NOVEMBEE. 
335 
particular about soils than I otherwise should, from having frequently 
found them in a fix about composts, and compounding all sorts of stuff 
together, with the idea that Pines would not grow unless you give them 
some seven or eight different kinds of soils and manures mixed together, 
and made especially rich and forcing, as they termed it. I need not 
inform the practised grower the reason why, when this mass of compost 
becomes exposed to the bottom heat of the bed, and has been watered 
once or twice, it is quite unfit for the roots of any plant to grow in, 
because he would know beforehand the result; but it is to save 
amateurs some loss and disappointment that I warn him against the 
evil of using different mixtures for potting any kind of plants. 
Potting the Plants .—As before observed, the soil must be dry, for 
we shall have to make it very firm ; if at all damp it will shrink after 
the plants are potted, and leave a space between the ball and sides of 
the pots; the water will not pass so regularly through the ball as when 
the soil has been dryfor myself I do not care how dry the compost 
is, feeling persuaded that for all pot-work the drier the soil the better 
is the job done, and I may add the better the plants grow. 
ON SEWAGE MANURES. 
The preservation of manures becomes more necessary every day, 
and I think it a subject fit for your pages. I know from experience 
the difficulty there is in buying manure; and small holders of land, as 
allotment tenants and cottiers, have great difficulty in growing their 
Potatoes, &c., in consequence. Those who have more means and 
larger gardens cannot always afford to go to the stable or cow-yard for 
manure wanted for growing farm crops. Peruvian guano is too high in 
price for people who are gardening for fancy not for a livelihood, and 
many of the other artificial manures offered for sale are very inferior to 
common manure—some all but worthless ; it behoves us, then, to see 
how far we are taking care of that we make ourselves, and learn to 
apply it on right principles. The waste of sewage manures, or such 
manures as are made by every family, is almost universal, and yet this 
one item would, if applied to the soil, increase our produce immensely, 
and render us independent of foreign manures, as every pound saved 
in the purchase of foreign fertilisers represents so much capital saved to 
the country ; and as every increase of the produce of the soil is also 
adding to our resources and wealth, it follows that the preservation of 
any kind of manure hitherto wasted is of national as well as individual 
importance, and is a question more especially worth considering by 
landowners as well as land occupiers. 
My object is to direct the attention of both parties to the means of 
preserving the contents of their closets and sewage manure, so as to 
make it available for manuring crops. It is now an ascertained fact 
that sewage manure (by which is meant the waste water which flow's 
from every house both from cooking and cleansing operations, added to 
the contents of closets, &c.), cannot be profitably treated in any way 
