That a rich, wholesome, porous, soil should be used, 
we allow, but the utility of a multifarious medley of 
anomalous ingredients is doubted by the most emi- 
nent growers in the kingdom; and the danger of an 
improper use of them is known to all. Those who 
advocate the use of sugar scum, blood, and manure 
of various descriptions, are well aware that such in- 
gredients cannot be safely employed, till they have 
remained about two years to decay; or, in other 
words, till all their pernicious qualities have been 
subdued by new combinations of their active prin- 
ciples, and the mixture is become simply such as 
may have been readily compounded from the usual 
soils and manure of almost every garden. 
It is most likely that all the properties of animal 
matter which can be turned to good account, in the 
excitement of the Auricula, are conveniently obtain- 
ed in bone dust. This possesses such oleaginous, 
and other substances as may be serviceable to ve- 
getable life. Its decomposition is slow, and its 
volatile alkali, in consequence, is not too rapidly 
evolved. By the addition of a very small quantity 
of lime, its unctious matter may be decomposed and 
fitted for the immediate use of the plant; and car- 
bon would also be imbibed from the atmosphere. 
The slowness of its decomposition, yields great ad- 
vantage, by the longer continuance of its stimulus. 
Fresh loam, which has been prepared from turf, 
by laying it together till its grass and roots are de- 
cayed; well rotted hotbed manure; decayed leaves, 
or the vegetable powder from the inside of a hollow 
tree; with drift sand and bone dust. These are 
the requisites for a superior compost. 
Hort. Kew. 2, v. 1, 309. 
