374 STATE HORTICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 



nature's process? Nature applies all fertilizing Ihings to the surface. Upou 

 the Euriace fall the rain, the snow, the leaves, and the litter. The excrement of 

 all animal lile, and the decay of all vegetable growth, drop and rest upon the 

 surface. To the surface the frosts apply their greatest power and energy, the 

 Avinds their greatest force: to the surface the sun gives all its resources of light 

 and heat, upou it the atmosphere and its gases rest, and the virtue of shadow, 

 shade, and darkness is there bestowed also. From this notion he gets his 

 method of applying everything on the surface except green clover which he turns 

 under. He thinks well of the practice of hauling crude manure out in winter 

 direct from the stables. The rains, frosts, and snows will take good care of it, 

 but the finer crude or other manure is made the better. 



THE COMPOST HEAP. 



Mr. "W. D. Philbrick of Massachusetts says to those who wish to make the 

 most of their manure for market garden purposes that it pays to have a com- 

 post heap; that when barn yard manure is properly composted there is noth- 

 ing its equal for fertilizing purposes. If this compost heap can be made in a 

 cellar or under a shed and kept moist by liberal watering with liquid manure, a 

 product will result that is hard to beat in fertilizing a garden. The floor upon 

 which the compost is made is best made of cobble-stones or bricks laid in 

 cement or tar and gravel, so as to be water-tight and solid enough to bear a 

 cart ; it should have a slight descent toward a cistern which will catch the 

 drainage, which should be provided with a chain pump for raising the same to 

 the top of the compost heap, where it can easily be distributed by means of a 

 gutter with perforated bottom. On wet days all hands on the farm may be 

 profitably employed Avorking over the compost in a shed or cellar and wetting 

 it down with the drainage of the heap, which may be easily replenished with 

 night soil Avhenever required. The waste from a heap of hot strawy horse 

 dung in the open air in summer is very great — frequently more than half the 

 value — and consists of the most valuable as well as the most volatile of its 

 elements, the ammonia. Gather up all weeds that are going to seed and remove 

 them to the pig-pen or compost heap. If the manure is piled and worked over 

 two or three times before using, it will destroy all or nearly all the noxious 

 seeds. 



MANURE FOR PEACH TREES. 



A correspondent of Farm and Garden says that most crops seem to have a 

 special fertilizer adapted for them — as plaster for clover, lime and potash for 

 potatoes, and nitrogen and phosphoric acid for wheat. The peach tree has a 

 special fertilizer also, one which combines a great many ingredients, but the 

 most suitable for the purpose. It is the cleanings from the privy. This refuse 

 will show in comparison with anything else that can be tried as it gives quicker 

 growth, increases the fruit and colors the foliage to a deep green. The discov- 

 ery was made by a New Jersey fruit grower who experimented for the purpose, 

 and the most casual observer could easily discern the dillcrence in the appear- 

 ance of trees treated in this Avay from those manured in any other manner. 



