MARKET GARDENING AROUND NEW YORK. 209 



know nothing whatever about agricultural themistry, and 

 it may be presumption in me to criticise such a list; yet 

 when I am told that one kind of fertilizer is needed for 

 Cabbages and another kind for Turnips; one for Sugar 

 Cane and another for Corn; one for Wheat and another 

 for Grass, (plants, if not of the same family, at least of the 

 same natural order,) I am forced to the conclusion that 

 science, so-called, is taking the place of common sense, 

 and is in direct opposition to the experience of the practi- 

 cal farmer or gardener in his operations in the soil. 



In our market gardening and green-house operations, 

 we cultivate largely nearly every known family of plants, 

 and in my long experience I have yet to see a fruit, 

 flower, or vegetable crop that was not benefited, and 

 nearly in the same degree, by a judicious application 

 of pure Bone Dust; and I would here suggest to the ad- 

 vocates of special fertilizers, that in their experiments 

 they try equal weights of pure Bone Dust to the half of 

 the crops of Wheat, Potatoes, Cabbage, or Strawberries, 

 being experimented on by the " specials," and note the 

 results. I do not mean to be understood that these so- 

 called special fertilizers do not answer the purpose of the 

 crop to which they are applied; but what I protest against 

 is, the hair-splitting distinctions claimed for them, con- 

 fusing and troublesome to the cultivator, if of no practi- 

 cal value. 



American commercial florists have, for the past quarter 

 of a century, utterly discarded the various formulas for 

 the preparation of different soils, for the various families 

 of plants cultivated, so dogmatically insisted upon even 

 yet by most European gardeners, and instead of a dozen 

 different mould heaps, usually only one is used, composed 

 of three parts rotted sods and one of rotted stable manure; 

 yet who will say that our results have not been as good 



