576 HOW TO APPLY LIQUID MANUEK. 



add two tumblers full, and still the effect is salubrious, not injurious. 

 Hence it appears to be immaterial whether the proportion is the 

 hundredth or the two hundredth of the fertilising material. Manur- 

 ing is, in fact, a rude operation, in which considerable latitude is 

 allowable. The danger of error lies on the side of strength, not of 

 weakness. To use liquid manure very weak and very often is, in fact, 

 to imitate nature, than whom we cannot take a safer guide. This is 

 shown by the carbonate of ammonia carried to plants in rain, which is 

 not understood to contain, under ordinary circumstances, more than one 

 grain of ammonia in 1 lb. of water ; so that in order to form a liquid 

 manure of the strength of rain-water, 1 lb. of carbonate of ammonia 

 would have to be diluted with about 7000 lbs. weight of water, or more 

 than three tons. Complaints which have been made against guano- 

 water and the like are unquestionably referable to their having been 

 used too strong. 



Iiet such manure he applied only when plants are in a growing slate. 

 In addition to Sir Joseph Paxton's evidence, and to the general notoriety 

 of this rule, may be usefully added a statement made by Mr. Mitchell, 

 Lord EHesmere's gardener, and quoted by the Board of Health, This 

 experienced cultivator says " That he has never seen any manure 

 produce so good a crop of Strawberries as the liquid («. e. town or sewer 

 manure) has this year done at the Worsley Hall gardens. Manure," 

 he adds, " often causes a crop of Strawberries to be lost, by forcing the 

 growth of leaves. Liquid may be applied just when the plants are 

 forming their Jlower-huds, and the strength of the manure is spent in 

 producing fruit, not leaves. When the plants were bearing, it could 

 be seen to a plant how far the irrigation had extended." 



It must be borne in mind — 1, that liquid manure is an agent ready 

 for immediate use, its main value depending upon that quality ; 2, that 

 its effect is to produce exuberant growth ; and 3, that it will continue to 

 do so as long as the temperature and light required for its action are 

 sufficient. These three propositions, rightly understood, point to the 

 true principles of applying it ; and, if they are kept in view, no mis- 

 takes can well be made. They render it evident that the period in the 

 growth of a plant, at which it should be applied, depends entirely upon ■ 

 the nature of the plant, and the object to be gained. 



If, for example, wood and leaves are all that the cultivator desires to 

 obtain, it will be evident that liquid manure may be used freely from 

 the time when buds first break, until it is necessary that the process of 

 ripening the wood shall begin. Wood cannot ripen so long as it is 

 growing ; wood will continue to grow as long as leaves form, and its 

 rate of growth will be in direct proportion to their rate of develop- 

 ment ; therefore, in order to ripen wood, growth must be arrested. 

 But the growth of wood will not be arrested so long as liquid manure 

 continues to be applied, except in the presence of a temperature low 



