CHAPTER IV 



Manures and Manuring 



Manures in common use for vegetable gardeners 

 may be divided into three general classes. Stable 

 manure, green manure and commercial fertilizers. 



STABLE MANURES 



Of these, stable manure is universally looked upon 

 as the most valuable fertilizing material for all kinds 

 of garden crops. While the other sources of fer- 

 tilizer are often extensively used, it is almost always 

 only in a secondary and supplemental vi^ay. So 

 important does the present-day successful gardener 

 consider stable manure that it is shipped hundreds 

 of miles at considerable expense when a local sup- 

 ply is not available, even though ready supplies of 

 other fertilizers could be had near at hand at much 

 less cost in so far as the actual plant food is con- 

 cerned. While many soils are successfully gar- 

 dened for a time without the application of manures, 

 this condition exists only temporarily and in soils 

 unusually well supplied in the beginning with or- 

 ganic materials. The supremacy of stable manures as 

 a fertilizer in vegetable gardening unquestionably 

 lies in the great value of humus or decaying organic 

 material. The actual plant food involved can 

 •usually be bought and handled very much more 

 cheaply in other forms, but never gives the 

 results secured from manures. The value of the 

 plant food contained in a ton of ordinary stable 



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