1893.] ESSAYS. 105 



some who know better how to invest one. If I could encourage some 

 of you who have money to invest or others wlio had a few hundred 

 dollars that they were intending to use to stop interest, to look about 

 your homes iuside and out and invest it where it would bring as much 

 or more interest and make your homes the more happy and pleasant 

 I would consider this paper a success. 



It is usual in papers on market gardening to state what kind of 

 land it is necessary to have and how much capital per acre, and 

 mauy other things that may be of importance to the begiuner, but 

 audiences are not usually composed largely of beginners and I shall 

 pass that altogether witli the supposition that the majority of us are 

 located and are not contemplating a change, but there is one feature 

 in the direct line of our work that I wish to bring before you, and 

 consider it one of the most important subjects we have before us at 

 the present time. I refer to the manure question. 



It is one that is almost always before the market gardener. By 

 manure I mean, as Webster says, " Anything that fertilizes the land." 



It is unnecessary to say that we, as gardeners in New England, must 

 fertilize our laud liberally if we would receive remunerative crops, 

 but it does not seem to me necessary for us to say that we must have 

 manure from the cow or horse stable or from any special chemical. 



But to grow satisfactory crops in a market garden for a series of 

 years it is desirable to apply not only nitrogen, phosphoric acid and 

 potash, but considerable vegetable matter, and it has been considered 

 necessary to get the best results to apply all these elements at one 

 application in the form^of horse manure from the city stables. I say it 

 has been considered necessary. 



But while I do not consider it necessary to have horse manure to 

 grow good crops of vegetables it is far from my intention of attacking 

 that as a manure in the vegetable garden ; it is a waste product, but 

 we as gardeners do not want to waste it. Neither do we want to pay 

 more for it thau it is worth, and if you take the common version of 

 this, " a thing is worth what it will fetch," then it remains for us to 

 decide what manure is worth. The replacing of the horse by elec- 

 tricity on our street cars and the extending of the lines of cars to 

 mauy parts of the city where horses have been used more or less will 

 have a tendency to shorten the supply of manure, and if each of us 

 should say we must have as much or more stable manure as we have 

 been using there is sure to be a sharp advance in price. 



But on the other hand, if it is a fact that we are paying as much for 

 stable manure now as it is worth, and I believe we are in mauy cases 



