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Compost   /kˈɑmpoʊst/   Listen
Compost

noun
1.
A mixture of decaying vegetation and manure; used as a fertilizer.



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"Compost" Quotes from Famous Books



... Dressing, Pruning, and Governing the Plantation; of the Ordering and Cultivating the Vine-yard after the first four years, till it needs renewing; as also of the manner and time, how and when to manure the Vine-yard, with Compost, will be better understood from the Book it self, than can be here described; the Author pretending, that, those few observations of his, as the native production of his own Experience, being practised with care, the Vine-yards in England ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... What a chasm divides the electric pastime of these savages from the discovery of a metallic conductor discharging its electric shocks, or a pile composed of many chemically-decomposing substances, or a light-engendering magnetic apparatus! In such a chasm lie buried thousands of years that compost the history of the intellectual development ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... Dates in compost. Creme motley. Carpe. Dorrey. Turbut. Tench. Peerch with gogyns. Sturgeon fresshe. Welkes. Porpes rostid. Memise fried. Creves de ewe douce. Shrympes grosse. Elis with laumprons rostid. A Lessh callid the White Lessh, with hauthorne leves grene and redd hawes. A mete in paste with iiij aungels ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous

... matter of fact, proposals have been made by noted scientists to utilize pulverized rock of this kind as compost to assist the fields in a natural way, and so to restore them to their former producing power, which would thus enable plants, animals, and man, alike, to regain those substances indispensable to proper sanguification ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... French work on gardening thinks that green turf may be obtained in France by trenching the ground, freeing it from stones, covering the surface with two or three inches of rich compost, and then laying on the turf. The improved soil, he thinks, will retain moisture sufficient to keep the turf growing all the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various

... years! Vegetables dash out of the husbandman's garden to reappear at the city market. Madame Deschars, who possesses a gate-keeper that is at the same time a gardener, confesses that the vegetables raised on her land, beneath her glass frames, by dint of compost and top-soil, cost her twice as much as those she used to buy at Paris, of a woman who had rent and taxes to pay, and whose husband was an elector. Despite the efforts and pledges of the gate-keeper-gardener, early peas and things at Paris are a month in advance ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac

... mechanical Gerund-grinder, the like of whom will, in a subsequent century, be manufactured at Nurnberg out of wood and leather, foster the growth of anything; much more of Mind, which grows, not like a vegetable (by having its roots littered with etymological compost), but like a spirit, by mysterious contact of Spirit; Thought kindling itself at the fire of living Thought? How shall he give kindling, in whose own inward man there is no live coal, but all is burnt out to a dead grammatical cinder? The Hinterschlag Professors knew syntax enough; and of the ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... grasshoppers' legs and wings, parts of frogs and toads, and the little pellets usually ejected by owls in the process of digestion. I also found that these mounds were invariably covered by an animal compost gathered from the surrounding prairie. I resolved to put my theory to the test by digging into one of these holes. Here the Indian boy was a great help, as he thoroughly knew his verb "to dig." I followed ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... Cetonia-larva that it is enough in itself to reveal the grub's identity to the least expert eyes. Dig into the vegetable mould formed by the decayed wood in the hollow trunks of old willow-trees, search at the foot of rotten stumps or in heaps of compost; and, if you come upon a plumpish grub moving along on its back, there is no room for doubt: your ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... For well thou know'st, 'tis not the extent Of land makes life, but sweet content. When now the cock, the ploughman's horn, Calls forth the lily-wristed morn, Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go, Which though well-soil'd, yet thou dost know That the best compost for the lands Is the wise master's feet and hands. There at the plough thou find'st thy team, With a hind whistling there to them; And cheer'st them up by singing how The kingdom's portion is the plough. This done, then to th' enamell'd meads, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... rejoiced in the rains of Bavaria, there was no cause for glee in those torrents of Glencoe, for they made our passage through the country more difficult and more dangerous than it was before. The snow on the ground was for hours a slushy compost, that the foot slipped on at every step, or that filled the brogue with a paste that nipped like brine. And when the melting snow ran to lower levels, the soil itself, relaxing the rigour of its frost, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... Bacon's Treatise concerning the Cure of Old Age, and Preservation of Youth: There being nothing so proper for Sallet Herbs and other Edule Plants, as the Genial and Natural Mould, impregnate, and enrich'd with well-digested Compost (when requisite) without any Mixture of Garbage, odious Carrion, and other filthy Ordure, not half consum'd and ventilated and indeed reduc'd to the next Disposition of Earth it self, as it should be; and that in Sweet, [72]Rising, ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn

