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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ February 10, 1883. 



is reason to believe them too large, yet there is evidence that the 

 fertility of the soil has gone ou increasing since then, for the 

 lowest average produce of Wheat per acre is now stated to be 

 twenty-eight bushelB. 



Our opinion that our cultivated soils increase rather than 

 diminish in fertility, has not been lightly formed, but is founded 

 not only upon the evidence of the oldest cultivators, but upon 

 facts which seem to us conclusive. 



It is quite certain that whatever is taken away from the staple 

 of a soil by a crop grown upon it can be restored to that soil by 

 manures, and by the natural depositions from the atmosphere ; 

 and we believe that there is no more well-ascertained illustration 

 of the balancing which pervades all nature than that the 



SEWAGE OF EVEBY HOT/SEHOLD 13 MANTTRE SUFFICIENT FOB 

 KEE PKODUCTIOIT OF AH, ITS VEGETABLE FOOD— a fact that 

 cannot be too generally and continually urged, and in support 

 of it we have this testimony of Dr. Lyon Play fair: — "Human 

 excrements contain (with the exception of one ingredient — sili- 

 cate of potash) all the ingredients essential to fertility. Esti- 

 mating the amount of the effete matter of one man at an amount 

 so low as 547 lbs. yearly (H lbs. urine, ilb. fece3 daily), so 

 rich is this manure in phosphates, that the collected excrements 

 of two men would suffice to manure an acre of Wheat or of Peas ; 

 or that of one a whole acre of Turnips, supposing the green 

 herbage were returned to the soil. In fact, when we recollect 

 that a pound of urine contains all the ingredients necessary for 

 the production of a pound of Wheat, it is incredible folly to 

 allow all the valuable refuse of our large towns to run to waste, 

 when at the same time we are sending fleets to Ichaboe and Peru 

 for what we are wasting at home." 



Dr. Playfair might have added with equal truth, that the ex- 

 crementitious matters we are thus fetching from other regions of 

 the world are far more expensive, yet not more powerful, as 

 manure, than the excrementitious matters of our own sewers. 

 On this point we will only quote the statement of one of our 

 best practical farmers, the late Mr. Smith, of Deanston, who 

 thus details his experiments made purposely on a meadow in 

 Lancashire, by applying to separate acres at the rate of 15 tons 

 of farmyard manure per acre, 3 cwt. of guano, and 8 tons 

 of sewer water. 



£ s. d. 



Cost of manuring one acre -with sewer water 12 9 



Ditto with guano (2^cwt.) at 8s 10 



Ditto with farmyard manure, 15 tons, at 4s 3 



Ditto with sewer water 16 6 



Ditto with guano (5 cwt.) at 8s 2 



Ditto with farmyard manure (30 tons), at 4s 6 



The guano and farmyard manure " in their effects were found 

 to be inferior to the sewage water." 



The same law, we believe, prevails with regard to all herbi- 

 vorous animals, and that their excreets, aided by the atmosphere's 

 nitrogenous deposiiions and its carbonic acid, fully restore to 

 a soil all that they withdraw from it in their food. 



When we add to this, that annually fish, seaweed, guano, oil 

 cake, ashes, bones, coprolites, and other animal sources of phos- 

 phates, as well as bread stuffs, sugar, tea, and other foods, are 

 continually being imported, or won from the sea, we discern 

 sources of increased fertility, but none of impoverishment. 



It is true that in towns the human excreets are for the most 

 part wasted ; but this proves no more than that if they were all 

 husbanded as they are in China, our soils might be made still 

 more fertile, and, as in China, capable of supporting a population 

 still more numerous. — J. 



NEW PLANTS FOE THE COMING SEASON. 

 The first plants on my own list for trial next summer are 

 <fchree kinds of Calceolarias ; the Calceolaria Aurea floribunda to 

 be used as a sample plant to compare the others with under the 

 same treatment, soil, and situation. 



