36 GAKDENIXG FOIi PROFIT. 



about the proportions I have named. I never yet saw 

 soil of any kind that had borne a crop of vegetables that 

 would produce as good a crop the next season without 

 the use of manure, no matter how "rich" the soil may 

 be thought to be. An illustration of this came under 

 my observation a few years ago. One of my neighbors, 

 a market gardener of nearly twenty years' experience, 

 and whose grounds had always been a perfect model of 

 productiveness, had it in prospect to run a sixty-foot 

 street through his grounds. Thinking his land suf- 

 ficiently rich to carry through a crop of Cabbages with- 

 out manure, he thought it useless to waste money by using 

 guano on that portion on which the street was to be, 

 but on each side, sowed guano at the rate of 1,200 pounds 

 per acre, and planted the whole with Early Cabbages. 

 The effect was the most marked I ever saw. That por- 

 tion on which the guano had been used sold off readily 

 at $12 per hundred, or about $1,400 per acre, both price 

 and crop being more than an average this was the era 

 of high prices but the portion from which the guano 

 had been withheld, hardly averaged $3 per hundred. The 

 street occupied fully an acre of ground, so that my friend 

 actually lost over $1,000 in crop by withholding $60 for 

 manure. Another neighbor, whose lease had only one year 

 to run, and who also unwisely concluded that it would be 

 foolish to waste manure on his last crop, planted and 

 sowed all without it. The result was, as his experience 

 should have taught him, a crop of inferior quality in 

 every article grown and loss on his eight acres of prob- 

 ably $2,000 for that season. The comparative value of 

 manures must be regulated by the cost. If rotted stable 

 manure, whether from horses or cows, can be delivered 

 on the ground at $3 per ton, it is about as valuable for 

 fertilizing purposes as Peruvian guano at $65 per ton, or 

 pure bone dust at $40 per ton. It is better than either 

 of these or any other concentrated fertilizer, from the 



