The Garden Under Glass

CHAPTER XXIV FEEDING AND TOP-DRESSING The Advantages of Liquid Manures When a person advocates the use of liquid instead of dry manure he is entering on controversial ground, though not dangerously so, for the large body of gårdeners favour the method. fhere are, indeed, few who would wish altogether to pin their faith to the use of solid or of liquid manure only, but many deprecate the too frequent use of manure in a liquid form as ha ving a tendency to cause the soil to become sour. Liquid manure is more or less con-fined to the watering of pot plants, though there is no valid reason for not using it for outdoor crops. The chief ad-vantage is that after a soil has been mixed for potting, and the plant potted, there is a difficulty in affording much manure after the roots have absorbed all that is in the soil. To put on dry fertilisers is certainly a help, but in the hurried waterings to which pot-bound plants are too offen subjected during hot weather there is a danger of their being washed over the pot, and thus expense is incurred without profitable result. To add a top-dressing of soil is not always possible, for perhaps sufficient space has not been left at potting time. In such a case the only way of giving the plant a stimulant is to give it water in which manure of some kind has been steeped. Let it not be thought that I am averse to the use of solid manures. On the contrary, I hold that when mixing soil 238