CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



the first resource when the idea of manuring springs up in a neigh- 

 borhood, are not always well decomposed, but they are finely 

 divided, and therefore decompose readily as compared with coarse 

 straw, which, it is said, has been found practically unchanged even 

 after lying two years in a dry, loose soil. It is, therefore, of the 

 greatest advantage to prepare barnyard manure with care for use 

 in this State by some such method as will be described below, 

 which includes composting, thereby turning to account nearly 

 all organic material likely to be available : 



Clean up all the manure on hand just before the fall rains, putting the 

 same on the land, and either cultivate it in or plow it under. What manure 

 accumulates during the winter pile in a snug heap some five or six feet in 

 depth, and throw it over some three or four times during the winter to keep 

 it from burning, as well as to thoroughly mix it and thereby hasten decom- 

 position. Put horse, cow, hog, chicken, and every other kind of manure that 

 can be had, all together. Never burn anything that will rot, but haul to the 

 pile corn-stalks, roots, and all squash, melon, tomato, and potato vines, etc., 

 as well as weeds of every description, in fact, anything and everything that 

 will decay and make vegetable matter. Use fresh horse manure mostly to 

 hasten the decomposition of said vines, weeds, etc., alternating as the heap 

 is made. By so doing there will not be a weed seed left with vitality enough 

 to germinate. It is well to have manure piles under a roof to avoid leaching 

 during the longest and most excessive rains, but so situated that some of the 

 rain falling on the barn can be easily conducted to the piles, giving them just 

 the amount of water necessary to wet thoroughly without leaching, and no 

 more. 



Treatment of Manure without Composting. Even when com- 

 posting all refuse vegetable matter with the manure is not thought 

 worth the time and trouble, it is just as important to properly 

 treat the manure when stored alone. This can be easily done by 

 some such plan as is described below : 



Collect the stable manure in a large bin and keep it wet enough to prevent 

 burning or "fire-fanging." With a bin, say ten or twelve feet square and five 

 or six feet high, built convenient to the barn, the manure can be placed 

 therein and watered from time to time with much less trouble than it can be 

 composted with other material. This, of course, presupposes the ability to 

 run the water in through a hose or by natural flow. Care must, of course, be 

 taken that too much water be not supplied, causing the substance to be 

 leached from the pile. But in my own experience I find the danger is at the 

 other extreme, and when I open my pile I sometimes wish I had used more 

 water. In filling the bin leave one end or side open as long as possible, for 

 convenience of filling. 



Barn-yard manure and compost carefully prepared in some such 

 way as described, and applied before the rains or early in 

 the rainy season, to be turned under at the first plowing, will be 

 in condition to be readily assimilated, and will not injure any 

 soil. Where no composting is undertaken it is rational to apply 

 the manure during the rainy season directly to the land if the 

 rainfall is not large and the land fit to haul over. During the dry 

 season the manure can be spread in the corral and tramped into 

 dust by the stock because as long as it remains dry no losses by 



