CHAPTER V 



MANURES, AND HOW TO USE THEM 



THE amateur gardener who is also a diligent student of 

 gardening literature is apt to become bewildered as he 

 ponders the enormous volume of advice that is placed 

 before him with regard to the important subject of manures and 

 their use. If he were to attempt to follow all the instruction 

 that is set before him he would require to be chemist as well 

 as horticulturist ; scientist as well as humble raiser of vegetable 

 and fruit crops. It would be essential for him to have a 

 complete knowledge of the ingredients and special qualities 

 of phosphates, nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia, kainit, 

 and other chemical productions all extremely valuable plant 

 foods if prepared and used carefully by a skilled chemist, but 

 dangerous and deadly indeed if they be improperly employed 

 by one who does not thoroughly understand the strength and 

 nature of each. That the gardener who has made a study of 

 the constituents of soils and manures gains a considerable ad- 

 vantage over his competitor who does not possess his scientific 

 equipment, cannot be gainsaid ; but the amateur who is merely 

 a beginner in the art of gardening need not on that accovmt 

 despair of achieving results in his own little plot of ground that 

 will amply repay him for the time and trouble that he expends 

 upon its cultivation. Let him pin his faith to natural and animal 

 manures, and, until he understands them thoroughly, eschew 

 artificial or chemical compounds, and all will be well. 



The key to the solution of problems associated with the 

 successful cropping of a piece of land will be found much more 

 readily in following the advice as to deep digging and trenching 

 given in the preceding chapter than in any profoundly scientific 



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