554 THE GARDENER. [Dec. 



to be useful in eking out and taking the place of the limited but more valuable 

 stores in baud has to be uudertaken periodically as the usual lot of pinched 

 means ; and only those who have some experience in this line can realise what is 

 meant and entailed by this work of scraping and collecting together materials 

 for composts. It means makeshifts and substitutes often inferior in character 

 and efficiency ; it entails an increase of labour rarely taken into account, because 

 nothing is known of it by employers, and that can only be justified by peculiar 

 necessity ; and it entails often an amount of anxiety and vexation on the gardener 

 that only his professional enthusiasm and devotion can enable him to endure. 

 All these considei-ations point to the desirability of utilising everything in any 

 way fit to be converted into substitutes for manure or the better class of soils, 

 at little cost of labour and time. 



Among all matters that may be so converted into manure and soil there is 

 perhaps nothing more available and useful than vegetable or garden refuse. Com- 

 posed as it is of the remains of the used-up crops of the kitchen-gai'den, the ex- 

 hausted occupants of the flower-garden, whether in the shape of frost-bitten bed- 

 ding-plants, the stems, leaves, and flowers of herbaceous perennials and annuals, 

 the mowings and sweepings of short grass, charred weeds and prunings, and 

 the miscellaneous accumulations of decomposable matter that result from the 

 operations necessary to the dressing and keeping of gardens, it must, at least, be 

 admitted to be varied enough as regards components. I have an impression that 

 more might be made of garden -refuse than there generally is in most places. I 

 have met with very few cases in my own experience where the principle of sav- 

 ing and storing every particle of it was insisted on as a jjart of the general man. 

 agement of the place. In some cases it may be unnecessary, owing to the require- 

 ments in manure and soil being easily supplied from better sources ; yet even in 

 such cases I would ask. Whether on the score of economy the matter in question 

 should not be saved ? There need be no fear that it will not come in handy and 

 useful. Compost of this kind is of the greatest value in the planting of shrubs and 

 trees, and for establishing young fruit-trees, especially in cases where they must 

 be put in ground that has been occupied previously by similar subjects. As 

 dressings for llower-beds and borders it is superior to manure, and for many 

 vegetable crops, Saladings, Potatoes, and Turnips, I find it almost equal to manure. 

 In my own case I am by no means stinted in manure supply, nor in compost soils 

 either, though they are not so fine as I could wish ; but for many purposes they 

 are easily improved in quality and texture by additions and mixtures from the 

 lighter rot-heap material. I find also that I have greater command of soils for 

 composts, both in variety and quantity, from my habits of saving the refuse. I 

 can make an equitable exchange with the home-farm, or with any of the neigh- 

 bouring farmers, when old pastures are being broken up. Load for load is gene- 

 rally considered a fair bargain between us, and I consider good old pasture-turf 

 cheap at that price. "Without any appreciable addition to my labour, I can easily 

 muster about 30 tons of decomposed refuse annually, from the various items 

 above mentioned, to which I would now add the refuse from the potting-bench 

 and houses, in the shape of old potting-stuffs, the cleanings from the houses, and 

 the annually removed spent-surfaces of Vine and Peach borders, and occasional 

 dustings of lime, applied merely with the view of deodoi'ising the heap when any 

 considerable bulk of green matter is laid on it, and it, in consequence, becomes 

 unsavoury. 



So much for the uses of garden-refuse, and the ways of disposing of it about 

 larger gardens, in a brief way ; and now a word respecting its use in small ones. 

 It is in those latter that the benefits of carefully husbanding all matter of a decom- 



