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Composts for Manures

locks blood, offal from the slaughter-house, refuse | sand, drift-sand, or powdered stone, so as to be as of skins and leather, decomposed carrion, etc.

The drainings of dung laid on as mulch are highly serviceable.

It is very proper to crop the ground among new planted orchard trees for a few years, in order to defray the expense of hoeing and cultivating it, which should be done until the temporary plants are removed and the whole be sown down in grass.

As the trees begin to produce fruit, begin also to relinquish cropping. When by their productions they defray all expenses, crop no longer.

To make Composts for Manure.

During hot weather, says Knight, I have all the offals in the garden, such as weeds, leaves of strawfree as possible from iron; lime-rubbish; and, lastly, common garden earth. There are no known plants that will not grow or thrive in one or other of these earths, alone or mixed with some other earth, or with rotten dung or leaves. Nurserymen have seldom more than three sorts of earth: loam, approaching to the qualities of brickearth; peat or bog-earth, and the common soil of their nursery. With these and the addition of a little sand for striking plants, some sifted limerubbish for succulents, and some well-rotted cow. dung for bulbs, and some sorts of trees, they continue to grow thousands of different species in as great or greater perfection as in their native countries, and many, as the pine, vine, camellia, rose, berries and other vegetables, short grass, peas, etc., in a superior manner. and asparagus haum, with the foliage of trees and shrubs when newly shed, carefully collected into a heap. These are all turned over and mixed during the winter, that they may be sufficiently rotted to mix with the dung against the end of I have also another heap formed with summer.

To prepare Composts.

The preparation necessary for heavy and light composts for general enrichment, and of the above different earths, consists in collecting sach soil in the compost ground, in separate ridges of three or the prunings from gooseberry and currant bushes, four feet broad, and as high, turning them every fruit-trees, raspberry shoots, clippings of box-edgings, and lappings from shrubs; also the roots of greens and cabbages, which are generally burnt at two different periods in the year, viz., in spring and autumn, but previous to each burning I endeavor to pare up all the coarse grasses around the garden, with a portion of the soil adhering thereto, and whenever these are sufficiently dried have them collected to the heap intended to be burnt.

The fire is kindled at a convenient distance from the heaps, and a portion of such as burn most easily is first applied, until the fire has gained a considerable power. After this the process of burning is continued by applying lighter and heavier substances alternately, that the one may preserve the action of the fire, and the other prevent it from reducing them too much to ashes. When the whole are thus consumed a quantity of mould is thrown over the heap to prevent the fire from breaking through, and whenever it can be broken into with safety it is then mixed up into a dunghill with the rotted vegetables, moss-earth and stable-yard dung in such proportions as is likely to insure a moderate fermentation, which is generally completed in three or four weeks, at which time it is most advantageously applied in having it carried to the ground and instantly dug in.

To make Composts for Moulds.

Composts are mixtures of several earths, or earthy substances, or dungs, either for the improvement of the general soil under culture or for the culture of particular plants.

In respect to composts for the amendment of the general soil of the garden, their quality must depend upon that of the natural soil; if this be light, loose, or sandy, it may be assisted by heavy loams, clays, etc., from ponds and ditches, cleanings of sewers, etc. On the other hand, heavy clayey and all stubborn soils may be assisted by light composts of sandy earth, drift, and sea-sand, the shovellings of turnpike roads, the cleansing of streets, all kinds of ashes, rotten tanner's bark, rotten wood, saw dust, and other similar light opening materials that can be most conveniently procured.

To make Composts for Plants.

These may be reduced to light sandy loam from old pastures: strong loam approaching nearly to brick earth from the same source; peat earth, from the surface of heaths or commons; bog earth, from bogs or morasses; vegetable earth, from decayed leaves, stalks, cow-dung, etc.; sand, either seasix weeks or two months for a year or a year and a half before they are used. Peat earth, being generally procured in the state of turves full of the roots and tops of heath, requires two or three years to rot; but, after it has lain one year, it may be sifted, and what passes through a small sieve will be found fit for use. Some nurserymen use both these loams and peats as soon as procured, and find them answer perfectly for most plants; but for delicate flowers, and especially bulbs, and all florists' flowers, and for all composts in which manures enter, not less than one year ought to be allowed for decomposition, and what is called sweetening.

To make a Green-House or Conservatory.

The depth of green-houses should never be greater than their height in the clear; which, in small or middling houses may be sixteen or eighteen feet, but in large ones from twenty to twentyfour feet; and the length of the windows should reach from about one foot and a half above the pavement, and within the same distance of the ceiling.

The floor of the green-house, which should be laid either with Bremen squares, Purbeck stone, or flat tiles, must be raised two feet above the surface of the adjoining ground, or, if the situation be damp, at least three feet; and if the whole is arched with low brick arches under the floor, they will be of great service in preventing damp; and under the floor, about two feet from the front, it will be very advisable to make a flue of ten inches wide, and two feet deep; this should be carried the whole length of the house, and then returned back along the hinder part, and there be carried up into funnels adjoining to the tool-house, by which the smoke may be carried off. The fireplace may be contrived at one end of the house, and the door at which the fuel is put in, as also the ash-grate, may be contrived to open into the tool-house.

Whilst the front of the green-house is exactly south, one of the wings may be made to face the southeast, and the other the southwest. By this disposition the heat of the sun is reflected from one part of the building to the other all day, and the front of the main green-house is guarded from the cold winds. These two wings may be so contrived as to maintain plants of different degrees of hardiness, which may be easily effected by the situation and extent of the fire-place, and the manner of conducting the flues.

