COMPOST FOR GARDEN PURPOSES 79 



material is scraped up, spread and plowed in at the beginning of 

 the rainy season it will readily ferment in the soil and all its value 

 be retained, if the application is made to a heavy soil under a good 

 rainfall. If the garden or field of fall vegetables is started with a 

 good deep irrigation manure can be plowed in at that time, but 

 otherwise the application should be made under the fall rains. 



The winter-made manure should not be allowed to lie in the 

 corral to be leached by drenching rain. It should be gathered fre- 

 quently and applied fresh to the land, so that the leachings may go to 

 useful purposes in the soil and the coarse material should be plowed 

 in while there is still moisture enough in the soil to make the process 

 safe and efficacious. 



This easiest way to handle animal manures in California may 

 do for ordinary farm crops, if the soil is heavy enough and moist 

 enough to receive unfermented manure without danger to the crop 

 from the loss of moisture, but it is not the best way to handle ma- 

 nure, either for field crops or for gardens. Manure for garden use 

 should be most carefully treated to save all its richness and to render 

 its coarse materials more readily available in soil-forming processes. 

 In short, instead of preventing fermentation, manure for garden 

 purposes should be put through a carefully controlled fermentation 

 which is involved in composting. 



Compost for Garden Purposes. The term compost signifies 

 a mixture of manurial substances and for garden use there should 

 be collection constantly made of the voiding of the animals, trim- 

 mings of vegetables, the refuse of plants as the ground is cleared, 

 the house wastes, and in fact everything of an organic nature which 

 will yield to decay, and any available mineral wastes, like ashes, 

 which contain plant food. If all these are added to the animal 

 manure and treatment adopted which will promote the proper fer- 

 mentation in it, the manure will assist in reducing the other ma- 

 terials to proper condition for garden use. 



The conditions for such fermentation are adequate moisture 

 accompanied with stirring and aeration enough to distribute the 

 action evenly throughout the mass and to bring all the materials 

 under its influence. There are numerous ways of accomplishing 

 this, and each operator will probably have his own notions about 

 their relative ease and cheapness. 



Manure Tanks. These are cemented, water-tight, excavations 

 of various sizes. A Napa county farmer built one a few years ago 

 which cost him nearly two hundred dollars, with all its appurte- 

 nances. It is thirteen by twenty and one-half feet in size, about 

 six feet deep and exceedingly well built, having cement walls and 

 floor, so as to be water-tight. The floor has a slant, inclining to a 

 well at one end, where, with the aid of a wooden pump, the juices 

 as they settle are raised to the top and poured over the mass to 

 again percolate through it. Such a cistern might, perhaps, be made 

 for less money now, but it is quite a question whether it is worth 



