VEGETABLE MANURE BEST FRESH. 35^ 



tops of his early potatoes, and other green vegetable sub- gardener. 



Stances in this way, with much advantage. 



In the preceding experiments the plum-stone was placed Possible objec- 

 . , . ,, , » .. 1 1 - i . -i * i , tions to the pre- 



to vegetate in the turf ot the alluvial soil oi a meadow, and cec ii no experi- 



the potatoes s;revv in ground which, though not rich, was not ments ' 



poor : and, therefore, some objections may be made to the 



conclusions \ am disposed to draw in favour of reccntvege- 



table substances as manures. The following experiment is^ 



I think, decisive. 



I received, from a neighbouring farmer, a field naturally A decisive one. 

 barren, and so much exhausted by ill management, that the 

 two preceding crops had not returned a quantity of com 

 equal to that which had been sowed upon it. An adjoining 

 plantation afforded me a large quantity of fern, which I 

 proposed to employ as manure for a crop of turnips. This 

 was cut between the tenth and twentieth of June; but as the 

 Small cotyledons of the turnip-seed afford little to feed the 

 young plant; and as the soil, owing to its extreme po- 

 verty, could not afford much nutriment; I thought it 

 necessary to place the fern a few days in a heap, to ferment 

 sufficiently to destroy life in it, and to produce an exuda- 

 tion of its juices; and it was then committed in rows to 

 the soil, and the turnip-seed deposited, with a drilling ma- 

 chine over it. 



Some adjoining rows were manured with the black vege- 

 table mould obtained from the site of an old wood pile, 

 mixed with the slender branches of trees in every stage of 

 decomposition, the quantity placed in each row appearing 

 tome to exceed, more than four times, the amount of the 

 vegetable mould, which the green fern, if equally decom- 

 posed, would have yielded. The crop succeeded in both 

 cases; but the plants upon the green fern grew with greatly- 

 more rapidity than the others, and even than those which 

 had been manured with the produce of my fold and stable- 

 yard, and were distinguishable, in the autumn, from the 

 plants in every other part of the field, by the deeper shade 

 of their foliage. 



I had made, in preceding years, many similar experiments Similar previ- 

 with small trees (particularly those of the mulberry when ous ^ x P en * 

 bearing fruit in pots) with similar results : but I think it 



unnecessary 



