CHAPTER VI. 



MANURES FOR THE GARDEN. 



I. STABLE MANURE AND HOW TO MANAGE IT. 

 " Of nothing, nothing comes." 



HE market gardener can produce in a single season 

 enormous, almost incredible quantities of vege- 

 tables on an acre of ground when systematically 

 and continuously cropped. The quality of most 

 of this produce depends on its succulence and 

 tenderness, and its money value is greatly influ- 

 enced by its size and earliness, all of which 

 features are the result of rapid, thrifty growth, 

 which in turn, is only made possible by the presence of an 

 abundance of available plant food in the soil, especially of the 

 nitrogenous element, which is the chief promoter of succulent 

 growth, in bulbous root, leaf, and stalk. 



The prices which the gardener obtains for his products, 

 compared with those realized by the farmer for grain, hay, 

 potatoes, etc., are such that he can much better afford to use 

 large quantities of manure, and especially pay out money for 

 them, than the farmer with whom it is only too often the query 

 whether he can profitably use any kind of manure which he has 

 to buy. There is considerable doubt in my mind that wheat, 

 oats, corn, and products of this sort can be raised at present 

 market rates with profits worth speaking of when manure, 

 whether yard or concentrated, has to be bought at the figures 

 usually paid by the market gardener. The latter, as a rule, finds 

 that the more and the better manure he uses, whether bought or 

 home-made, from stable or factory, the larger will be his profits. 

 Manure, good manure, and plenty of it — that is the corner-stone 

 of successful market gardening. 



This assertion is not likely to be disputed. But there are 

 economical or methodical ways of using it, and there are wasteful 

 ones. It is not always easy to determine, in which shape, in 

 what quantities, and to what crops manure can be applied so it 

 will do the most good. The importance of the subject demands 

 our earnest consideration, deep thought and study; but we 

 should look at the question entirely dispassionate, without 



(35) 



