the amateur’s kitchen garden. 
27 
that never produced potatoes before. But we know plots of 
land that have been cropped with potatoes without a break for 
thirty years, and produce as good crops as ever, having no 
more help than fair digging by a field labourer, whose children 
scrape up manure from the roads for it. 
The modern mode of fallowing is a compromise full of in- 
struction for the gardener. The farmer cannot afford to let 
the land rest, so he grows a “fallow crop,” it maybe of turnips, 
for which the ground is well prepared both by plough and 
manure cart. To grow good turnips the hoe must be plied 
briskly, and the practice clears away weeds. In due time the 
leaves of the turnips cover the ground, and kill whatever 
weeds have started since the final hoeing was done, and thus 
the land is cleaned. But the turnips are fed off by folding 
sheep upon them, and thus the surface is well trodden and 
manured, so that when ploughed again it is in fine condition 
for whatever purpose, it is next to be devoted to. Another 
mode of fallowing consists in sowing a fast growing green 
crop, and, when it has attained considerable bulk, it is ploughed 
in. As a considerable portion of the constituents of a crop 
are derived from the atmosphere, this method of procedure 
enables us to incorporate with the soil the carbonic acid, the 
ammonia, we may even say the sunshine, the plant has ob- 
tained through the agency of its leaves for its sustenance. 
To dig in weeds when full grown, but before they run to seed, 
is of necessity an improving process, and it will often be found 
advantageous to grow spinach or any other quick green crop 
and dig it in as manure. This practice is especially useful in 
districts remote from towns where manures are costly and 
difficult to obtain. Whatever plant grows rapidly to a con- 
siderable bulk, and costs but little in the first instance, is the 
best for the purpose. Such manuring, however, cannot be 
continued for ever, for it adds nothing to the mineral con- 
stituents of the soil. 
In the foregoing remarks stable manure is referred to as the 
most important fertilizer of its class. Such is the truth, and 
the statement needs no modification. But the cow-byre, the 
pig-sty?-, the poultry shed, and the sheepfold are capable of 
supplying useful manures, and the business of the cultivator 
is to get what he can and make the best of it. Organic debris 
of any and every kind may be regarded as a possible fertilizer, 
and not the least important is the waste of the garden itself. 
