34 PICTORIAL PEAGTIGAL VEGETABLE GBOWING. 



myself once, but I have abandoned it, for reasons that seem to 

 me to be sound and sufficient : (1) The application is very liable 

 to be forgotten when the right moment comes ; (2) it is not in any 

 way superior to dressing at planting time. 



Tomatoes.— The majority of cultivators have got pretty near to 

 the truth on the manuring question with one crop alone, and that 

 happens to be the Tomato. It is generally recognised that very 

 little manure is advisable, otherwise the plants will be leafy and 

 prone to disease. This is a true view. What puzzles me is that 

 people never seem to think of applying it to other crops as well. A 

 plethoric, dung-pampered plant is rarely better, as a cultivated 

 specimen, than one which has to develop under a more modest 

 regimen, and it is far more liable to disease. Tomatoes certainly do 

 not want dung ; in fact, they require very little manure of any sort, 

 especially when grown out of doors. The ordinary soil of a well- 

 tilled kitchen garden will give splendid crops, even if the plants be 

 grown on the same ground several years running. This I have 

 proved in my own culture. Plants in pots may have a little 

 stimulant when they are swelling up their crop, but it should be 

 rather of a potassic than a nitrogenous nature. Tomatoes like potash, 

 and it may be given to them in one of several forms, e.g. kainit, 

 sulphate of potash, and muriate of potash. The sulphate suits them 

 admirably, and may be mixed with superphosphate of lime in equal 

 parts, and 1 pint of the mixture incorporated with each bushel of 

 compost. Good loam alone will grow excellent Tomatoes, and in 

 this case a little liquid manure may be given when the crop is 

 swelling. 



Vegetable Marrows. — Through some unwritten and inscrutable 

 law, it has come to be believed that the dung bed is the natural home 

 of the Vegetable Marrow. I pointed out the fallacy of it all years 

 ago, and I do so again now. In a hot, dry season a dung bed is 

 about the worst place possible for Vegetable Marrows. They are 

 thirsty plants, and when in free growth and bearing they must be 

 able to suck large quantities of moisture into their strong stems, or 

 they will shrivel, or cast the young fruit. A cubic yard of litter will 

 not hold a fraction of the moisture held by a cubic yard of properly 

 tilled soil, therefore it is not so good for Vegetable Marrows. I 

 denounce the dung bed as an ideal Marrow home. The idea is 

 wrong, and full of mischief. The production of two or three huge, 

 bloated Marrows proves nothing. A few fat monsters do not make 

 a crop. What constitutes a crop is an incessant supply of tender, 

 high-flavoured Marrows from July till the plants are killed by frost 

 in October or November. You cannot get this in a dry district in a 

 dry season from a dung bed ; you can without it. With the dung 

 bed you may be able to force the plants along early. You may be 

 able to show an ugly brute the size of a boarliound's body at a July 

 exhibition, but you will not thereafter be cutting Marrows in 

 abundance daily for three consecutive months. The plants will be 

 dried up, their energies exhausted, long before. I do not object to a 



