46 Home Vegetable Gardening 



tioned (nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash) there 

 will not be enough : for it has been proved that when 

 any one of these is exhausted the plant practically 

 stops growth ; it will not continue to ''fill up" on the 

 other two. Of course there is such a thing as going 

 to extremes and wasting plant foods, even if it does 

 not, as a rule, hurt the plants. If, however, the fer- 

 tilizers and manures described in the following 

 pages are applied as directed, and as mentioned in 

 Chapter VII., good results will be certain, provided 

 the seed, cultivation and season are right. 



VARIOUS MANURES 



The terms ''manure'' and "fertilizer" are used 

 somewhat ambiguously and interchangeably. Using 

 the former term in a broad sense — as meaning any 

 substance containing available plant food applied to 

 the soil, we may say that manure is of two kinds : 

 organic, such as stable manure, or decayed vegetable 

 matter; and inorganic, such as potash salts, phos- 

 phatic rock and commercial mixed fertilizers. In a 

 general way the term "fertilizer" applies to these 

 inorganic manures, and I shall use it in this sense 

 through the following pages. 



Between the organic manures, or "natural" 

 manures as they are often called, and fertilizers 

 there is a very important difference which should 

 never be lost sight of. In theory, and as a chemical 



