MANUKES. 55 



healthy nutrition, that will produce a vigorous^ firm^ 

 sounds and fruitful growth; and this is precisely what is 

 wanted : far better to have a tree starved and stunted, 

 than forced into a rank, plethoric growth, with crude, ill- 

 jDrepared manures. 



Section 2. — Pkepaeation of Manuees. 



The best gardeners pursue a system something like 

 this : A trench is jDrepared two or three feet deejD, and 

 large enough to hold what manure may be wanted. In 

 the bottom of this trench, a layer of muck, grassy tm-f, 

 ashes, anything and everything caj^able of being decom- 

 posed, is laid down, say a foot deep. On the top of this, 

 a thick layer of stable or barnyard manure, two or three 

 feet deep, then another layer of muck, g}^sum, etc. la 

 this way it remains till more manure has accumulated 

 around the stables ; it is then carried and deposited in 

 another layer, with a layer of the other materials on the 

 top. The manm-e should always be satm-ated with mois- 

 ture, and trodden down firmly to hasten its decay, and if 

 an occasional load of night soil could be mixed in with it all 

 the better. The layer of muck and other substances 

 being always placed on the top of the last layer of 

 manure absorbs the evaporations of the heap, and hastens 

 the decay of all. When stable manure is thro^vn down 

 and left uncovered, a dense steam will be seen to rise 

 from it ; and this is the very essence of it escaping to be 

 lost, and if it be thrown down in a heap dry it will im- 

 mediately burn — that is, dry rot. Its enriching ingre- 

 dients all pass off by evaporation, and there is nothing 

 left but its ashes, so to speak. 



"When the heap has accumulated for four or five 

 months as described, the whole should be turned over, 

 completely mixed, and piled up in a compact, firmly- 



