The matter of properly applying manure, even on the small garden, is also of importance. In amount, from fifteen to twenty-five cords, or 60 to 100 cartloads, will not be too much; although if fertilizers are used to help out, the manure may be decreased in proportion. If possible, take it from the heap in which it has been rotting, and spread evenly over the soil immediately before plowing. If actively fermenting, it will lose by being exposed to wind and sun. If green, or in cold weather, it may be spread and left until plowing is done. When plowing, it should be completely covered under, or it will give all kinds of trouble in sowing and cultivating.
Fertilizers should be applied, where used to supplement manure or in place of it, at from 500 to 1500 pounds per acre, according to grade and other conditions. It is sown on broadcast, after plowing, care being taken to get it evenly distributed. This may be assured by sowing half while going across the piece, and the other half while going lengthwise of it. When used as a starter, or for top dressings—as mentioned in connection with the basic formula—it may be put in the hill or row at time of planting, or applied on the surface and worked in during the growth of the plants. In either case, especially with highly concentrated chemicals, care must be taken to mix them thoroughly with the soil and to avoid burning the tender roots.
This chapter is longer than I wanted to make it, but the problem of how best to enrich the soil is the most difficult one in the whole business of gardening, and the degree of your success in growing vegetables will be measured pretty much by the extent to which you master it. You cannot do it at one reading. Re-read this chapter, and when you understand the several subjects mentioned, in the brief way which limited space made necessary, pursue them farther in one of the several comprehensive books on the subject. It will well repay all the time you spend upon it. Because, from necessity, there has been so much of theory mixed up with the practical in this chapter, I shall very briefly recapitulate the directions for just what to do, in order that the subject of manuring may be left upon the same practical basis governing the rest of the book.
To make your garden rich enough to grow big crops, buy the most thoroughly worked over and decomposed manure you can find. If it is from grain-fed animals, and if pigs have run on it, it will be better yet. If possible, buy enough to put on at the rate of about twenty cords to the acre; if not, supplement the manure, which should be plowed under, with 500 to 1500 pounds of high-grade mixed fertilizer (analyzing nitrogen four per cent., phosphoric acid eight per cent., potash ten per cent.)—the quantity in proportion to the amount of manure used, and spread on broadcast after plowing and thoroughly harrowed in. In addition to this general enrichment of the soil, suitable quantities of nitrate of soda, for nitrogen; bone dust (or acid phosphate), for phosphoric acid; and sulphate of potash, for potash, should be bought for later dressings, as suggested in cultural directions for the various crops.
If the instructions in the above paragraph are followed out you may rest assured that your vegetables will not want for plant food and that, if other conditions are favorable, you will have maximum crops.
CHAPTER VII
THE SOIL AND ITS PREPARATION
Having considered, as thoroughly as the limited space available permitted, the matter of plant foods, we must proceed to the equally important one of how properly to set the table, on or rather in, which they must be placed, before the plants can use them.
As was noted in the first part of the preceding chapter, most tillable soils contain the necessary plant food elements to a considerable extent, but only in a very limited degree in available forms. They are locked up in the soil larder, and only after undergoing physical and chemical changes may be taken up by the feeding roots of plants. They are unlocked only by the disintegration and decomposition of the soil particles, under the influence of cultivation—or mechanical breaking up—and the access of water, air and heat.
The great importance of the part the soil must play in every garden operation is therefore readily seen. In the first place, it is required to furnish all the plant food elements—some seven in number, beside the three, nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, already mentioned. In the second, it must hold the moisture in which these foods must be either dissolved or suspended before plant roots can take them up.