38 ON NURSERY GROUND, MANURES, ETC. 
or potatoes. This renders the ground clean and soft, to a 
sufficient depth for any crop. 
In manuring for nursery crops without a previous green 
crop, the manure should be well decomposed, and whether the 
crop intended be plants or seeds, it suits best for the manure 
to be dug roughly into the ground in autumn or early in win- 
ter; or to have the ground ridged up is preferable, as this 
admits more readily the pulverizing influence of frost, which 
acts favourably on ground for any crop. 
The evil effects of fresh manure often appear very con- 
spicuously if applied to a crop of any species of conifer. 
Hardwood plants are not so easily injured in this way ; but it 
is not unusual to see nursery plots of pines and larches sadly 
damaged by manure too fresh and full of urine being applied. 
The mistake sometimes occurs of laying down the manure in 
heaps on the ground for some time before it is spread and dug 
in. Where this is the case, the spots in the seedling Scotch 
pines and larches, where the manure-heaps stood, are generally 
‘marked by the absence of plants, as distinctly as in agricul- 
tural crops, where the vegetation is generally the strongest. 
Even when manure is well decomposed and comparatively 
dry, if it is allowed to remain in heaps on the ground, and 
get washed into it by rain or snow, the effect is injurious. 
If, therefore, manure is carted out in frost, it should be placed 
in some spot adjacent till it can be dug down, or on ground 
where it may not injure the ensuing crop. 
Farm-yard manure is preferable to town manure. If town 
manure is employed, it is the better for being mixed up with 
a proportion of rank farm-yard manure sufficient to produce 
fermentation in a heap, which destroys the seeds of weeds 
before it is used for any crop. Wood or peat ashes in a dung- 
hill form an excellent manure ; coal ashes, to a great extent, 
are bad for seedling crops ; and manure composed of sawdust 
is still worse, as it tends to engender fungi, which are the 
prevailing enemies of the pine tribe. 
A very good manure is formed by collecting the weeds of 
the nursery. After they are dissolved in a heap, give one 
bushel of lime-shell hot from the kiln to every four or five 
