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VEGETABLE MANURES

Seaweed is about equivalent to horse dung in fertilizing ingredients, but contains much more potash. The major part of the common salt present on seaweed should be hosed off it before it is spread; the small remaining quantity of salt is soon washed from it and later from the soil. Seaweed decom­poses quickly and is free from weed- or grass-seeds; it is often unpleasant in odour.

Sawdust, especially that from eucalypts and pine woods, was once regarded as poisonous to garden soils, but nowadays many people advocate the use of any type of sawdust as one of best organic plant foods, and advise dressings even three inches thick. Others use it in combination with seaweed, but no matter how it is used it needs the addition of some highly nitro­genous manure to help in its disintegration. Add this some weeks later.

Wood ashes are rich in calcium and contain quantities of potash, but this latter salt quickly leaches out if exposed to rain. They are alkaline.

Some authorities consider that soot has been overrated as a fertilizer; it is almost pure carbon, none of which is of any use to plants. It contains valuable traces of minor elements, but its main value is in its nitrogen content. It appears to have some power in keeping soil free from certain types of plant diseases.

Dolomite is a natural limestock rock containing forty per cent of magnesium carbonate and sixty per cent of calcium carbonate. Where available it is a cheap and effective medium for supplying both elements. It is alkaline, but this is neutral­ized by mixing it with compost or other organic manure. It is especially useful in Australia's coastal districts which are deficient in magnesium.

Mallee-root dust is partly earth and partly decomposed vegetable matter. It has come from districts that are very rich in magnesium and iron, and so is a good ingredient to add to our light coastal soils, where these elements are defi­cient. It is very acid, and is probably best used in the compost heap.

Green crops are easy to use before planting a bed with roses, and all soils can be improved by them. In growing, they take food from the earth, but when dug in they provide even greater amounts, as well as becoming humus, and by that means, as well as by their root-growth while living, they help greatly in aeration. The commonest crops grown are legumes, Cape barley, and Algerian oats. Weeds can be regarded in the same light; they should be allowed to grow throughout the winter for reasons already stated. They can be trampled under­foot during pruning, but should be removed in early or mid August. Deep digging is inadvisable among rose plants. The weed roots should be cut no deeper than six inches, and the green matter turned in or removed to the compost heap. The crops should always be used while still young. The cheapest form of nitrogenous manure is a leguminous crop, the plants of which absorb nitrogen from the air into root nodules. In beds of established roses no attempt should be made to remove these roots, which penetrate deeply into the soil. They will be just as valuable as manures if undisturbed, but with the top of the plants severed. Temporary reduction in soil nitrogen follows the digging in of green crops, even the legumes.