JnDO 7, 1877. J 



JOURKAIi OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



TOP-DEB SSING— FERTILISERS. 



HEN we dig manure into tlie ground in 

 the autumn and winter we undoubtedly 

 convey to the soil the great bulk of the 

 nom-ishment required by the crops. Farm- 

 yard manure can never be dispensed with ; 

 it is the gardener's sheet anchor, and he 

 who has sufficient of it and uses it judi- 

 ciously is tolerably independent of further 

 manurial aids. Few, however, there are 

 who have as much manure as the heavy 

 nature of the cropping carried out demands ; and even 

 if there is saffieient of stable dung for digging into the 

 soil a supplementary dressing of guano, salt, soot, nitrate 

 of soda, or superphosphate of lime cannot fail to be 

 of great advantage in the spring and early summer, 

 when the crops are in growth, in bringing them more 

 quickly to m.aturity, and also in a great measure in pre- 

 venting them from injury by slugs, which are occasionally 

 so destractive. 



" A good start is half the battle," is an old and true 

 saying, and I know of nothing to which it applies witli 

 greater force than to gardening matters. During a 

 tolerably long experience a few points have become fixed 

 on my mind as of great importance. In propagating I 

 always like to start with a good cutting, in seedling- 

 raising with bold fi-esh seed, and in general cultivation 

 with good well-worked and well-manured soil. These are 

 points which I cannot afford to ignore, and they are such 

 as I have generally been able to secure, and yet I have 

 not always succeeded as I have wished. I have had to 

 battle, like all gardeners, with something beyond my 

 control, and which has rendered my efforts in obtaining 

 a "good start" comparatively futile. I allude to the 

 weather. Seasons have occurred now and again when 

 with aU my care in selection, preparation, and stable 

 manm'e, the crops would not grow to my satisfaction, and 

 I have experienced unpleasant forebodings that at some 

 time or other a blank would occur iu the supply of flowers 

 or vegetables, and that at a time probably when the 

 weather may be of the most favourable cliaracter, making 

 it all the more difficult to convince others of the real 

 cause of the scarcity. Such a season is the present one. 

 Crops cannot grow with freedom, and they remain in a 

 aemi-standstill state a prey to birds by day and snails by 

 night. The season is an extraordinary one, and extra 

 measures become necessary to render it, as far as lies in 

 our power, a productive one. Fruits that have been 

 destroyed by fi-ost we cannot replace. Fertilisers can be 

 of no service in that department of our duties ; but in the 

 flower garden, and amongst the vegetable crops — however 

 well the ground may have been manured — they may be 

 of very great service. 



I cannot conceive a garden, be the size of it what it 

 may, adequately furnished with proper ncoessaries if a 

 supply of some of the fertihsers above named are not 

 provided. A bag of guano or superphosphate of lime, a 

 bushel of nitrate of soda, and a heap of soot and salt. 

 No. SJ5 -Vol, XXXIL, Kew Seeizs, 



cost little yet effect much in increasing the productions 

 of a garden. Many who have gardens, and enjoy them 

 too, are averse to purchasing any kind of " artificials." 

 But notwithstanding the term that is applied to them 

 there is much that is " real " in genuine samples of this 

 class of manures. If it were not so, hard-headed and, as 

 they are sometimes called, " close-fisted," agriculturists 

 would not invest in them so freely : yet it is pretty well 

 known that those who do so are the most successful of 

 cultivators, and the first to attain to the enviable position 

 of having " land of their own." 



I was for some years in the service of a " gentleman 

 farmer" who like many others of his class enjoyed his 

 garden, without, however, going to any great expense in 

 furnishing it— at least that he was conscious of. His 

 j farm was his chief object, and I know that he thought 

 much less of expending i£1000 for " artificials " for it than 

 he did of paying a little bill of lO.s. for a few flower pots. 

 The foreman of that farm was fortunately an admirer of 

 flowers, and rejoiced in taking a prize for them and vege- 

 tables at the local show. 1, perhaps, did not do the thing 

 that was quite right in occasionally supplying him with 

 a few Daliiias and Asters, and perhaps au odd Cauliflower 

 to make up a brace ; and I never thought that he was 

 very wrong in permitting me to help myself to the fer- 

 tihsers. It was the master's manure for the master's 

 garden. Such flowers and vegetables as that garden 

 produced I have seldom seen. They were the terror of 

 the gardeners of the neighbourhood, and won at one show 

 alone thirty-five prizes in which the gardeners of one 

 duke, two earls, and at least a dozen squires competed. 

 Had I been as honest as perhaps I ought to have been I 

 should have " divided the spoil " with the foreman of the 

 farm, for it is certain the prizes would not have been won 

 without bis valuable aid in supplying the " dust," as we 

 termed the manures. Neither did we rob the farmer in the 

 end, for less, very much less, farmyard manure was used 

 in the garden after it had received a few liberal dressings 

 of guano, &c. The increased productiveness of the garden 

 also enhanced the pleasure of the owner. I know this to 

 be true, for when he accepted the silver cup won at one of 

 the shows I know what he said. He did not ask for the 

 cup; if only a "farmer" he was too much of a gentle- 

 man for that, but he was pleased to possess it when I 

 offered to him. The garden also added to the advantages 

 of the gardener, for with the prize money he bought a 

 wife, and she has proved a good one. I cannot therefore 

 think that either myself or the foreman did wrong in 

 using clandestinely the master's artificials. 



It is wonderful how beneficial such manures are when 

 used in the right quantities and at the right time. The 

 right time to apply them is now, when the crops are 

 young and too many of them are stunted and brown. 

 The right manner of using them is by sprinkling them 

 on the surface of the ground when it rains, or immediately 

 before rain, and running the hoo through the surface as 

 soon as it has dried sutBciently to bo moved cleanly. 

 The crops then receive the full benefit of the manure, 

 and the "master" cannot smell it as he passes through 

 No. lia?.— Vol. LVII., Old Series. 



