22 VEGETABLE GROWING IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 



A second heap should be prepared while the first one is ripening, and being 

 used. If it is desired to use superphosphate, potash, ammonium salts, and 

 other more concentrated fertilisers, they may be mixed with compost manure 

 before it i" added to the soil. Used in this way greater benefit will be 

 derived than if they were applied direct to the soil, and there will be less 

 danger of leaching. 



Poultry Manure. 



Poultry manure, especially in poultry-farming centres where it is in fair 

 supply, is valuable in the production of vegetables, and in sandstone country 

 may be safely used with all classes of crops! For legumes (peas, beans, &c.), 

 it is well not to use too much, as this family of plants does not require 

 nitrogen to the same extent as the other plants. 



Poultry-manure is the most concentrated farmyard manure, and care should 

 be exercised in its application. The fresh manure should be used either as a 

 top dressing or in the making of liquid manure. For digging in it is best 

 composted with other garden refuse. 



In applying poultry manure, a dressing of superphosphate or bonedust 

 can also be given with advantage, more particularly on sandstone country. 



Lime. 



Plants require lime in small quantities only. The real benefit derived 

 from liming is its action in sweetening sour and lightening heavy soils. 

 The application of quick-lime requires great care owing to the chance of 

 burning out the vegetable matter in the soil. Air-slaked lime, or carbonate 

 of lime, is slower in its action and not so likely to exhaust the humus. 



Liming with freshly-slaked lime is best carried out as follows : Break the 

 quick-lime (stone-lime) up into small lumps, place it in heaps about the 

 garden and cover it with moist loam. Leave it thus exposed to the air and 

 moisture until it begins to crumble to powder. As soon as this happens 

 scatter the heaps with a shovel as evenly as possible over the surface of the 

 ground, and harrow or rake it in very lightly. Liming is most effectively 

 done in the autumn or winter, but whenever it is done the land should be left 

 alone for two or three weeks after the application, and no seed should be sown 

 nor any manures (especially such as contain nitrogen) used during that period. 



Clay soils may receive a dressing of about 1 ton per acre, which is 

 equivalent to about i Ib. per square yard. Sandy soils should not receive: 

 more than half this amount. Several light applications are more beneficial 

 than one heavy one. 



ROTATION OF CROPS. 



In all parts of th,e world where intensive culture is carried on, the practice 

 exists of changing crops each year arid of growing them in regular succession 

 to one another, and there is no class of produce with which this is more con- 

 sistently done than with vegetables. All crops require very much the same 

 plant-foods, but different crops require them in different proportions; some 



