108 QUARTERLY JOURNAL, 



GARDENING— LIQUID MANURES. 



The paramount importance of giving to growing plants an abun- 

 dant supply of manure, cannot be too deeply impressed upon the 

 mind. Many persons use it as if they feared its effects and were 

 going into a very careful experiment to ascertain whether or no it 

 may not do hurt ; whereas it is a fact that every one ought to 

 know, that a plant cannot reach any thing like perfection without 

 it. We have heretofore given a full list of the kinds of manures 

 most commonly used in this country, and the modes of preparing 

 and applying them. V/e wish now to call the attention of those 

 engaged in horticultural operations to the use of liquid manures. 



The constitution of plants is such that they can receive no food 

 except that w^hich is dissolved in water. In itself, water is pro- 

 bably of very little use to them. They could easily obtain the 

 elements which compose it, and which it affords to them, from nu- 

 merous other sources ; but as a solvent to prepare nourishment for 

 them, it performs a very important office. The extremities of the 

 roots consist of a loose, spongy structure, covered with a thin sort 

 of membrane, pierced with numberless small holes which are the 

 terminations of the sap vessels. These are essentially the mouths 

 of plants, and through these they imbibe all their food. Of course 

 they can only take up that which is immediately in contact with 

 them, and when this is exhausted, they extend their fibres in quest 

 of more. 



Again — the slow decomposition which takes place underneath 

 the surface of the ground, by which manures are rendered soluble, 

 furnishes a very small portion of food at a time to plants. The 

 supply is constant, it is true, from this source, but it is scattered 

 through the soil, and the roots must either extend themselves to 

 find it, or depend upon the circulation of moisture in the ground 

 to bring it to their mouths. The former is a slow process, and 

 the latter often a very precarious one ; so that, in dry seasons, the 

 products of the garden may be very much shortened, or even cut 

 off, for want of wat^r. 



We believe that liquid manures might be very extensively and 

 economically used, in the large way in agriculture. But we in- 

 tend these remarks to apply particularly to gardening, where the 



