CHAPTER VI. 



MANURES. 



The quantity, quality, and proper application of ma- 

 nures, is of the utmost importance in all gardening opera- 

 tions, and few have any conception of the immense quantity 

 necessary to produce the heavy crops seen in our market 

 gardens. Of stable or barn-yard manure, from 50 to 100 

 tons per acre is used, and prepared, for at least six months 

 previously, by thorough turning and breaking up to pre- 

 vent, its heating unduly. The usual method is to have the 

 manure-yard formed in a low part of the garden, but if 

 there is no natural depression, one may be made by dig- 

 ging out from 18 to 24 inches deep, and enclosing it by a 

 fence about G feet in hight. The wagons are driven along- 

 side, and the green manure thrown into the enclosure, 

 care being taken to have it spread regularly ; hogs are 

 usually kept upon the manure in numbers sufficient to 

 break it up, they being fed in part by the refuse vege- 

 tables and weeds of the garden. 



The manure of horses is most valued, as we consider it, 

 weight for weight, of about one-third more value than that 

 of cows or hogs; on stiff soils it is of much more benefit 

 29 



