GARDENING AS A SCIENCE. 
131 
the end of July or beginning of August whilst still fresh and moist. If they are 
then cut into small pieces and mixed with the earth, they undergo putrefaction so 
completely, that, as I have learned by experience, at the end of four weeks not the 
smallest trace of them can be found. 11 
From the authority of " Henderson's History of Wines," we also find that, 
" The best manure for vines is the branches pruned from the vines themselves, cut 
into small pieces, and immediately mixed with the soil. These branches were 
used as manure, long since, in Bergstrasse. M. Fraunfelder says, 4 1 remember 
that twenty years ago, a man called Peter Muller had a vineyard here which he 
manured with the branches pruned from the vines, and continued this practice for 
thirty years. His way of applying them was to hoe them into the soil after 
having cut them into small pieces. His vineyard was always in a thriving con- 
dition — so much so ? indeed, that the peasants speak of it to this day as a wonder.' 11 
Without vouching for the facts above cited, it can be affirmed that ever since 
the publication of them by Liebig, we have practised the method recommended, 
and have had convincing proof of the rapid decomposition of the green primings, 
and no other manure has been applied to the vines under glass, — yet their growth 
is richly luxuriant. 
If it can be experimentally shown that the leaves and other herbaceous portions 
of any plant usually thrown aside as rubbish are specifically appropriate to the 
individual itself, what a valuable discovery will be made ! The vine, for instance, 
requires frequent primings, and to a very great extent ; peach and nectarine trees 
are disbudded and repeatedly pruned ; the prunings contain all the peculiar 
products of the several trees, — and these, if deposited in the ground within reach 
of the roots while in a green state, may be rationally supposed to develop all the 
elements that Nature has rendered suitable to the constitution of each. The 
doctrine is theoretical, but no one can impugn it till he have brought it to the test 
of experiment. 
All artificial manures contain elements more or less foreign to any individual ; 
but that cannot be said of the material now alluded to : we therefore feel justified 
in urging a fair and impartial trial of a plan which is safe and very simple in 
itself. Care will doubtless be required so to introduce the prunings as not to 
wound the roots of a tree ; but it will not be necessary to move the earth to any 
great depth, and therefore the danger of injury by the tool is not worth mention. 
It is notorious that the roots of fruit-trees are but too apt to penetrate into a bad 
subsoil ; if then we can introduce a perfectly safe and appropriate substance, rather 
above the roots, and only just so deep as to ensure its decomposition under the 
surface-soil, the rootlets will be attracted thereby, and revel in the enjoyment of 
purely nutrimental elements, void of those antagonist principles which are inimical 
to the health of the plant. 
The fixation of nitrogen is a question which still occupies much of the attention 
of our modern writers. The characters of this important principle of atmospheric 
