15$ NUEBEBIES. 



effeetiveness in this latter respect is gradually lost, however care- 

 fully it may be stored up, and it ought hence to be used fresh. 



8. VEGETABLE MOULD. Vegetable mould is simply thorough- 

 ly and slowly decomposed vegetable detritus. Under favourable 

 conditions, the leaves, small twigs, flowers and fruit that fall in a 

 forest decompose and form vegetable mould. In India, however, 

 especially outside the evergreen forests, the conditions are adverse 

 to the spontaneous formation of vegetable mould. In deciduous 

 forests the leaves and other vegetable fragments, as soon as they 

 fall, are exposed for a more or less prolonged period to a scorching 

 sun, which, if fire in the meantime does not consume them, dries up 

 every particle of moisture in them and renders them extremely brittle. 

 Then follow several months of heavy rain, which soaks the leaves 

 to such an extent as almost to make them undergo a process of 

 maceration, the result being that nearly all the useful elements are 

 washed away, leaving behind only the bare fibres which, brittle as 

 they have been rendered by the preceding hot weather, crumble to 

 pieces and are thus in their turn for the most part carried away by 

 the heavy surface drainage into the streams. But even where 

 vegetable mould does form naturally, it is of an inferior descrip- 

 tion being generally, owing to too rapid decomposition, of the car- 

 bonaceous type. Occasionally it is acid or only partially decom- 

 posed, and it is always poor in nitrogenous elements, since the 

 leaves, before they are shed, have given up all their nitrogenous 

 matter to the parts that are still in full growth or which serve as 

 storehouses of nourishment, and the decomposition is too quick for 

 the absorption of nitrogenous matters from the atmosphere. Hence 

 we must always prepare vegetable mould specially. 



In a shady place just outside or in one corner of the nursery 

 rectangular pits, not more than three feet deep, should be dug. 

 But if, as in places in the hills, the temperature of the air is never 

 sufficiently high to promote decomposition, the pits should be dug 

 in an open place on a sunny aspect. If necessary, the bottom and 

 sides of the pits should be carefully puddled to prevent soluble 

 substances from passing into the soil and being thus lost. A pak- 

 ka masonry lining would of course be very desirable, if it could 

 be afforded. Into the pits, besides dry leaves, also green, herbace- 

 ous plant-parts should be thrown in, succulent portions being the 

 best. Care must be taken that no seeds get into the pits, as the 

 seeds of many weeds, particularly of grasses, often retain their 

 vitality throughout the whole rotting process to which the con- 

 tents of the pits are subjected, and it is, therefore, advisable to 



