This chapter is longer than I wanted to make it, but the problem of how
best to enrich the soil is the most difficult one in the whole business
of gardening, and the degree of your success in growing vegetables will
be measured pretty much by the extent to which you master it. You
cannot do it at one reading. Re-read this chapter, and when you
understand the several subjects mentioned, in the brief way which
limited space made necessary, pursue them farther in one of the several
comprehensive books on the subject. It will well repay all the time you
spend upon it. Because, from necessity, there has been so much of
theory mixed up with the practical in this chapter, I shall very
briefly recapitulate the directions for just what to do, in order that
the subject of manuring may be left upon the same practical basis
governing the rest of the book.

To make your garden rich enough to grow big crops, buy the most
thoroughly worked over and decomposed manure you can find. If it is
from grain-fed animals, and if pigs have run on it, it will be better
yet. If possible, buy enough to put on at the rate of about twenty
cords to the acre; if not, supplement the manure, which should be
plowed under, with 500 to 1500 pounds of high-grade mixed fertilizer
(analyzing nitrogen four per cent., phosphoric acid eight per cent.,
potash ten per cent.)--the quantity in proportion to the amount of
manure used, and spread on broadcast after plowing and thoroughly
harrowed in. In addition to this general enrichment of the soil,
suitable quantities of nitrate of soda, for nitrogen; bone dust (or
acid phosphate), for phosphoric acid; and sulphate of potash, for
potash, should be bought for later dressings, as suggested in cultural
directions for the various crops.

If the instructions in the above paragraph are followed out you may