farmers' miscellany. 109 



sphere of operations is not so large as to make the process look 

 formidable. The benefits arising from this mode of application 

 may readily be inferred from what has been said. The manure is 

 applied in a form ready to be immediately taken up by the plant — 

 it may without trouble, be made of any strength — and it is applied 

 directly to the roots. A correspondent of the London Gardener's 

 Magazine, speaking of the cultivation of the ground at Ghent, 

 says : — " Liquid manures may justly be considered the summum 

 bonum, as, if applied when the corn is sprouting, or just before a 

 rain, it has an effect which no other manure can have. It destroys 

 insects and throws a surprising degree of vigor into the crops." 

 The Chinese, who are said to excel all other nations in the know- 

 ledge of gardening, make a very extensive use of this practice, 

 thus manuring the plants rather than the soil, and by this economy 

 are enabled to produce large crops with their limited quantity of 

 manures. 



When writing at large on the subject of manures, we noticed a 

 kind of liquid manure recommended by Dr. Dana, of Lowell, 

 amounting to this — to one hundred pounds of peat, add one pound 

 of potash and fifty gallons of water, in any convenient vessel, and 

 stir the mixture occasionally for a few days, when the liquid may 

 be drawn off and applied to the roots of plants. The vessel may 

 be repeatedly filled and used again. 



Any of the kinds of manure commonly used may be stirred up 

 in water, and after having stood for a sufficient time to extract the 

 soluble matters, applied in the same manner. Urine, made very 

 weak with water, would be a very useful application to vegetables 

 two or three times in the season. • 



ADAPTATIONS OF NATURE. 



The insect tribes, and the vegetable kingdom, jnarch on harmo- 

 niously together under the genial influence of the sun, which 

 warms both into life at those periods to which both are adapted ; 

 if one is retarded by the absence of the necessary temperature, the 

 other is also immature and undeveloped, and thus waits for the 

 favorable condition in which it may securely and with certainty 

 fulfil the law of its beinsr. 



