320 GARDENING FOB PROFIT. 



of these absurd dogmas, that club-root is caused by " hog 

 manure," ' ' heavy soil/' "light soil," etc. I do not doubt 

 that it has appeared thousands of times under just such 

 conditions ; yet, within three miles from the City Hall 

 of New York, I can show to-day, on the classic shores of 

 Communipaw, scores of acres that have been just so 

 manured, both light soils and heavy soils, that have 

 grown cabbages for twenty consecutive years, while 

 the first appearance of club-root is yet to be seen. On 

 the other hand, I can show, on soils not more than a mile 

 distant from those on the Communipaw shore, where the 

 ground is cultivated in the very best possible manner, 

 and where every variety of manure has been tried, and 

 yet it is imposssble to get a crop of Cauliflower or Cab- 

 bage clear from club-root for two years in succession. 

 Now, the reason of the immunity from the pest on the 

 one variety of soil and not on the other, does not, to 

 us, admit of the slightest particle of doubt. On the 

 shore side, and for nearly a mile inland, there are regular 

 deposits of oyster shell, mixed with the land almost as we 

 find pebbles in a gravelly soil ; our theory is, that the in- 

 sect which occasions the club-root cannot exist in con- 

 tact with the lime, which, of course, is present in large 

 amount in a soil containing such abundance of oyster 

 shell. Seasoning from this, we have endeavored to bring 

 up soils deficient in shell, by heavy dressings of lime ; 

 this answered, however, only temporarily, and we found 

 it too expensive to continue it. The increasing demand 

 for manures in the vicinity of New York has rendered 

 them of late years scarce and high in price, so that we 

 were necessitated to begin the use of guano and other 

 concentrated manures, and as this was rather new with 

 us in our market gardens, we have had the pleasure of 

 some very interesting experiments. In my grounds at 

 Jersey City, where we have never been able to get two 

 crops of Cabbages successively without having them in- 



