STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 251 



guano, bone meal, or other commercial fertilizers, has been 

 found beneficial, as also the plowing under of green crops of rye 

 or clover. 



Every garden should contain a manure yard or compost heap 

 in or convenient to it, where every kind of waste, with the clean- 

 ings of the stable and i)ig sty, may be composted. To start a 

 compost heap a few loads of horse manure are hauled to some 

 place where there is a depression on the surfvice, and after fer- 

 mentation commences the pile is leady to receive additions of 

 every kind of waste that can be secured. There ought to be a 

 substantial fence around it, so that cattle and hogs can be kept 

 in it at times; and the pile should be level on the top, so that 

 w^ater from rains shall not run off; and it is better for tramping 

 and turning occasionally, unless a few hogs are allowed occa- 

 sionally to root it over. Should the material be coarse it may 

 require wetting down in time of dry weather. The waste hoj)S 

 from breweries and slaughter-house oifal are valuable additions 

 to the manure heap. Wherever it can be done the garden should 

 be deeply plowed in the fall after first receiving a liberal dress- 

 ing of manure, and especially if the soil is somewhat clayey, 

 leaving the surface as uneven as the plow will make it. For the 

 earliest crops some of our best gardeners do not plow again in 

 the spring, but as soon as dry enough and frost is out, scatter 

 fine rotted manure over the surface and harrow down fine and 

 level. For the later crops the ground will be better for jjlowing 

 again in the spi'ing after the first crop of weeds has started, and 

 I do not think there is any loss in plowing it for the Earliest, as 

 it leaves it in a condition to dry out and warm up faster. As a 

 market garden is expected to endure for many years, it is im- 

 portant that the first preparation of the soil should be very thor- 

 ough. In this country it is cheapest and best done with a team 

 and plow; but in Europe, where labor is cheap it is largely done 

 with a spade, trenching and manuring the whole ground to a 

 depth of two feet. It is a slow and laborious process, and will 

 not likely be soon adopted by Americans. Deep subsoiling is 

 always beneficial, and whenever the subsoil is anyways wet and 

 tenacious, tile draining will enable the ground to be worked ear- 

 lier in the spring, and insure more certain and better crops. 



The gardener should always provide himself with the best 

 implements that can be procured even though the first cost be 

 greater, and have a place to keep them and always see that they 

 are in their place and in the best of repair when not in use. It 



