The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1899-03-10
Rotating Manure In Gard ems.

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While the garden always receives more
Of the stable manure made ON the farm,
this is usually so deficient in mineral fer.
tility that garden crops often suffer from
lack of potash and phosphate, while the
heterogeneous elements Of plant food are
an overabundant supply. Under such
conditions the soil becomes heavy and
iMperviOus to air, or, as old farmers call
it, muck hidden" Almost all garden
vegetables require potash, and many of
them sneed also phosphate to produce 4
successful crop. When the crop is valu-
able for its seed mainly these minerals are
especially necessary. Beans and peas
are good examples of this. 1t is oftel,
said they grow best on poor soil. This
only means that there must be enough
mineral fertility to balance that which is
heterogeneous, or the vines will grow too
much to leaf without either podding or
filling, as they should. heterogeneous ma
nures are not needed ut all for beans, as
these are never planted until the ground
is we'll warmed, when cultivation is
enough to cause the soil to furnish all the
nitrogen needed. Peas are harder, and
for giving them an early. start some
quickly available heterogeneous manure
may be used. But both potash and phos-
plate may be used literally for both peas
and beans, greatly increasing the yield Of
grain without much if any increase in the
growth of haulm.
But even those crops which do not re-
Qulre extra large amounts of minerals
are benefited by letting the garden 90
without stable manure one year, and sub
stltutlng the same value or cost of min.
cral fertilizer i'll it's stead. Even if there
were no nitrogen in the concentrated fer
tilizer, the effect Of applying potash and
phosphate to land is to set free much
nitrogen, and on land that has long been
MANFRED with stable manures, this
amount will probably be sufficient for the
year & crop. In his book, "Gardening for
Profit" Peter Henderson tells how he
long fracticed d system Of rotation in
which when he had got his gardening soil
overtlled with manure; relief was found
by blowing under 1000 to 1900 pounds
per acre Of the refuse hop leaves from a
brewery after their strength had been
extracted. On another occasion he took
the waste stems from a tobacco factory,
which he found rotted in the soil, as did
the hop leaves, with the result that The
clammv, sticky condition of soil, result
ing from over manuring with stable ma
nure, was changed to light loan that
easily responded to any kind of manure
IN a single year.
While some kinds of vegetables, as, for
example, the onion, will do we'll, if not
pest, ON the same ground every year,
there are others that are much more sue
cessful If changed about to different parts
of the garden each year. Cabbage espe-
clally ought never to be grown on ground
Occupied 1Sy Pr by cabbage the previous year.
we think this is true of roots, and even
of sweet corn and potatoes These have
such different habits of root growth that
when they alternate more of the soil is
permeated by roots, and as these decay
or are removed the soil is ightened more
cffectuaily than it could be if the same
crop were continuously grown.
One of the best of all rotations for the
garden is to discontinue it's use as a gar
den for two full years, in the meantime
seeding it with clover and timothy, the
latter. s0wn in the fall, so as to yet
enough growth not to be crowded out by
weeds i'll the spring. If the clover is
sown in March on a light fall of snow,
good deal of this will live and will at.
tain a growth by the time the grain is
harvested that will lop off clover leaves
when it is out. We always advise SOW
ing either wheat or rye in the fall where
an old garden is to be seeded, The
soil is so full of weed seeds that the grain
is needed to keep them back. Some
potash and phosphate should be sown
with the grain. This will make bright,
cleam straw and well filed. The clover
grown on a garden should always be
plowed under. though if there are not
too many weeds, it may be best to cut
the first crop and plow under the sec.
ond, sowing crimson clover in the fall to
protect the soil during the winter. There
will usually be few weeds after the land
has been two years in clover, and the
after this clover rotation that it would
before.