121 



weeks in plants before almost valueless. (Ibid. 

 1842, 435.) 



Bungs. — We are strongly in favour of employing 

 the most stimulating and most readily decomposing, 

 and we add early in every spring, usually in February, 

 a heavy dressing of either night-soil or pig's dung, 

 sprinkling a little earth and lime over it to remove 

 any unpleasant appearance and effluvium. Some 

 gardeners, of undoubted skill and experience, do not 

 use dungs, but instead of them highly-decomposed 

 leaf-mould. Thus — 



Mr. Craggs, gardener to Sir T. D. Acland, Bart., 

 has not put a barrow-load of dung on his beds for 

 four years. In the summer mouths, he keeps the 

 rubbish of the garden burning, preserving the ashes 

 dry until autumn, and, as soon as the Asparagus is 

 fit to cut down, he takes off half the soil above the 

 crowns with a fork, laying it on the alleys ; he then 

 puts on three inches in thickness of burnt rubbish, 

 running it through with a fork as near the crowns as 

 possible without injuring them. He then takes a 

 portion of the soil that has been removed, and covers 

 the bed with it, allowing it to remain on them through 

 the winter. Early in March he mixes the whole well 

 together with a fork, and rakes the bed oif regularly, 

 watering with manure water once a week through the 

 growing season, if required. {Hort. Soc. Journ. ii. 

 41.) 



