The old sayings that distance lend enchantment and familiarity breed contempt were never more applicable than to that lowly but all-important garden commodity — barnyard manure. When it was to be had almost for the asking, we avoided reference to it when among gentle people.
If it became necessary to mention it, we used the term fertilizer, or, possibly, if in a mood of utter abandon, we might say barnyard fertilizer.
Now that it is as challenging to come by as that other precious material stored at Fort Knox, we seem to have lost some of our shyness.
Could it be that our reluctance in years gone by to mention time commodity and give it due credit when extolling the virtues of our roses or chrysanthemums has brought the curse of the modern gardener, the absence of barnyard manure?
Our attitude toward waste has been as reprehensible as though we were ashamed of the solid timber that supports it while pointing out the ornamental features of a stately mansion.
From The Good Book
We have Biblical authority for giving animal manure due credit. In the last chapter of St. Luke, we find the parable of the fig tree that bore no fruit for three years.
The owner, losing patience and having no county agent to consult, ordered his steward to “cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground.”
But the dresser of the vineyard knew his stuff. He probably had attended the ancient equivalent of our modern state college of agriculture. Then, remonstrating, he said, “Lord, let it alone this year also till I dig about it and dung it.”
The inference is that the treatment brought satisfactory results, as has been the case repeatedly under similar circumstances ever since.
English gardeners may read their Bible more diligently than Americans, or they are naturally more honest in their desire to give credit where credit is due. In any event, two articles in recent issues of the delightful British publication, My Garden, pay honest tribute to barnyard manure.
Half A Crown A Load
Major C. S. Jarvis writes of allowing himself to be enticed by following a “lorry laden with that highly scented but most desirable adjunct to successful horticulture that is rarely seen and almost unobtainable for the ordinary gardener today.
This,” he continues, “was a load of well-rotted farmyard manure (the same as our barnyard product) of quite superfine quality and was able to judge of its merits owing to my close and down-wind proximity to it.”
The Major further punishes himself by allowing his mind to dwell on “the days when first-class farmyard manure was obtainable in unlimited quantities—at about half a crown a Scotch cartload.”
Now, what I know about the British monetary system is precious little – but I would guess that half a crown is some unit in that system. Prized though it may be, a Scotch cart load of manure isn’t worth half the British crown in its imperial sense – at least in my opinion.
Major Jarvis pays authentic tribute to the short supply of manure when he refers to the necessity of hauling the commodity 100 miles after finding a farmer willing to sell a load at a reasonable price.
Another article in the same publication leaves not the least vestige of doubt that the commodity used in the parable to resuscitate the fig tree has been accepted for its true worth by those of gentle breeding.
This last article by Miss C. C. Vyvyan tells in an intriguing manner of her conniving with a titled English woman to gather sheep dung from public parks for a lot of ailing tomatoes.
She gives information, from first-hand experience, on how to approach problems of collecting the “nubbles” – we would say pellets in her sack while romantic young couples were seated about on the grass of the park.
She Stifled Her Misgivings
Stalking the quarry – not the sheep, since she early learned that aged nubbles are carried with somewhat more satisfaction in a sack than are fresh ones — she approached a collection with a certain nonchalance, being concerned only with the beauty of the day. She discreetly scraped the nubbles into the sack after she became a part of the landscape.
Miss Vyvyan confesses to some misgivings regarding property rights in such a situation. Did the quarry “come under the heading of mineral rights? Was it a treasure trove and confiscated by the Crown?” That legal question only bothered me a little bit. But, she tells us, “I stifled my misgivings.”
She testifies to “. . . a sense of elation as of one who seeks a fortune with high hopes, and if, in the next hour or so, I find some excrement of sheep, why I shall break into paeans of victory as if I had discovered Eldorado.” The sheep manure was as effective with the tomato plants as was the digging and dunging treatment given the fig tree.
Suppose any additional evidence is needed that manure has been accepted as a reputable commodity. In that case, it is found in the case of a patrician neighbor of ours who spoke in awed and grateful terms of a truckload of barnyard manure that she received as a Christ mas present.
Then I knew that anciently honorable material was again on the preferred list of cultured gardeners. (If this practice becomes popular, the price will reach the inflationary level. Editor’s Note)
With all prejudice obliterated, I delved into the subject. Figuratively, that is, though one longed to do so literally.
My heart skipped a beat when I read in a farm paper, “Manure in this city is usually sold by the two-horse-load — about 1 1/2 tons – at the rate of $1.00 per load or 660 per ton.” But that was in Toronto in 1876.
In Poor Repute In Kansas
An appraisal of the general esteem in which barnyard manure was held in Kansas back at the beginning of the last quarter of the 19th century is found in a letter written by E. M. Shelton, Professor of Agriculture at Kansas State Agricultural College.
Noting from Manhattan under MOT 5, 1876, Professor Shelton said, “Stable manure in this vicinity is held in very light estimation. Indeed by the householders of this city and quite generally by farmers, manure is regarded as one of those things – like drouth and grasshoppers – with which a mysterious providence sees fit to clog the operations of the husbandman.
The great bulk of stable manure made in this city is, every spring, carted into ravines and vacant lots – wherever, in short, with least expensive, it can be put out of reach of the senses.”
Massachusetts Knows
But there were prophets of the value of despised stable manure in this new country of ours more than 100 years ago. In 1844 the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture awarded Samuel L. Dana $100 for the best essay on manure.
Mr. Dana was a bit overenthusiastic when he wrote, “It (manure) contains all the plants need for their growth.”
We know much more today about manure than did the fig tree dresser, Professor Shelton or Mr. Dana. And we are resourceful enough to master the problem of gardening in an age when trucks and cars have eliminated the horse from city streets, and the family cow is no more.
Still, if you know someone who keeps a horse or a cow and is unusually generous or lacking in an appreciation of barnyard manure, try to bargain with him for a truckload or two. If you are successful, you have the characteristics of a business executive.
Compost, green manure, and commercial fertilizer will do the job. However, if you are an old-time gardener, nothing satisfies like smelling good garden loam and barnyard manure as they mingle at garden-making time.
44659 by R. R. Thomasson