The Family Kitchen Gardener (1856)/Manures
MANURES.
Of Manures.—We may here premise that no garden will be worth its culture, unless well supplied with manure every year. The present day is a period of considerable agitation on this all important subject. We have tried several of the new manures, some of them to our loss and (when we have departed from the stable yard) few to our advantage. In Europe great attention has been given to this subject, and many specifics recommended, which, when tried, have had frequently uncertain results, though in particular cases they have been crowned with success. In this country, however, our resources of domestic materials are abundant, and on every farm and garden much goes to waste. All weeds and useless vegetables, sweepings of walks, &c., should be dug into the ground at once. The dung of domestic birds, compounded with fresh soil, is a great renovator; but, if applied by itself, use it sparingly. Guano can only be safely applied in solution, one pound to five gallons of water—the liquid to be used when the vegetables are in a growing state. Gypsum is beneficial, but not of any duration. Poudrette is a very active manure, highly exciting to early crops. The safest and best of all manures are the combined deposits of the horse, the cow, and the pig; these, thrown into a heap to ferment, saturating it with all the soap-suds and urine that can be collected, will form the best, the safest, and most permanent manure, not equalled by any or all of the nostrums of the age. It may be applied at the rate of from twenty to thirty tous per acre. This quantity is not too much, when a garden is regularly cultivated. It requires no adept in vegetable culture to take at least two crops a year from the ground. Lime is not genial to the growth of vegetables; its principal function as a manure appears to be, to dissolve the organic matter in the soil and facilitate its decay. Soils of a sour, heavy nature, full of thready, undecomposed vegetable fibre, are greatly benefited by a dressing of air-slacked lime; but on rich soils, well cultivated, its effects are unfavorable to the growth of culinary vegetables.