96 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES. 



in the utilization of natural manurial supplies which were 

 formerly allowed to go to waste. The demand from or- 

 chardists has induced systematic search and traffic, and 

 old accumulations from the stock farming of our first 

 thirty or forty years are being put to good use, together 

 with a considerable amount of artificial fertilizers. There 

 is also a constant demand for the wastes of our towns and 

 cities for gardening purposes. Our market gardeners 

 have zeal for collecting the cleanings of city stables and 

 our amateur gardeners, both in villages and on farms, 

 make, as a rule, good use of the animal wastes which are 

 available. They understand the advantage of intensive 

 work and of bringing small areas up to maximum produc- 

 tion, and they know that to raise large garden crops one 

 must apply manure without stint, but our field production 

 of staple vegetables is not intensive as yet, except as in- 

 tensity is included in natural fertility. This being the 

 case, the writer does not undertake prophecy. In a few 

 years the progressive work which is now under way, es- 

 pecially in southern California, in trial of artificial man- 

 ures for vegetable growing, will furnish object lessons 

 for general guidance. Present purposes will be best 

 served by offering suggestions as to the ways to turn natu- 

 ral supplies to best account. 



Comparative Value of Animal Manures. The excre- 

 ments of different animals serve somewhat different pur- 

 poses in garden practice because they act more or less 

 quickly and are more or less stimulating to the plant. 

 There is also warrant in carrying with the word stimu- 

 lating the inference that in feeding plants, as in treating 

 animals, that which is most stimulating must be used 

 with the greatest caution. Both caution and economy 

 prescribe that the manure which has the highest content 

 of plant food should be used in less amount and more care- 

 fully distributed through the area of soil which the roots 

 of the plant are expected to traverse. 



The excrements of animals depend in composition upon 



