July: Fifth Week 



CROPS THAT MAKE THE GARDEN RICH: "GREEN 

 MANURING;" "SOIL BINDERS" FOR WINTER 

 COVER; INOCULATING TO INSURE SUCCESS 



The gardener who can buy, at a reasonable price, all the 

 stable manure he needs, is the exception. Most gardeners 

 these days are compelled to rely upon commercial fertil- 

 izers to enrich their gardens. It frequently happens that 

 these are found to give good results for two or three years, 

 only to be followed by decreasing yields and soil that 

 packs hard or cakes. The reason is that when you turn 

 under a good coating of manure in your garden, you add 

 not only the various plant foods — nitrogen, phosphoric 

 acid and potash — but also a large amount of decayed or 

 decaying vegetable matter, or humus, and millions of tiny 

 garden helpers in the form of friendly bacteria which at- 

 tack the inert stores of plant food in the soil, making them 

 available for use. 



Some of these microscopic bugs have a special faculty of 

 absorbing nitrogen from the air, making it available for 

 the crop upon whose roots they house, and for other crops 

 that may follow. The nitrogen-fixing bacteria live upon 

 the roots of the legumes — ^peas, beans, vetches and clovers. 



A large number of crops may be utilized to make the 

 ground richer. As fast as a strip of ground is cleared, even 

 if it is but a single row, it should be sown to a cover crop 

 to be spaded under next spring. Besides adding humus and 

 making conditions favorable to the development of bac- 

 teria, there are several advantages in having a growing crop 

 on the ground throughout the winter. Such a crop forages 

 the lower layers of the soil for food that most of the vege- 

 table plants cannot reach, and brings it to the surface; it 



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