The Best Fertilizer for Sand.

How can I best fertilize soil that is pure sand?

The best fertilizer for pure sand is well-rotted stable manure, because it not only supplies all kinds of plant food, but increases the humus in the soil, which is exceedingly important in making the sand more retentive of moisture as well as more productive.

Fertilizers in Tree Holes.

Would it be harmful to add 2 or 3 pounds of steamed bone meal to the hole of a young tree just before planting?

There would be no injury, providing you mix it with a considerable amount of soil by digging over the bottom of the hole, but our conviction is that on lands which are good enough for the commercial planting of fruit trees, it is not necessary to stimulate a young tree in this way, but that it is better to postpone the use of fertilizers until the trees come into bearing and show the desirability of more liberal feeding.  Of course, if young trees do not make satisfactory growth, they may be stimulated either with some kind of a fertilizer or with a freer use of water, and it is generally the latter that they are chiefly in need of.

Wood Ashes and Tomatoes.

Is there any harm to vegetable growing to dig sufficient of wood ashes in for mellowing heavy soil?  My tomato plants grew splendidly this year, but the fruits were all rough and wrinkled.  I gave them plenty of horse and poultry manure at planting and plenty of wood ashes and falling leaves of cypress later.

Wood ashes do not mellow a heavy soil.  The effect of the potash is to overcome the granular structure and increase compactness.  Coal ashes, because they are coarser in particles and devoid of potash, do promote mellowness, and are valuable mechanically on a heavy soil although they do not contain appreciable amounts of plant food.  You are overfeeding your tomato plants, probably.  The chances are that you had poor seed.  There is no best tomato, because you ought to grow early and late kinds:  there is also some difference in the behavior of varieties in different places.

Was It the Potash or the Water?

Last year the lye from the prune dipper was turned on the ground near two almond trees which seemed to be dying, and to my surprise they have taken a new lease of life.  Hence my conclusion that potash was good for our soil.

Your experience seems to justify the application of potash, surely, but the question still remains, how much good the potash did the trees, and how much they needed the extra water which the waste dips supplied.  It would be desirable for you to make another experiment with other trees, applying wood ashes, if you have them, or about four pounds per tree of the potash which you use for dipping, scattering well and working it into the soil after it is moistened by the rains, and not using any more water than the trees ordinarily received from rainfall.  After this trial you will be in a position to know whether your trees need potash or irrigation — by comparing with other trees adjacent.  Besides are you sure that your lye dip was caustic potash and not caustic soda?  The latter has no fertilizing value.