THE 



JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



Vol. IV. 



NOVEMBER, 1849. 



No. 5. 



I 



Good cultivation depends on nothing so 

 much as the supply of an abundance of food. 

 And yet there are hundreds and thousands 

 of cultivators who do not recognise this fact 

 in their practice. They feed their horses 

 and cows regularly, because it is undeniable 

 that they have mouths and stomachs; and 

 experience has demonstrated, that not to 

 keep these sufficiently supplied amounts at 

 last to starvation. But, because a plant has 

 a thousand little concealed mouths, instead 

 of one wide gaping one, — because it finds 

 enough even in poor soils to keep it from 

 actually starving to death, ignorant culti- 

 vators appear to consider that they deserve 

 well of their trees and plants, if they bare- 

 ly keep their roots covered with earth. 

 They make plantations in thin soil, or upon 

 lands exhausted of all inorganic food by 

 numberless croppings, and then wonder 

 why they succeed so poorly in obtaining 

 heavy products. 



Too much, therefore, can never be writ- 

 ten about manures. After all that has been 

 said about them, they are yet but little un- 

 derstood ; and there is not one person in 

 ten thousand, among all those owning gar- 

 dens in this country, who does not annually 

 throw away, or neglect to make use of, 

 some of the most valuable manures for 



Vol. iv. 16 



trees and plants, — manures constantly with- 

 in his reach, and yet entirely neglected. 



We must therefore throw out a few sea- 

 sonable hints, on the preparation and use 

 of manures, which we hope may aid such 

 of our readers as are anxious to feed their 

 trees and plants in such a generous man- 

 ner as to deserve a grateful return. 



Among the first and best of wasted 

 manures, constantly before our eyes in 

 the autumn, are the falling leaves of all 

 deciduous trees. When we remember that 

 these leaves contain not only all the sub- 

 sta?ices necessary to the growth of the 

 plants from which they fall ; but those sub- 

 stances in the proportions actually needed 

 for new growth, it is surprising that we can 

 ever allow a barrowful to be lost. The 

 whole riddle of the wonderful growth of 

 giant forests, on land not naturally rich, and 

 to which nature scarce allows a particle of 

 what is commonly called manure, lies hid- 

 den in the deep beds of fallen leaves which 

 accumulate over the roots, and, by their gra- 

 dual decay, furnish a plentiful supply of 

 the most suitable food for the trees above 

 them. Gather and take away from the 

 trees in a wood this annual coat of leaves, 

 and in a few seasons (unless manure is ar- 

 tificially given,) the wood will begin to de- 



