SUMMER FEEDING 153 



they should be used for winter digging, and with ordinary 

 plants summer feeding will not be in the least necessary. 

 It may be practised, and the results may not be amiss, 

 but it is not necessary for an average amount of growth 

 and bloom. 



If manure cannot be obtained in any form at the time 

 of winter digging, then summer feeding may become neces- 

 sary. Or if giant " specimens " are wanted, summer 

 feeding is necessary in addition to winter manuring. It 

 is for this reason that I deal with summer feeding here in a 

 separate chapter. 



There are cases where summer feeding is extremely 

 harmful, and one of these is when the soil is sour and acid. 

 It is also very harmful when the soil contains a great deal 

 of animal or vegetable manure near the surface. In this 

 case it turns the soil sour ; and in the former case it 

 increases its acidity, poisoning the ground to plant life. 



It is well to think of the powerful properties of the 

 liquids used for summer feeding. Liquid manures are 

 so easily absorbed by plants, that they have the power 

 to poison the plant as well as the soil, and this is often 

 what takes place. Like strong drugs in the case of human 

 beings, liquid foods are good for plants in small or weak 

 doses, but poisonous in large or strong ones. 



The Characteristics of Foods : Summer feeding can be 

 done with liquid animal manure or with artificial manure. 

 Success has attended the alternate use of both, giving one 

 this week and the other next, and so on. The charac- 

 teristics of these foods differ. Liquid manure made from 

 horse, cow, pig, or sheep dung, and soot, is, generally 

 speaking, a universal food ; that is, it produces both leaf 

 and flower. And the same may be said of proprietary 

 fertilisers. But it is different with simple chemicals such 

 as nitrate of soda, superphosphate of lime, etc. Nitrate 

 of soda used alone tends to produce leaves ; superphosphate 

 to produce flowers or blooms of larger size. The use 

 of artificial manure is, however, more fully discussed in a 

 later chapter. 



