trunks of the trees than other fertilizers. The quantity of ashes to be placed around a tree depends upon the size of the tree and the strength of the ashes. About a peck of good strong ashes is enough for a tree just set in the ground, but if the ashes are leached, about twice as many may be used. Older trees need more: about two bushels will do for a tree five years old. I have found that wood ashes make a better fertilizer than barnyard manure. The manure causes a more rapid growth, being more apt to winter kill, while the growth produced by the ashes is more sound and therefore can better endure the winter than the other growth. Apple trees treated with ashes yield from one-half to one-third more sound apples. The trees and vines benefited by ashes are peach, pear, apple, cherry, plum, grape, raspberry, blackberry and strawberry. Wood ashes are a common and ready source of potash. They improve the mechanical condition of most soils. The lime they contain tends to correct "sourness" and to promote the important chemical process of nitrification. Corncob ashes are the best for potash, as they supply from 15 to 20 per cent of pure potash. It has been estimated that every one thousand pounds of hardwood ashes will give about sixty pounds of potash, and when compared with that in cobs they are worth much more in the shape of ashes.—Geo. Van Gundy, Morgan Co., Ill.