There is another matter concerning our manures which requires attention; if they are too fresh or crude they will be apt, if applied to our long growing varieties, to drive the growth too much into the top of the Carrot, to the loss of the root, giving us tops to our knees with roots about the size of a hoe handle. It is important therefore, when used liberally, that they should be somewhat decomposed--that the mixtures should be _composts_, as far as the time will allow, and not mere mixtures. To the shorter varieties the crude manure may be applied with a degree of safety. Here let me note a fact that I think is of general application in farming, viz.:--that a style of manuring that will drive tall growing varieties of vegetables nearly all to tops or vine, with dwarf varieties of the same kind will work admirably. The Pea is a very good illustration; to get a good crop of a dwarf variety, manure liberally, but the same quantity applied to the taller sorts would drive them excessively into vine at the expense of the crop. Don’t make your compost heap on the ground where the crop is to grow, for the result will be no crop where the heap stands. For the same reason it is bad policy to cart out any strong manure to stand on the land in heaps, no matter how small, over winter. There will be nothing lost by spreading the manure over the surface before the ground is frozen. In getting it into the soil, _keep it as near the surface as possible_ without its interfering with the planting of the seed, bearing in mind the nitrogen, that element in manures, about the loss of which by evaporation there is much uncalled for anxiety, tends to work down into the soil. If the manure is coarse it may be applied to the surface in the Fall and be deeply ploughed in, and in the Spring again brought to the surface by ploughing equally deep, having meanwhile received the benefits of frost and moisture.