Does the owner of light, warm soils ask, “What, then, shall I do with my stable-manure, since you have said that it will be an injury to my garden?” I have not said this—­only that it will do harm if applied in its raw, hot, fermenting state.  Compost it with leaves, sod, earth, muck, anything that will keep it from burning up with its own heat.  If you can obtain no such ingredients, have it turned over and exposed to the air so often that it will decay without passing through a process approaching combustion.  When it has become so thoroughly decomposed as to resemble a fine black powder, you have a fertilizer superior to any high-priced patent compound that can be bought.  Further on I will show how it can be used both in this state and also in its crude condition on light soils with the best results.

It is scarcely possible to lay too much stress on this subject of fertilizers.  The soil of the garden-plot looks inert:  so does heavy machinery; but apply to it the proper motive power, and you have activity at once.  Manure is the motive power to soil, and it should be applied in a way and degree to secure the best results.  To produce some vegetables and fruits much is required; in other growths, very little.

In laying out a garden there are several points to be considered.  The proprietor may be more desirous of securing some degree of beauty in the arrangement than of obtaining the highest condition of productiveness.  If this be true, he may plan to make down its centre a wide, gravelled walk, with a grape-arbor here and there, and fruit-trees and flowers in borders on each side of the path.  So far from having any objection to this arrangement, I should be inclined to adopt it myself.  It would be conducive to frequent visits to the garden and to lounging in it, especially if there be rustic seats under the arbors.  I am inclined to favor anything which accords with my theory that the best products of a garden are neither eaten nor sold.  From such a walk down the middle of the garden the proprietor can glance at the rows of vegetables and small fruits on either side, and daily note their progress.  What he loses in space and crops he gains in pleasure.

Nor does he lose much; for if the borders on each side of the path are planted with grape-vines, peach and plum trees, flowers and shrubs, the very ground he walks on becomes part of their root pasturage.  At the same time it must be admitted that the roots will also extend with depleting appetites into the land devoted to vegetables.  The trees and vines above will, to some extent, cast an unwholesome shade.  He who has set his heart on the biggest cabbages and best potatoes in town must cultivate them in ground open to the sky, and unpervaded by any roots except their own.  If the general fruitfulness of the garden rather than perfection in a few vegetables is desired, the borders, with their trees, vines, and flowers, will prove no objection.  Moreover, when it comes to competing in cabbages, potatoes, etc., the proprietor of the Home Acre will find that some Irishman, by the aid of his redolent pig-pen, will surpass him.  The roots and shade extending from his borders will not prevent him from growing good vegetables, if not the largest.