TEGETABLE MANURE BEST FRESH. 357 



espalier, or of stakes, or of training and tying down the 



branches is incurred: 3dly, The crop of fruit is not only 



improved in size and flavour by having so much sun and 



air, but it is more easily gathered, and suffers much less 



from the autumnal winds; for branches in this direction are 



more pliable, and bend more easily to the storm ; and as a 



proof how much may be done by art if necessary, the 



branches of a Lombardy poplar accidentally left in my Branches of a 



master's orchard, after being loaded with clay balls, became J^dulous?^ 



as pendulous as those of the weeping willow *. 



I have only to add, that most of the specimens of apples The fruit excel- 

 and pears produced at our meeting in November and De- 

 cember last by me, and honoured with the encomiums of 

 some of the best judges present, grew upon trees kept low 

 and ©pen in this method. 



IX. 



On the Advantages of employing Vegetable Matter as Ma- 

 nure in a fresh State. By T. A. Knight, Esq. F. R. S. y 

 Pres. H. S. + 



W 



RITERS upon agriculture, both in ancient and modern Vegetable sub- 

 times, have dwelt much upon the advantages of collecting stances be ft f °r 

 . manure when 



large quantities of vegetable matter to form manures; while fresh. 



scarcely any thing has been written upon the state of decom- 

 position, in which decaying vegetable substances can be em- 

 ployed, most advantageously, to afford food to livingplants. 

 Both the farmer and gardener, till lately, thought that such 

 manures ought not to be deposited in the soil till putrefac- 

 tion had nearly destroyed all organic texture; and this 

 opinion is, perhaps, still entertained by a majority of gar- 

 deners: it is, however, wholly unfounded. Carnivorous 

 animals, it is well known, receive most nutriment from the 



* Our President has shown, in the Philosophical Transactions of 

 180S, the extensive influence of gravitation upon the motion of 

 the sap of plants; and his experiments perfectly support the author's 

 conclusions. — Seer. See Journal, vol. XIV, p. 409. 



f Trans of the Hort. Soc. vol. I, p. 248. 



flesh 



