Irish gardening. 



win a silver medal, then our pleasure is great, 

 and we aspire to gold medals and champion 

 trophies. 



Ireland, with its moist climate, should be able 

 to grow Sweet Peas that will rival those pro- 

 duced in Scotland and Wales, let alone those of 

 English growth. So, " finally my brethren," my 

 precept is "no gains without pains," and the 

 promise is " no pains without gains. ' May you 

 all have the pleasure of growing Sweet Peas, 

 showing Sweet Peas, and winning prizes, and 

 when August 5th comes along " may I be there 

 to see." 



5^* e^* c«^ 



Manuring of Crops. 



IT is a well known fact that if we continue 

 year after year to grow crops and sell 

 them off the land the soil will become ex- 

 hausted, and will eventually yield no crop what- 

 ever. If, on the other hand, we feed the crop 

 to cattle, and apply their manure to the soil, it 

 will continue to yield a crop. It is evident then 

 that a growing crop takes something out of 

 the soil, that there is only a limited supply of 

 this something in the soil, and that if it be not 

 replaced w-e cannot get a crop in future years. 



Experience has taught us that if we apply 

 farmyard manure, or certain substances which 

 we call artificial manures, the soil will continue to 

 yield a crop. Experience, however, has not 

 taught us why this is so, nor how the manure 

 gives us strong, vigorous plants, where without 

 it we could only get weak and sickly ones. 



The object of this article is to endeavour to 

 make clear to those readers of Irish Gardening 

 who have not already had an opportunity ot study- 

 ing the matter the " reason why " plants require 

 manure, what are the substances contained by 

 the manure which are of use to plants, and how 

 plants make use of these substances when they 

 do get them. Knowing these things we are in 

 a position to better understand the requirements 

 of the different crops we grow ; we know what 

 the plant wants, andean supply its wants; and, 

 further, we can avoid waste by avoiding to give 

 it what it does not want. 



Now, to thoroughly understand the science of 

 manuring we must first grasp several facts, 

 viz. : — 



(i) That the plants comprising our crops are 

 alive, and that being alive they require 

 food. 



(2) That part of that food is supplied by the 



soil, and is taken in in a liquid state by 

 the plant through its roots. 



(3) That part of the food is supplied by the 



air, and is taken in in a gaseous state 

 through the leaves. 



The food that is got from the air is supplied in the form 



of carbonic acid gfas. When wood or coal is burnt this 

 carbonic acid gas is formed, and rises into the air ; 

 animals also are constantly breathing- it out. In the 

 vicinity of large towns the air contains more of this gas 

 than in the open country, but even the purest air contains 

 enough and to spare for the use of plants. Air is con- 

 stantly passing into and out of the leaves of plants, 

 through the numerous small openings in the skin of the 

 leaf, and while it is inside the leaf the carbonic acid is 

 gradually extracted from it and manufactured by the 

 plant into starch and sugar, which are food for plants, 

 just as they are food for animals. This manufacture of 

 food from the air only goes on, however, w hile the plant is 

 in the light. It is evident then that so long as the plant 

 gets light there need be no fear of its starving for want 

 of the food which it gets from the air. 



We will now turn our attention to the food which is 

 got from the soil. We have already stated that the food 

 is taken in through the root, and that it must be in a liquid 

 state — i.e., it must be soluble in water. If we examine 

 the root of a plant under the microscope we can see at 

 once why it can only take in liquid food. The root and 

 stem of the plant are divided up into a large number of 

 very small compartments or cells (see drawing), and it is 

 evident that, thin as the wall of these cells are, no solid 

 substance, be it in ever so fine and powdery a state, 

 could pass through them. Water, however, can soak 

 through them, just as it would soak through a piece of 

 paper. Salt in its solid state could not get inside the 

 root of the plant, but salt dissolved in water could get in, 

 and could pass from cell to cell until it had reached the 

 stem and leaves of the plant. Nitrate of soda, which is 

 a white, solid substance like salt, and which contains a 

 large quantity of plant food, could not get inside the root, 

 but if we dissolve it in water it can pass in with the 

 water, can pass from cell to cell, and nourish the plant. 

 If the nitrate of soda were a substance like sand, which 

 will not dissolve in water, it would be useless as a 

 manure, because, although it contained plenty of plant 

 food, the plant could not make use of that food. 



As a matter of fact in most soils there is a very large 

 store of plant food, but very little of the soil is soluble in 

 water, so that the plant may starve in the midst of plenty, 

 the food being locked up, so to speak, in the soil. 



Having got thus far we would now like to know what this 

 plant food, of which we have been talking, is composed of; 

 in fact, if we wish to know how to feed our crops properly 

 we must know v\ hat they feed on. To answer this ques- 

 tion we will first draw on our experience. Experience 

 has taught us that farmyard manure supplies the want of 

 our crop. Now, by applying farmyard manure we are 

 simply returning part of the crop to the land again ; or, 

 in other words, tliis year's crop is simply feeding on the 

 remains of last year's. We must then find out what the 

 crop itself contains, and to do this we enlist the services 

 of the chemist, who, after putting them through a number 

 of complicated processes, tells us that all plants, be they 

 oats or turnips or potatoes, can be broken up into a 

 number of substances quite different in appearance from 

 the plants themselves. The chief of these substances 

 are — carbon, water, nitrogen, phosphates and potash. 

 Some of these substances we are familiar with, others 

 are but names to us, and, except we are prepared to 

 make a study of the science of chemistry, must remain 

 but names to us. 



We know that a plant must contain carbon, because if 

 we burn it we are left with a heap of black ashes. Only 

 a small part of the carbon has been left however ; the 

 rest has escaped into the air in the form of carbonic acid 

 gas. We have already seen that the plant can take 

 carbonic acid gas from the air, so it is evident that there 

 is no need to add carbon to the soil. 



The water, as we have already seen, is taken in — 

 sucked in so to speak— from the soil by the roots of the 

 plant, and this water takes in with it in solution the 

 nitrogen phosphates and potash, together with certain 