The sloping glasses of these houses should be | Suckers are merely runners under ground; some made to slide and take off, so that they may be drawn down more or less in warm weather to admit air to the plants; and the upright glasses in the front may be so contrived as that every other may open as a door upon hinges, and the alternate glasses may be divided into two; the upper part of each should be so contrived as to be drawn down like a sash, so that either of them may be used to admit air in a greater or less quantity, as there may be occasion. As to the management of plants in a green-house, open the mould about them from time to time, and sprinkle a little fresh mould in them, and a little warm dung on that; also water them when the leaves begin to wither and curl, and not oftener, which would make them fade and be sickly; and take off such leaves as wither and grow dry.

To propagate Vegetables.

Plants are universally propagated by seed, but partially also by germs or bulbs, suckers, runners, slips, and offsets, and artificially by layers, inarching, grafting, budding, and cutting. The propagation by seed is to make sure of live seeds; for some lose their vitality very early after being gathered, while others retain it only for one or perhaps two seasons; some seeds also are injured, and others improved by keeping. The size of seeds requires also to be taken into consideration, for on this most frequently depends the depth which they require to be buried in the soil; the texture of their skin or covering must be at tended to, as on this ten depends the time they require to be buried in the soil previously to germination. On the form and surface of the outer coating of seeds sometimes depends the mode of sowing, as in the carrot, and on their qualities in general depends their liability to be attacked by insects. The nature of the offspring expects it, and the proper climate, soil, and season, require also to be kept in view in determining how, where, when, and in what quantity any seed must be sown.

Germs or bulbs, cauline or radical, require in general to be planted immediately, or soon after removal from the parent plant, in light earth, about their own depth from the surface. Matured bulbs may be preserved out of the soil for some months, without injury to the vitality; but infant bulbs are easily dried up and injured when so treated.

Slips are shoots which spring from the collar or the upper part of the roots of herbaceous plants, as in auricular, and under shrubs, as thymes, etc.

The shoot, when the lower part from whence the roots proceed begins to ripen or acquire a firm texture, is to be slipped or drawn from the parent plant, so far as to bring off a heel or claw of old wood, stem, or root, on which generally some roots, or rudiments of roots, are attached. The ragged parts and edges of this claw or rough section are then to be smoothed with a sharp knife, and the slip to be planted in suitable soil and shaded till it strikes root afresh.

The division of the plant is adopted in many species, as in grasses, the daisy, polyanthus, and a great variety of others. The plant is taken up, the earth shaken from its roots; the whole is then separated, each piece containing a portion of root and stem, which may be planted without further preparation.

With certain species taking runners is a convenient and sure mode of propagation. All that is requisite is to allow the plantlet on the shoot or runner to be well rooted before being separated from the parent. It may then be planted where it is finally to remain. run to a considerable distance, as the acacia, narrow-leaved elm, sea-lime grass, etc.; others again are more limited in their migrations, as the lilac, syringa, Jerusalem artichoke, saponaria, etc. All that is necessary is to dig them up, cut off each plantlet with a portion of root, after which its top may be reduced by cutting off from one-fourth to one-half of the shoot, in order to fit it to the curtailed root, and it may then be planted, either in the nursery department or, if a strong plant, wher it is finally to remain.

Propagation by Layering.

In general the operation of layering in trees and shrubs is commenced before the ascent of the sap, or delayed till the ascent is fully up. The shoot, or extremity of the shoot, intended to become a new plant, is half separated from the parent plant, at a few inches distance from its extremity, and, while this permits the ascent of the sap at the season of its rising, the remaining half of them, being cut through and separated, forms a dam or sluice to the descending sap, which, thus interrupted in its progress, exudes at the wound, in the form of a granulous protuberance, which throws out roots. If the cut or notch in the stem does d not penetrate at least half way through, some sorts of trees will not form a nuc'eus the first season; on the other hand, if the notch be cut nearly through the shoot, a sufficiency of alburnum, or soft wood, is not left for the ascent of the sap, and the shoot dies. In delicate sorts it is not sufficient to cut a notch merely, because in that case the descending sap, instead of throwing out granulated matter, in the upper side of the wound, would descend by the entire side of the shoot; therefore, besides a notch formed by cutting out a portion of bark and wood, the notched side is slit up at least one inch, separating it by a bit of twig, or small splinter of stone or potsherd. The operation of layering is performed on herbaceous plants, as well as trees; and the part to become the future plant is, in both cases, covered with soil about a third of its length.

When the layers are rooted, which will generally be the case by the autumn after the operation is performed, they are all cleared from the stools or main-plants, and the head of each stool, if to be continued for furnishing layers, should be dressed; cutting off all decayed scraggy parts, and digging the ground round them. Some fresh rich mould should also be worked in, in order to encourage the production of the annual supply of shoots for layering.

Propagation by In-arching.

A sort of layering, by the common or slit process, in which the talus or heel, intended to throw out fibres, instead of being inserted in the soil, is inserted in the wood, or between the wood and bark of another plant, so as to incorporate with it. It is the most certain mode of propagation with plants difficult to excite to a disposition for rooting; and, when all other modes fail, this, when a proper description of stock or basis is to be found, is sure to succeed.

The stocks designed to be in-arched, and the tree from which the layer or shoot is to be bent or arched towards them, and put in or united, must be placed, if in pots, or planted if in the open soil, near together. Hardy trees of free-growing kinds should have a circle of stocks planted round them every year in the same circumference, every other one being in-arched the one year, and when re moved their places supplied by others. If the branches of the tree are too high for stocks in the ground, they should be planted in pots, and ele