V MANURES 77 



manure does lose some of its valuable constituents 

 by rotting so far, especially if exposed to the wash 

 of heavy showers ; if the solid be preferred to the 

 liquid, it should be protected from rain, and yet 

 kept just damp enough to decompose thoroughly, 

 and turned of course, as every labourer knows how, 

 to prevent too rapid heating. 



If a top-dressing be used, no confusion must be 

 made between this and a mulch. It is not un- 

 common to find, in instructions on planting, one to 

 the effect that when a job is done a coating of long 

 manure, which may be forked in at spring time, 

 should be laid on the top to protect the roots from 

 the frost. In the first place it is the plant itself, 

 not the roots, which most requires protection from 

 frost ; next I do not know how any manure, much 

 less long stuff, is to be " forked " into the soil in a 

 useful and harmless manner ; and I wonder quite 

 as much what good can be done by long straw, 

 washed clean by the winter's snow and rains, if it 

 is got in. A manure and a mulch are two different 

 things, and should not be confounded ; the former 

 is for feeding and fertilising objects, and the latter 

 for protection against frost, heat, or drought. 

 Some little good may be washed out of it into 

 the soil, but when wanted no longer it should be 

 removed. 



Well, then, shall we apply our solid manure, for 

 food during the spring and early summer, as a top- 

 dressing ? If we do, it is plain that the roots can 

 only feed on what is washed from it through the 

 soil by rain or watering, and that the same advantage 

 could be got by liquid manure alone. To this it 

 might be answered that a long drizzling yet thorough 



