¥2 



THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



which has not been much cropped, is to be preferred, and the 

 fuller it is of fibrous matter, the better it will prove for the 

 growth of the plants. Soils of the best quality will be much 

 improved by occasional top dressings of such mould, either 

 applied in its fresh state, or afler having been partially ame- 

 liorated by being kept in the compost yard for a few months 

 before it is used. 



Mould dug from a greater depth is not fit for use in its 

 crude state, but should be exposed a twelvemonth at least to 

 the action of the weather, and even then, it is deficient of 

 most of the vegetable and animal matter, of which the top spit 

 is chiefly composed. 



CHAP. III. 



VARIETY AND USES OF MANURES. 



Vegetables are fbund by chemical analysis to be composed 

 of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, or azote, -with a 

 small portion of saline bodies. It is evident, therefore, that 

 the substances employed as manures, should also be composed 

 of those elements, for unless they are, there will be a defi- 

 ciency in some of the elements in the vegetable itself; and it is 

 probable, that such deficiency may prevent the formation of 

 those substances within it, for which its peculiar organization 

 is contrived, and on which its healthy existence depends. Of 

 these elementary bodies, oxygen, hydrogen and carbon, are 

 contained in vegetable, and the whole of them in animal mat- 

 ter. Nitrogen is sometimes, but rarely, found in vegetable mat- 

 ter. These, with certain salts, form the food or manures of 

 vegetables. 



The manures in general use in gardens are numerous, but 

 we shall only notice those, which are considered the most useful, 

 and of these, the dung of horses, if not the best, is certainly 

 the most general in use. With this dung, in different states of 