Before going farther, let me protest against a common error 

 in judging of new plants for bedding purposes. A very sensible 

 man, out of every degree of sensibleness from a florist to " the 

 man " in the garden, obtains a new plant or plants, and it 

 reaches him in the best condition and he does his best by it ; 

 but the season is against him or is too much in his favour, and 

 in either case he can only put out his new comer or comers in 

 some place by themselves and watch them. No doubt the 

 worst place about the garden is not where people put out their 

 ^rjal plants. But no doubt, also, unless there are as many 



plants of some old kind for which the new are rivals put out 

 on the same spot of ground as the new ones, and under precisely 

 similar conditions as to the size, age, and health of the plants, 

 the trial and the judgment on the issue are both wrong and of very 

 little value, and yet the person who conducted the trial may be 

 one of the most conscientious of men ; he only went the wrong 

 way to work without knowing it, and he is not aware that his 

 decision, in consequence, is worse than useless, for it may be 

 most mischievous. Then, knowing all that, the first thing I do 

 when I have to trust to another's choice of a new plant, is to 

 ascertain what means were within his reach by which to form his 

 judgment. Of his judgment I may not have the least doubt ; 

 but I am very doubtful whether or not some of my friends' judg- 

 ments ever had a fair ohance of being in accordance with the 

 nature of the subjects under experiment. 



If I took six plants of Tom Thumb when it first came out, 

 and gave them the best position on a trial border, and compared 

 the rise and progress of the new seedling with the advance of 

 Lady Alice Byng, or of the Crystal Palace Scarlet, or of the 

 three kinds of Frogmore Improved, which I had then out 

 in the beds, and which were the only sorts then against which 

 Tom Thumb could compete on fair terms, my judgment might do 

 for myself, but it could not be a fair judgment of an experiment 

 to come before the public. The least I ought to have done would 

 have been to have given an equal chance to as many of Tom's 

 rivals as to himself on the same border, and all the conditions 

 to be exactly alike as to age, strength, and health of the plants 

 at the first start : therefore, whatever the season might be, all 

 the plants had their share of it under the same circumstances, 

 and the judgment could not be far wrong in so far as this — 

 that if the season were very bad, one or two of the kinds might 

 stand it better than the rest; or if it were a most favourable 

 season, the rest, or one of them, might be the superior for that 

 season and seasons like it. 



So yon see there is more than meets the eye, at first sight, in 

 a faithful experiment to test the value of the simplest plant that 

 one chooses to deal with if in earnest about it. 



Well, then, I have so many plants of Aurea floribunda Calceo- 

 laria, and last summer our Floral Committee gave their highest 

 award for such plants — their Certificate of Merit for Calceolaria 

 Cloth of Gold to Messrs. Downie, Laird, & Laing, as you would 

 have seen in the last Number of this Journal ; and the year 

 before last our Floral Committee gave the same award for 

 Calceolaria canadensis to Mr. Smith, the great Fuchsia florist 

 of Hornsey Road Nursery ; and these two Calceolarias I shall 

 engage to match against Aurea floribunda for a thousand guineas, 

 or a thousand to one that the three will have the same and the 

 best treatment that I can give them. But, perhaps, you are 

 not aware that I am equally interested in the three kinds. I 

 was the first person to prove to the public the use and value 

 of Aurea floribunda in the Experimental Garden. I had it 

 direct from the raiser through Mr. Turner, of Slough, for that 

 purpose, and I had to thank Mr. Turner for giving me a lift in 

 the matter. The plants were hurt by a railway run, or crash, 

 or something, and Mr. Turner kept and nursed my Aureae for 

 me until they were fit for a prince to plant. I have been always 

 proud of Aurea ever Bince, but it shall be on the same level 

 now. 



Last summer was so bad for Calceolarias, that many made up 

 their minds to discard this, or that, or these old Calceolarias, 

 and take in some of ths new ones. I recollect looking over from 

 the galleries of the Crystal Palace with Mr. Gordon, when he 

 told me he would plant no more of his principal sort, the best of 

 the Rugosa breed. The only one which held the flowers on 

 there against the drenching rains was Gaines' Yellow; and now 

 that I think of it, I must have so many of Gaines' on the 

 opposite side to Aurea floribunda, with the canadensis, and the 

 Cloth of Gold in the centre. 



The reason why I am so much interested about these two is, 

 of course, from the fact of their having their character stamped 

 by the Floral Committee. But speaking of the Crystal Palace 

 broke the strain of my thoughts on the matter, for there is 

 where we all had the opportunity of seeing and of believing in 

 the most beautiful and most distinct new Lobelias of the dwarf 

 blue race that ever yet appeared in one BeaBon. One is called 

 after Sir Joseph Paxton by permission, the other after Mr. 

 Gordon at my request ; and I have another one from down 

 the country, of which I thought very highly, from a chance 

 blooming, but not so much as to determine its degree in the scale 

 of merit. So I Bhall have three capital dwarf Lobelias to decide 



