ON MANURES. 



III7 



The gardener has to bear in mind that different plants require 

 for their growth and development sufficient quantities of different, 

 but quite definite, plant-foods, and that they take these chiefly 

 from the soil. Moreover, if the plants are to thrive luxuriantly, 

 these foods must not only be present in the soil in abundance, 

 but also be in an assimilable form. 



Manuring is always heavier in gardening than in ordinary 

 agriculture. On the farm, the cultivator has to do with a 

 comparatively small number of different kinds of plants which 

 can readily be controlled. In horticulture, on the other hand, 

 there are far greater difficulties. The gardener has to do with 

 a large number of plants belonging to very different genera 

 and species, each having its own particular requirements as 

 regards both food and treatment. Besides which, the finer kinds 

 of flowers, fruits, vegetables, and foliage plants are, as a rule, 

 more delicate and sensitive than the ordinary crops of the 

 farm. 



To illustrate how plants of the garden vary in their chemical 

 composition, and hence require different materials, and in 

 different quantities for their growth and sustenance, a few 

 examples are given in the following tables. The first table 

 refers to four different kinds of vegetables, showing the marketable 

 and the unmarketable portions of each. The second table 

 gives the composition of six different kinds of fruit, while the 

 third shows a few selected constituents in the ashes of six 

 different kinds of flowers. 



COMPOSITION OF VEGETABLES, IN 1001b. OF EACH. 



Selected Constituents in the Ash, Per Cent. 



Potash 



Phosphoric 

 Acid 



Lime 



Soda 



37-2 

 9.0 



17.8 

 9.6 



