HENDERSON'S HANDBOOK OF PLANTS. 



353 



FIB 



it is preferable to any concentrated fertil- 

 izer. Rotted stable manure, to produce 

 full crops, should be spread on the 

 ground not less than three inches thick, 

 and should be thoroughly mixed with the 

 soil by plowing or spading. The refuse 

 hops from breweries form an excellent 

 fertilizer, at least one-half more valuable, 

 bulk for bulk, than stable manure. Other 

 excellent fertilizers are obtained from the 

 scrapings or shavings from horn or 

 whalebone manufactories. The best way 

 to make these quickly available is to 

 compost them with hot manure in the 

 proportion of one ton of refuse horn or 

 whalebone with fifteen tons pf manure. 

 The heated manure extracts the oil, which 

 is intermingled with the whole. 



The manure from the chicken or 

 pigeon house is very valuable, and when 

 composted as directed for Bone Dust 

 and Guano, has at least one-third their 

 value. Castor oil pomace is also valuable. 



Poudrette is the name given to a com- 

 mercial fertilizer, the composition of 

 which is night soil and dried swamp 

 muck or charcoal dust as an absorbent. 

 It is sold at about $12 to $15 per ton, and 

 at that price may be equal in value, if too 

 much of the absorbing material is not 

 used, to Bone Dust at $40 per ton. 



Salt has little or no value as a fertiliz- 

 er, except as a medium of absorbing 

 moisture. For experience shows that 

 soils impregnated by a saline are no 

 more fertile than those inland out of the 

 reach of such an atmosphere. 

 Fiber, Elementary. That thread which is 

 turned round the interior of the tubes 

 that are called spiral vessels, or of any 

 similar kind of tissue. 



Fibril, Fibrittce, (adj. Fibrillose.) The roots 

 of Lichens; any kind of small thread- 



FIL 



shaped root; a fine, ultimate, hair-like 

 subdivision of the root, or hair-like ap- 

 pendages to its branches. 

 j Fibrous. Containing a great proportion of 

 woody fiber, as the rind of a Cocoanut; 

 composed of fibers. 



Fibro-wscular. Consisting of woody tis- 

 sue and spiral or other vessels. 



Fiddle-shaped. Obovate, with one or two 

 deep recesses or indentations on each 

 side, as the leaves of the Fiddle Dock, 

 Rumex pulcher. 



Fidus, Fissus. Divided half ivay into two 

 or more parts. 



Filament. The stalk of the anther; any 

 kind of a thread-like body. 



FHices. One of the principal groups of 

 Cryptogams, some of the leading pecu- 

 liarities of which will be found explained 

 in the article Acrogens. They are com- 

 monly called Ferns, and consist of arbor- 

 escent or herbaceous perennials, very 

 rarely annual plants, those of arborescent 

 habit having a trunk varying from two 

 or three to sixty or eighty feet in height, 

 and formed of the consolidated bases of 

 the fronds, surrounding a soft central 

 mass of tissue. Those of herbaceous 

 habit either have a caudex formed on a 

 plan similar to the arborescent kinds, 

 but on a smaller scale, the young fronds 

 forming the growing point, or have a 

 more or less fleshy rhizome, whose grow- 

 ing point is in advance of the develop- 

 ment of the fronds, which are produced 

 from its sides instead of its apex. All 

 true Ferns may be recognized by the 

 circinate growth of their young fronds 

 or leaves, and by their hypophyllous 

 fructification. 



Many schemes have been proposed for 

 the classification of Ferns, but that seems 

 to be preferable which is based on the 



