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HOW TO ENRICH THE SOIL. 



cline and go to decay. Hence, we must 

 beseech all our good orchardists and fruit- 

 growers not to forget that dead leaves are 

 worth looking after. They should be held 

 fast in some way, either by burying them 

 about the roots of the trees from which they 

 fall, or by gathering them into the compost 

 heap, to be applied when duly decomposed 

 in the spring. 



And this leads us to say that an excel- 

 lent, and perhaps the best, mode of using 

 leaves for the orchard, fruit garden, or any 

 plantations of trees or shrubs, is the fol- 

 lowing : Take fresh lime and slake it with 

 brine, (or water saturated with salt,) till it 

 falls to a powder. This powder is not 

 common lime, but muriate of lime. Gather 

 the leaves and lay them up in heaps, 

 sprinkling over every layer with this new 

 compound of lime, at the rate of about four 

 bushels to a cord of leaves. This will be 

 ready for use in about a month if the wea- 

 ther is mild, or it may lie all winter, to be 

 used in the spring; but in either case, the 

 heap should be turned over once or twice. 

 The lime decomposes the leaves thorough- 

 ly ; and the manure thus formed is one of 

 the most perfect composts known for trees 

 of all kinds. We need not add that its 

 value to any given kind of tree, as, for 

 example, the pear, the apple, or the oak, 

 is increased by using the leaves of that 

 tree only ; though a mass of mixed leaves 

 gives a compost of great value for trees and 

 Bhrubs generally. The practice in the 

 best vineyards, of burying the leaves of 

 each vine at its root, every autumn, is not 

 only one of the most successful modes of 

 manuring that plant, but one founded in 

 the latest discoveries in science. 



The most economical mode of making 

 manure, in most parts of the country, is 

 that of using muck or peat from swamps. 

 Though worth little or nothing in its crude 



state, it contains large quantities of the 

 best food for trees and plants. No culti- 

 vator, who has it at command, should com- 

 plain of the difficulty of getting manure, 

 since he can so easily turn it into a 

 compost, equal in bulk to farm-yard ma- 

 nure. 



The cheapest mode of doing this, is, un- 

 doubtedly, to place it in the stalls under- 

 neath the cattle for a few days, and then 

 lay it up with the barn-yard manure, in the 

 proportion of one part muck to six or eight 

 parts manure. The whole will then fer- 

 ment, and become equal in value to the 

 ordinary product of the barn-yard. But a 

 much more practicable mode for horticul- 

 turists — who are not all farmers, with cat- 

 tle yards — is that of reducing it by means 

 of ashes, or lime slaked with brine. 



As we have already pointed out how to 

 use ashes, and as we think, after what we 

 have observed the past season, the latter 

 mode gives a compost still more valuable 

 for many trees than ashes and muck, we 

 recommend it to the trial of all those form- 

 ing composts for their orchards and gar- 

 dens. The better mode is to throw out the 

 peat from the swamps now, or in winter, 

 expose it to the action of the frost, and, 

 early in the spring, to mix it with the 

 brine-slaked lime, at the rate of four bush- 

 els to the cord. It should be allowed to 

 lie about six weeks. The good effects of 

 this compost, when applied as a manure 

 to the kitchen garden, or mixed with the 

 soil in planting trees, are equally striking 

 and permanent. 



We cannot let the opportunity pass by 

 without saying a word or two about that 

 much lauded and much abused substance — 

 guano. Nothing is more certain than that, 

 in Peru and England, this is the best of all 

 manures ; or that in the United States, as 

 it has hitherto been used, it is one of the 



