Holding and Increasing Fertility of Soil 



is produced ; this, too, is seldom practicable in the 

 small garden, but a heavy dressing of manure can 

 always be applied in the fall, spread evenly and 

 allowed to lie and rot over winter and be turned 

 under in the spring while it is wet. The rapidity 

 of decay, and hence the availability of the plant 

 food it contains of any vegetable matter turned 

 under in a garden is greatly increased if it is 

 turned under wet, dry material turned under 

 rots very slowly and may be a detriment rather 

 than a help to the crops that are grown over it 

 ,that season. If a plant sends its roots down into 

 ,a mass of dry leaves, straw or other material it 

 has no chance to gain either moisture or nourish- 

 ment and must exist on what little its surface 

 roots can extract from the top layer of soil. 



In spading manure into a small strip of land 

 or a bed I usually allow at least one large wheel- 

 barrow to a square yard and this proportion 

 should be observed for the whole garden. Prac- 

 tically about twenty tons of manure per acre 

 will be required for good results, market garden- 

 ers often use far more, or a large, two horse load 



67 



