Vegetable Growing for Market 71 



A good and inexpensive subsoil grubber can be made by buying an 

 old iron plough at a sale and simply removing the breast. 



Manure. The results of the most recent experiments go to show that 

 the best crops are obtained from a moderate quantity of stable manure, 

 supplemented by a judicious combination of chemicals. Near large centres 

 of population, where stable manure can be obtained readily at moderate 

 price, little else is needed. Where, however, it is scarce and dear, organic 

 manures in some other form and chemical manures must be brought in. 

 In this matter, again, it is impossible to generalize. One knows highly 

 successful market gardeners who hardly ever have used anything but 

 stable manure; and others who, beyond what little is made in the place, 

 have depended entirely on what are called "waste-product" manures and 

 chemicals. No one who has studied the matter will deny that, apart from 

 the fertilizing agents it brings to the soil, there is a physical effect exerted 

 by stable manure on the texture of the soil, which is most valuable and 

 can hardly be supplied by anything else. Nitrates, either in the form of 

 nitrate of soda or sulphate of ammonia to give a filip in the spring, or 

 in the form of crushed hoofs in the autumn; phosphates in the form of 

 basic slag or crushed bones in the autumn, or superphosphate or dissolved 

 bones in the spring; potash, either in the form of kainit in the autumn 

 or sulphate of potash in the spring, are the manures the market gardener 

 who wants to supplement stable manure must consider. 



A great difficulty is created for the market gardener by the heavy 

 manurings his constant cropping with crops requiring high conditions of 

 fertility necessitate. The land gets into a condition analogous to that 

 of the gourmand. Another source of difficulty is the close family relation- 

 ship which exists between many of the crops which he must grow. The 

 beneficial change secured for the land by the farmers' four-course rotation 

 is difficult to obtain in a market garden that is not partly farmed. 



Hence the market gardener is flogged by that scourge called "club", 

 common to all plants of what botanists call the " Cruciferae ". Scientific 

 research has failed to discover a remedy, though there are palliatives. As a 

 correction both to the overfeeding of the land and to the conditions result- 

 ing in attacks of "club", frequent applications of fresh slaked lime have been 

 found valuable. The usual manner of application is to deposit the lumps of 

 unslaked lime in small heaps to the amount of 3 or 4 tons per acre, then 

 to cover these heaps with a light covering of soil and leave them to slake, 

 which in normal weather will occur in four or five days. Then as much 

 may be spread each morning as can be ploughed or dug in during the day. 



Lime must not be applied at the same time as manure, because its 

 chemical action will be to dissipate too readily the nitrates contained in 

 the manure. Market gardeners going on the market to purchase manures 

 should make themselves master of the principle of unit value. A know- 

 ledge of this will prevent their being rooked by vendors of manures that 

 are practically worthless. The Board of Agriculture Leaflet No. 72 is an 

 excellent one for this purpose. (See also Vol. I, p. 162.) [w. G. L.] 



