Book I. 



CROPPING. 



487 



Sea-weed should be applied 'mstantly after landing. If used as a simple, is even greater than the above ; as 

 it instantly corrupts, and its juices flow downwards, and are lost. If this manure be used as a compound, 

 the heap in which it is compounded should be more frequently turned on its account; that none of the 

 juices may be lost, but that the other part of the compost may absorb them. 



Horse-dung, and tlie dung of sheep, deer, and of rabbits are most eligible for cold wet soils ; and all 

 these, or any of these in compost with lime, will be found beneficial. For such soils also, a compost of 

 coal-ashes, pigeon-dung, and lime; or of wood-ashes, whin-ashes, fern-ashes, and stable-dung; or of deer- 

 dung, rabbit-dung, soot, and burnt sward, will make a good manure. 



Manures are to be applied in quantify according to their qualify. Hence the dung of pigeons should be 

 applied in much smaller proportions than that of horses, it containing a greater quantity of volatile salts ; 

 and so the ashes of vegetables containing a portion of fixed alkaline salts, being more powerful, are to be 

 applied in still smaller quantity. So also, lime being the most powerful of the calcareous kind, should be 

 applied, in ordinary cases, -in much smaller quantity than marl. 



Vegetable mould may either be used as a sijnple, or as a compound, and may be applied with equal pro- 

 priety to all soils. None can be hurt by it in any degree, since almost every plant will grow luxuriantly in 

 it alone, without the aid of any soil or manure whatever. It seems to be the ambrosia, and the dunghill 

 drainings the nectar, of vegetable lifa The latter, however, if too freely indulged in, is rather of an in- 

 toxicating nature {KaL) 



2555. Where economy, rather than the flavor of culinary crops, is aji object, recent dung 

 is unquestionably to be preferred (1156.)? and, in fact, is so by most market-gardeners : 

 John Wilmot, an extensive market-gardener at Isleworth, bears testimony to this fact. A 

 given weight of recent stable dung, he says, will not only go farther than the same weight 

 of rotten dung from old hot-beds ; but will serve as a manuring for the succeeding crop, 

 which, with old dung, is not the case. (Hort. Trans, iv. 55.) 



Sect. III. Cro])ping. 



2556. A change of crops is founded on the generally acknowledged fact, that each sort 

 of plant draws a somewhat different nourishment ; so that after a full crop of one thing, 

 one of another kind may often be immediately sown. " Nothing tends more to relieve the 

 soil," Abercrombie observes, " than a judicious succession of crops ; for plants of dif- 

 ferent constitutions not only strike to different depths, and in difi^erent directions, with' 

 their roots, but the terminal fibres or feeders of the roots appear to take up separate and 

 peculiar constituents of the soil, and to be indebted for support to some property imparted 

 by tlie earth in very different degrees. The duration of the vegetable, its short or pro- 

 tracted existence, is a great cause of diversity of effect as to the quantity of aliment drawn 

 from the soil. Another mark of distinctness in constitution is the character of the root, 

 as it may be fibrous and tender, or fibrous and woody, — or bulbous, or tuberous, — ex- 

 tended or compact ; another, the form and magnitude of the herb, and the proportion of 

 fibrous or ligneous substance in the stem and branches. A fourth index of a separate 

 nature is the succulency or hardness of the leaves, and the quantity of pulpy or 

 farinaceous matter in the parts of fructification, — as the leaves may be the edible 

 part, before the plant is matured; or the seed-vessels, as in pulse, may hold the 

 produce for the table ; or the esculent part may consist of fruit-enclosing seeds. To 

 apply this practically : — we will suppose a strawberry-plantation requires to be re- 

 newed ; and the stools seldom continue fully productive more than three or four years ; 



— instead of introducing young strawberry-plants into the same bed, entirely eradicate 

 the old plantation, and let it be succeeded by a crop of beans, or of some other esculent as 

 different as may be in constitution and habit. In the same manner, let the new plant- 

 ation of strawberries follow some light crop which left the ground in a good state, or 

 which allowed it to be trenched and followed for an interval, whether it were an annual 

 or biennial. It is a rule, from which only extraordinary circumstances can warrant a de- 

 parture, never to plant a new set of perennial stools on the ground whence a plantation 

 of the same or a similar species, having worn itself out, has just before been removed. 



On the contrary, crops which strike deep, and occupy the ground long, should be suc- 

 ceeded by plants which pierce but a little way under the surface, are drawing in the least 

 degree, and soon come off from the short term of their vegetable life." 



2557. A studied rotation is advisable, in all cases, according to Nicol ; so as that no crop 

 of the same class may immediately follow another. To facilitate this measure, the kitchen- 

 ground should be divided into a number of portions, and a journal or note-book 

 should be kept, with a reference to their numbers. In this journal, wliatever relates to 

 their cropping, manuring, trenching, or fallowing should he recorded, for reference and 

 guidance as to future cropping. Nicol, v^hile practising as head gardener at Raith, 

 Wemyss Castle,' and other places, kept a regular journal of this sort ; he published it in 

 his Kitchen Gardener in 1802, and he tells us, in 1816, that it had been approved and 

 adopted by many practical gardeners. (See theixiodeL, 2345-) 



2558. JBy planting out currants, gooseberries, and raspberries in co?npartments, instead of 

 growing them in single lines, particularly if tliese be properly managed, an opportunity 

 of changing crops might further be afforded ; as these should not stand longer than 

 seven or eight years together, before the plantations are renewed. 



2559. Strawberry-plantations, under proper management, should be renewed every four 

 or five years ; and thus likewise might an opportunity of changing crops be afforded. 



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