Tumbledown Farm .9 Acres (give or take an acre or two)

CHAPTER V
Manure

The manure is used primarily for the heat it evolves during fermentation. It is made into " hot-beds" during winter and spring; and to this end certain proportions of fresh and dry manure are mixed together. This mixture produces milder but more lasting heat than is produced when fresh manure is used alone.

After the manure is used one season in hot­ beds some of it is found to be only partially decayed. This may be again used for mixing with fresh manure in making up new hot-beds the following season.

When the garden has been in operation for three years enough decayed manure should have accumulated, either as compost for topping the hot-beds or blended with the surface soil, to enable all the work to be done with facility
20 French Gardening
and sureness. After a time the only soil really in use in the garden, either in the open­ air beds or for covering the hot-beds, is this thoroughly-decayed manure. In some of the Paris gardens the soil in the open ground is practically a mass of light vegetable mould, into which a walking-stick can be easily thrust to a depth of eighteen inches. Plants luxuriate in this light, friable, fertile soil, and when helped on in dry weather by copious supplies of water, the growth is remarkably quick, healthy, and vigorous.

When this mould is used exclusively, the seed germinates quickly and evenly, the seed­ lings are stronger, there is little or no damping off, the plants mature earlier, and the work is done easily and quickly. Until a sufficient quantity of this material is available, the garden cannot yield its best produce or to its full capacity.

In a new garden provision should be made for an ample supply as soon as the site is acquired. About 200 tons of very short and well-rotted manure should be got on to the ground early; that from old mushroom beds, if it can be obtained, will be found very suit­able. This should be turned over at inter­vals, beaten about and broken up, and finally passed through a gravel screen. The longer portions which do not pass through the screen can be added to the stacks of new manure. This material is now ready for making beds for seeds, for pricking out, and later for
Manure 21
topping hot-beds. For the first season only, as there may be a difficulty in getting sufficient of this, half the bulk of finely-sifted garden soil may be thoroughly mixed with the sifted manure, but better results will be had without this admixture of soil, and it should not be added after the first season, more especially when the soil is of a heavy nature.

In the autumn, if the compost is nicely moist, it should be made into a long, high ridge to throw off winter rains;' but if it is dry it should be left so that the rain can work into it before ridging up, the intention being to have it in a sufficiently moist condition to use at any time without added water.

The quantity of manure necessary for a two­ acre garden, planned on the lines given here, is about 1,000 tons annually for the first three years, in addition to the 200 tons already mentioned for making compost, and about 100 tons used the first season for preparing the open-air beds for their first crops.

Where the garden is so situated that con­tracts can be made with livery-stable keepers and other owners of horses for regular daily or weekly supplies of manure, this must be brought into the garden regularly the year round. When the manure has to be bought from manure contractors, this steady supply of small quantities is not necessary, and the supply should be regulated as follows:

From the end of August to the middle of October, 300 tons.

During November and December, 150 tons.

From the beginning of January to the end of March, 250 tons.

From the beginning of April to the end of May, 300 tons.

After three years these quantities will be decreased as experience indicates.

Where the garden is situated near a wood, and tree-leaves can be had easily and cheaply, these can be substituted for about half the quantity of manure in making hot-beds.

As the manure is brought in it should be stacked in long, narrow ridges, ten to twelve feet high and six to eight feet wide. Venti­lating shafts should be made in each stack every ten feet or so to prevent over-heating. This may be done by placing the manure round a bushel basket as the stack is built, raising the basket each time the manure reaches the rim.