PRESS AND OTHER CRITICISM 167 



claim to make, but it is based upon practical demon- 

 stration, and has not merely a laboratory justi- 

 fication. 



' While the discovery is of more immediate 

 importance to horticulturists and market gardeners, 

 it is also of great interest to farmers. Should 

 present expectations be fulfilled, it would prove of 

 great service to those engaged in any form of inten- 

 sive culture. The primary need of the intensive 

 cultivation is an organic manure. The market is 

 fairly well supplied with salts or minerals, natural 

 or by-products, but it has been found that, although 

 these materials are useful, they cannot take the place 

 of a good organic fertilizer. The need of a new 

 vegetable manure is emphasized by the great 

 reduction in the quantity of town manure available, 

 owing to the substitution of motor power for horses 

 in street traffic. The market gardening industry at 

 a critical time in its development has suffered a 

 severe loss by the reduction in the supply of town 

 manure. Horticulture in its diversified forms, from 

 the smallest suburban plot to the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens at Kew, has shared in the resulting dis- 

 abilities; and although recourse has been had to 

 artificial materials, the chief effect has been to 

 demonstrate the serious disadvantage at which 

 intensive culture is placed without an adequate 

 supply of organic manure. The keen interest shown 

 in Professor Bottomley's treated peat reflects the 

 measure of the need of something to supplement the 

 diminishing quantities procurable from London and 

 other towns. 



" As every farm is a producer of organic manure 

 in greater or less quantity, the need is not so pressing 

 in agriculture as in horticulture. It would be a 

 great gain for the former, however, if the supply of 

 home-made dung could be added to in so simple a 

 form as that prepared by Professor Bottomley. 



