146 THE YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE. 



Liquid Manure for Plants. 



FEW things, in the management of plants, are more overlooked than that of applying liquid 

 manure. When the roots of plants are confined within a garden-pot, the soil soon becomes 

 exhausted ; and, if it be desirable to grow the plant rapidly, it must be turned out of the 

 pot, and the exhausted soil shaken from the roots, and replaced with fresh earth, or recourse 

 must be had to liquid manures. Floriculturists cannot be aware of the advantages of 

 applying manure in a liquid state, or it would be more frequently used. I have found 

 that all free-flowering plants, such as petunias, geraniums, some of the calceolarias, 

 balsams, and cockscombs, are improved ; and, indeed, I have not found any flowering plant 

 whatever that has not been benefited by a greater or less quantity of this element. In 

 watering plants with liquid manure, it will be observed that the soil, after having been 

 watered a few times, does not dry so soon as when watered with clear water, and this inde- 

 pendent of the extra nutritious qualities left in the soil by the application of manure-water ; 

 it is, then, a great point gained, by whatever means effected, when plants, whether in pots or 

 in the natural soil, can be cultivated without the necessity of frequent waterings. As there 

 is no more labor required in using manure-water than in applying the same quantity of water 

 without any mixture of manure, considering, too, that its advantages must be obvious to all 

 who give it a fair trial, it does seem somewhat unaccountable to see persons exerting a great 

 amount of labor to accomplish very small results. It must be regarded as so much labor 

 misapplied, when, had half the same labor and attention been bestowed, using at the same 

 time liquid manure, far more satisfactory results would have been obtained. Floricultural 

 Cabinet. 



Manuring Fruit-Trees. 



THE Dutch, who are admirable gardeners, had, in the great London Exhibition, an instru- 

 strument called "Earth-Borer," for manuring fruit-trees without digging the ground. A 

 circle of holes is bored around the tree at two feet distance from the tree, and a foot from 

 each other. Taking the tree at a foot diameter at the surface of the soil, the circle will be 

 five feet in diameter and fifteen feet in circumference ; and, if the holes are three inches 

 diameter and a foot apart fifteen inches there will be about twelve holes, more or less, 

 according to the diameter of the tree. They are eighteen inches deep, (where there is enough 

 depth of soil,) and slanting towards the centre; are filled with liquid manure, diluted more 

 or less in dry weather, and stronger as the weather is clamper. For the time of application, 

 Dr. Lindley tells us " For fruit, the proper time for using liquid manure is when the fruit is 

 beginning to swell, and has acquired, by means of its own surface, a power of suction capable 

 of opposing that of the leaves. At that time, liquid manure may be applied freely, and 

 continued from time to time as long as the fruit is growing. But, at the first sign of ripening, 

 or even earlier, it should be wholly withheld. If liquid manure is applied to a plant when 

 the flowers are growing, the vigor which it communicates to them must also be communicated 

 to the leaves ; but when leaves are growing unusually fast, there is sometimes a danger that 

 they may rob th% branches of the sap required for the nutrition of the fruit ; and, if that 

 happens, the latter falls off. And we all know that, when ripening has once begun, even 

 water spoils the quality of the fruit, although it augments the size, as is sufficiently shown 

 by the strawberries prepared for the London market by irrigation ; great additional size is 

 obtained, but it is at the expense of flavor; and any injury which mere water may produce 

 will certainly not be diminished by water holding ammoniacal and saline substances in 

 solution." 



Covered and Uncovered Manures. 



THE following is an abstract of the result of some experiments on the comparative value 

 of covered and uncovered manures, recently made by Lord Kinnaird, of England, and reported 

 in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England for 1854 : 



In 1851, a field of twenty acres, of very equal quantity, being a rich loam naturally dry 



