MANURES. 29 



bury the dressing. Ea\r dung is not always good for small 

 crops, and is therefore buried, that the roots may not come in 

 contact with it until the plant is pretty strong ; but the 

 mould from decayed vegetable leaves in particular may be 

 laid on in any quantity, and be dug in or mixed up with the 

 soil ; it is perfectly innoxious, and will hurt nothing, while it 

 is a first-rate fertilizer. 



Peat Earth, or Egg Earth, which is full of dead fibres of 

 roots, and is naturally sandy, is one of the best mediums in 

 which rank strong manures can be mixed to increase the bulk 

 and lower the strength. This, which is the top spit of 

 millions of acres of common, is nevertheless dear wherever it 

 is distant, but to those in the vicinity, who can procui^e it 

 with httle trouble, a great acquisition. Guano is mixed with 

 it in preference to anything, when used on a small scale, but 

 when applied in large quantities, it is mixed with coarser 

 earth, or earth easier procured. If it is to be applied by 

 sowing, sand is better. Peat earth is very light ana spongy, 

 excellent for any tender-rooted tilings, and almost always 

 used for American plants and heaths, and many subjects from 

 the Cape of Good Hope. Peat earth should be laid in a heap 

 by itself, and when used has to be broken to pieces and 

 rubbed through a veiy coarse sieve ; otherwise peat would 

 remain in the very lumps that the spade cut up for almost an 

 indefinite period. The characteristic of regular peat is that 

 it is a mass of half-decomposed fibre, but it seems never to 

 decompose the whole ; and this renders it porous and spongy, 

 two points highly essential to the well-being of some plants, 

 and highly beneficial to heavy and adhesive soils. Of course 

 the complete amalgamation cannot be effected on a large scale ; 

 but in potted plants, and the soil necessary for them, it can 

 be made available. Indeed it is very largely transported from 

 commons to flower gardens, for the purpose of growing plants 

 that require it ; but the nurseries that succeed best with the 

 plants which require such soil are established on the spots 

 where peat soil is natural. The great nurseries at Bagshott 

 and Knap Hill, the most famous in England for American 

 plants, and many others in the vicinity of peat commons, 

 only beat others of less importance because the soil without 

 any dressing or preparation, brings forward the various peat 

 plants in a way that no artificially-made beds of peat can 

 produce them, ^ow there would be as much trouble to make 



