February: Fourth Week 



MAKING THE SOIL RICH: MANURES; 

 FERTILIZERS; AND HUMUS 



A poor soil cannot support a good garden. The founda- 

 tion of the gardener's success must be a rich soil. Ignorance 

 or neglect in preparing the soil is more often the cause of 

 failure in the home garden than any other one thing. To 

 the beginner the work of getting ready to plant always 

 seems an irksome but necessary evil. But the gardener 

 who is tempted to skimp the preliminary part of his work 

 should make himself familiar with some of the things that 

 influence plant growth; then he will reaHze the importance 

 of giving his best attention to this part of his work. 



Almost every gardener in these days knows that his soil 

 must be well suppHed with plant foods — nitrogen, phos- 

 phoric acid and potash — if he is to get good crops. But a 

 httle knowledge of this kind, if not a dangerous thing, is a 

 next to useless thing. The gardener who wants to make 

 sure of good results must take the trouble to go deeper. 

 Then he will find, not only that he must furnish plant 

 foods to his crops but that they must be in certain forms 

 called "available" and in certain proportions to one an- 

 other; that there must be sufficient soil moisture present 

 or the richness of his soil will count for nothing; and that 

 all these things will be affected directly or indirectly by 

 the physical condition of his garden soil and the way in 

 which he handles it. 



"Available" plant food is plant food existing in the soil 

 in such forms that the plant roots are able to take it up 

 or absorb it. Just as raw beefsteak or uncooked beans 

 have to undergo certain changes before they are available 

 as human food, so most of the forms of nitrogen, phosphoric 



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