140 Commercial Gardening 



the manures which analysis has indicated as being essential for a certain 

 crop. It is, of course, possible that such recommendations will prove effec- 

 tive in certain cases, but that will be more by accident than design, and 

 will depend upon circumstances. 



Before applying special manures to the soil the cultivator has to con- 

 sider, first of all, the physical nature of his particular soil; the amount of 

 manure, organic or otherwise, he has already given it; the crops grown 

 and harvested from it; and the system of cultivation practised, whether 

 deep or shallow. He must also remember that every cultivated soil, even 

 one that has not been manured for fifty years, like that at Rothamsted, 

 contains almost inexhaustible supplies of certain foods. His main object 

 ought to be to bring as much of this food supply as possible into use by 

 good and deep cultivation, and then to supply the deficiency (if any) by 

 organic or inorganic manures, or by both in certain proportions. This is 

 the wise and economic policy to pursue, and it will pay much better to 

 turn up the soil to a good depth than merely to scrape up a few inches 

 of the crust, which has been perhaps cropped over and over again for 

 years until it has become either sick or exhausted. 



In business the grower must pay from 4 to 20 and more per ton 

 for special manures to supply food which probably exists in abundance 

 in his own soil if he would only liberate it. A ton of special artificial 

 manure, costing say 20, will dress from 3 to 7 ac. The same amount 

 of money spent in digging the soil 1 ft. deep would bring from 7 to 10 ac. 

 into a fertile condition, or, if double dug, from 3 to 5 ac., with more 

 lasting effects. The insoluble stores of nitrogen, phosphates, potash, and 

 lime that are locked up in it in the dark are likely to be liberated and 

 made available when brought up to the light and exposed to the action 

 of the weather. Indeed, in actual practice it is so, and the man who 

 turns his soil up most frequently and most deeply is the one who reaps 

 the largest and best crops at a minimum of expense. 



The point, therefore, for the commercial grower to consider is, which 

 is better to spend more money on labour and get his plant foods out of 

 the soil, or to spend less money in labour and more in artificials and leave 

 the natural food supplies in the earth untapped for many years? 



The Object of Manuring". The main object of manuring is to restore 

 to the soil, in a more or less available form, the foods that have been taken 

 out of it by the growth of crops. It is evident that if everything taken 

 from the soil were again replaced, there would be no loss at all. But if all 

 the crops grown were put back again, there would be far more material 

 returned to the soil than ever came out of it. There is still a popular 

 impression that the entire weight of a crop comes from the soil, and from 

 the soil only. The air and water get but very little credit for the important 

 part they play in providing, after all, by far the greater weight of every 

 plant. Water itself may be looked upon not only as the means by which 

 foods from the soil are drafted to all parts of the living tissues, but also 

 as a distinct food or manure, as it supplies both oxygen and hydrogen. 



