The Gardener's Pocket Journal, and Daily Assistant in English Gardening

Front Cover
 

Selected pages

Contents

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 275 - The guano, which is used to a great extent in South America, and which is the manure that fertilizes the sterile plains of Peru, is a production of this kind. It exists abundantly, as we are informed by M.
Page 275 - Fourcroy and Vauquelin published an elaborate analysis of guano. They state that it contains a fourth part of its weight of uric acid, partly saturated with ammonia, and partly with potassa ; some phosphoric acid combined with the same bases, and likewise with lime, small quantities of sulphate and muriate of potassa, a little fatty matter, and some quartzose sand.
Page 281 - The rains in our climate must tend very much to injure this species of manure, where it is exposed to them, soon after its deposition ; but it may probably be found in great perfection in caverns or clefts in rocks, haunted by cormorants and gulls. I examined some recent cormorant's dung which I found on a rock near Cape Lizard in Cornwall.
Page 280 - ... of ammonia, which correspond to 16-66 in 100 parts of the dry, or to 15-244 in the natural state; leaving therefore 5 parts for the quantity of potential ammonia, or of ammonia producible from the decomposition of its azotized organic matter. This guano is, therefore, well adapted to promote permanently the fertility of a soil.
Page 281 - It differs in its composition ; but always abounds in substances composed of carbon, hydrogen, azote, and oxygen. From the analysis of Berzelius, it appears that a part of it is always soluble in water ; and in whatever...
Page 275 - ... bases, and likewise with lime, small quantities of sulphate and muriate of potassa, a little fatty matter, and some quartzose sand. It is easy to explain its fertilizing properties: from its composition it might be supposed to be a very powerful manure. It requires water for the solution of its soluble matter, to enable it to produce its full beneficial effect on crops. The dung of...
Page 281 - I examined some recent cormorant's dung which I found on a rock near Cape Lizard in Cornwall. It had not at all the appearance of the guano ; was of a greyish white colour ; had a very foetid smell like that of putrid animal matter: when acted on by quicklime it gave abundance of ammonia ; treated with nitric acid it yielded uric acid.
Page 201 - Winter onions and spinach to be caiefully hand-weeded ; hoe between advancing young crops of coleworts, cabbages, broccoli, savoys, celery, leeks, lettuce, endive, &c., loosening the surface of the earth about the plants, which will beneficially encourage their growth, and the hoeing will also kill many of the slugs and other detrimental vermin lurking in the earth at this season. All vacant ground should be forwarded by dunging, when necessary, and digging the ground in ridges to improve for planting...
Page 53 - ... four rows lengthways in each bed, in drills or small narrow trenches five or six inches deep, cut out with a spade, forming thereby one side of each drill upright ; so setting in the plants against the upright side, a foot asunder, with the crown of the roots about two inches below the surface, covering in each drill as planted equally with the earth; and then rake the surface of the beds lightly over. They will produce in three years, not earlier; but the same...
Page vi - His pipe was his first companion in the morning, and last at night. He never remembered to have taken a dose of physic in his life, prior to his last fatal accident, nor having a day's illness but one.

Bibliographic information