490 THE HOME, FARM AND BUSINESS CYCLOPAEDIA. 



able distance apart in the rows. The manure is deposited by the drill 

 along the line of each plant row, and immediately covered in. Manures 

 which are not so readily soluble produce the best effect when intimately 

 mixed with the soil. The depth to which the manure is turned in should 

 be regulated by the nature of the soil and of the manure. On a clay soil 

 it may be buried deeper with advantage than on a sandy soil ; and a slow 

 manure may be buried deeper than a soluble and quick-acting manure. It 

 is not, however, good policy to bury any manure very deeply. The rain 

 in a drained soil will soon distribute it throughout the mass to be fertil- 

 ized ; and we must not forget that the producing power of a soil is gov- 

 erned more by the mass of its vegetable bed than by the measure of its 

 superficies ; and where the subsoil is unmanured the crop will often be 

 underfed. One of the causes of the failure of red clover is traced, we 

 believe, to the dying oft of the roots when they penetrate beyond the depth 

 of available manure. Soluble manures, like nitrate of soda and sulphate 

 of ammonia, should be put on the surface ; but undissolved phosphate, and 

 even guano, is best when just covered with the soil. Stiff clays are im- 

 mensely benefited by a good dressing of fresh farm-yard manure ploughed 

 under to a tolerable depth. 



Top-dressings with artificial manures are chiefly to be recommended for 

 crops in the grassy stages of their growth wheat crops in spring, and grass 

 lands at the same season, and especially in wet seasons. In such seasons 

 one objection to this method of applying manure to wheat is the tendency 

 which it produces in the crop to lodge. Salt will partly counteract this 

 effect, and it does so by strengthening and to some extent shortening the 

 straw ; but this is to counteract one of the principal objects of top-dress- 

 ing. On clay soils, which produce strong straw, the tendency to lodge is 

 less than on lighter soils. In dry seasons, on the other hand, top-dressings 

 of artificial manures are often inefficient, and the drier the climate the less 

 likely are they to answer. But there are doubtless circumstances when 

 top-dressing may be profitable in any season as on poor soils, arid where 

 the manure is applied for the first time on newly reclaimed land. A top- 

 dressing of farm-yard manure always produces a good effect. In. a wet 

 season it is washed into the soil. In a dry one it is often very efficacious 

 as a mulch on grass and arable land, too, if, as is sometimes done, it be 

 applied to the latter immediately after the crop is put in, and before the- 

 plants come up. 



Artificial manures may be applied either in a dry or liquid form, broad- 

 cast or in the drill. 



