28 the amateur’s kitchen garden. 
which should be dug in as soon as possible, instead of being 
left, as it usually is, to decompose in a heap and diffuse ob- 
noxious and injurious odours through the neighbourhood. 
We should like to punish some of the folks who lay up near 
public roads great heaps of cabbage stumps and other such 
offensive rubbish to generate a poisonous effluvium and sicken 
every passer-by. All such refuse should be buried a foot or 
so deep in a trench at least once a week to prevent accumula- 
tion, and to give to the earth those sulphureous gases which 
poison the air when fermentation takes place above ground. 
Cabbage stumps should be systematically burnt, and the ashes 
used as manure. 
It may happen that when hotbeds are made up there remains 
a considerable bulk of long stable manure, which orthodox 
practice requires to be laid up in a heap to rot before it is fit 
to be put on the ground. Now, you need not be fettered by 
orthodoxy. There is a certain stage in the decomposition of 
a large bulk of stable manure when it gives out an indescri- 
bably obnoxious odour. It should be clearly understood there- 
fore that rank or, as it is called, “green” manure may be dug 
into the soil not only without injury, but with advantage, 
provided only that it is done judiciously. Let it be carried 
on to the ground on which cauliflowers, broccolis, and other 
brassicas are to be planted, and there cut trenches two feet 
deep, and put a foot depth of the rank stuff in every trench, 
and put a foot of soil on, and leave the remainder in a ridge on 
the south side, and plant. You will have grand cauliflowers, 
and, when they come off, the land will be in a fine condition 
for the next crop. 
Seed Beds. — Whatever the extent of an amateur’s opera- 
tions, he should at least understand the making of a seed 
bed, and the sowing of seeds, and the management of pits 
and frames. The rule with gardeners is to waste seed and 
jeopardize the crop by sowing too thick. It is very difficult 
to cure them of this bad habit, although they have abundant 
opportunities of observing the ill effects of overcrowding. To 
sow thick enough for a crop is of course always necessary, but 
because of the tendency to injurious waste an admonition in 
favour of “thin seeding” should be always ready to be dinned 
into the dull ears of the man who loves his own ways too 
much, and is vexatiously slow to learn. Seed drills of several 
kinds are made for garden use, and are of great service. 
