The idyll of manures has been written by the Dean of Rochester, who has placed on eternal record his devotion to Sterculus, the son of Faunus, whom he imaged as riding proudly, pitch-fork ("agricultural trident") in hand, in his family chariot, the currus Stercorosus (Anglice, muck-cart). As I can confess to no such love, I will merely state the few facts which all plant-growers must bear in memory.

The great and safe manure for hardy flower culture is that of the stable or farm-yard, which is so valuable, not only for the actual food elements which itself contains, but also for the mass of straw and other organic material which by its fermentation sets up chemical activity in the soil, and so liberates a small continuous supply of the plant-foods therein contained. This latter property is what gives much of its manurial value to the mixed "rubbish" of the ash-pit—containing as it generally does such waste organic matter as cabbage leaves, potato-peelings, and "bits" of all kinds. Buried weeds, leaves and "garden refuse" act in a precisely similar way. These organic manures are, moreover, of the greatest service in keeping the soil open, porous and friable, in retaining water and so retaining also mineral plant-foods dissolved therein, and in adding to the warmth of the soil both by engendering heat in the process of fermentation and by mechanically rendering the soil a worse conductor.

In the preliminary preparation of borders or beds, provided the soil be well dug to a depth of two or three feet, a really heavy dressing of farm-yard manure should be well incorporated—say about a ton to every two hundred square yards. The manure should not be buried, but should be intimately mixed with the whole depth of soil. A light sandy soil will take a heavier, and a heavy soil a lighter dressing than the average one suggested. The beds should be manured and otherwise prepared sometime before the planting is to take place, as many plants and especially many bulbous plants cannot stand the proximity of fresh and rank manure.

When the ground is thus properly prepared at the start, little more actual cultivation is needed in the case of most hardy herbaceous plants beyond annual top dressing with manure, occasional loosening of the surface soil where not covered by dwarf plants, weeding, and occasional thinning or division of big clumps. Whenever a plant is taken up, the opportunity should be seized to add a fork-load of rotten manure to the spot vacated. Top dressings should as far as possible be placed round plants in early spring, just before new growth starts, as the manure is then soon covered and concealed by foliage.

Bone meal, finely-broken bones, small quantities of guano, and even carefully-applied nitrate of soda (half-an-ounce to the square yard) have their respective values, but the novice will be wise in placing reliance on farm-yard manure for the bulk of his plants.