... the most of his gifts and accomplishments. It is the superficial stratum in which praise and blame find their sphere of action,—the region of comparisons,—the habitat where envy and jealousy are to be looked for, if they have not been weeded out and flung into the compost-heap of dead vices, with which, if we understand moral husbandry, we fertilize our living virtues. It is quite foolish to abuse this thin upper layer of our mental soil. The grasses do not strike their roots deep ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... They are now well established, and only receive a top dressing of leaves and manure to keep them cool and moist in summer. At the same time a number were potted deeply in loam, peat, and broken oyster shells; when filling in the compost, it, too, was washed to the roots, so as to make all solid by frequent applications; the pots have always been kept in cool and shady quarters, and plunged; they bloom well every season. I have likewise found another plan ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... basement and board up the sides. Place the roots in it until the crowns are just covered, and about 2 inches apart, in rows 6 to 8 inches apart then place on top about 8 inches of any kind of light covering such as leaf mold or other light compost. This must be light or otherwise the heads which will grow from the crown will open out instead of keeping firmly closed and conically shaped. On the top of the light soil, manure (if it can be procured fresh, all the better) should be placed to a thickness of about 12 inches, or even more. This ...
— Vaughan's Vegetable Cook Book (4th edition) - How to Cook and Use Rarer Vegetables and Herbs • Anonymous

... one can see at least six Persian walnut trees higher than the house tops. Pollination is not a problem, and all trees are good producers. Young trees are in demand for planting, and seedling trees, coming up in the flower beds, compost piles, fence corners, and other places where squirrels have hidden nuts, are carefully transplanted ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... nor shepe to compost nor dung his land withall. Then let the husband take his ploughe, and cast al such landes three or four tymes togider, and make theyr rigge theyr as ye raine was before.... And so shel he finde new moulde, that was not sene in an hundred yeres before, the which must nedes gyue ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley

... grateful mixture of well-matched And sorted hues (each giving each relief, And by contrasted beauty shining more) Is needful. Strength may wield the ponderous spade, May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home, But elegance, chief grace the garden shows And most attractive, is the fair result Of thought, the creature of a polished mind. Without it, all is Gothic as the scene To which the insipid citizen resorts, Near yonder heath; where industry misspent, But proud of ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... after the 24th day of June, 1732, all and every the goods, wares, and merchandises, and other commodities, carried and conveyed on the said River Ouse, above Wharfe mouth, except such manure, dung, compost, or lime only, as shall be water borne, and used and applied in tillage; and also except all timber, stone, and other materials, made use of in or about the works necessary for improving of the navigation of the said river, shall ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee

... a crop the first season, but much more the second. In field culture they will continue profitable for several years, provided that each autumn the tops are cut off near the ground and a liberal dressing of manure, compost or even rich soil is given. In ordinary garden practice it is well also to observe this plan, but usually mint is there allowed to shift for itself, along with the horseradish and the Jerusalem artichoke when such plants are grown. ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains

... bones. "The earth is invisible," says he, .... "and which is more, the eye of man never saw the earth, nor can it be seen without art. To make this element visible is the greatest secret in magic .... As for this feculent, gross body upon which we walk, it is a compost, and no earth but it hath earth in it .... in a word, all the elements are visible but one, namely, the earth: and when thou hast attained to so much perfection as to know why God hath placed the earth in abscondito, thou hast an excellent figure whereby to know God himself, and how he ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... fertilization of cultivated fields and these contributions in the aggregate have been large. In China, in Korea and in Japan all but the inaccessible portions of their vast extent of mountain and hill lands have long been taxed to their full capacity for fuel, lumber and herbage for green manure and compost material; and the ash of practically all of the fuel and of all of the lumber used at home finds its way ultimately ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King

... speaks: It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; Repent what's past; avoid what is to come; And do not spread the compost on the weeds, To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue; For in the fatness of these pursy times Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, Yea, curb and woo for leave ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... be well if we accepted these gifts with more joy and gratitude, and did not think it enough simply to put a fresh load of compost about the tree. Some old English customs are suggestive at least. I find them described chiefly in Brand's "Popular Antiquities." It appears that "on Christmas eve the farmers and their men in Devonshire take ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau

... be possible thing without they see it natheless they are so. And these fishes lie in an oily water brought there from Portugal land because of the fatness that therein is like to the juices of the olivepress. And also it was a marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make a compost out of fecund wheatkidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of certain angry spirits that they do in to it swells up wondrously like to a vast mountain. And they teach the serpents there to entwine themselves up on long sticks out of the ground ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... set Bagley to work with the cart spreading upon the soil the barn-yard compost that had accumulated since spring. There was not enough to cover all the ground, but that I could not help. The large pile of compost that I had made near the poultry-house door could not be spared for this purpose, since it was destined for ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... helpless innocents to clothe and keep; I have my daily calls on every side, Churches remote and gleve and pasture wide, Great herds of breeding cattle, ghostly sheep— All to be watched and cared for, clipt and fed, Grain to be winnowed, compost to be spread;— Wanted all day in shippon and in stall, What time have I ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... sposh [U.S.]. spawn, offal, gurry [U.S.]; lientery^; garbage, carrion; excreta &c 299; slough, peccant humor, pus, matter, suppuration, lienteria^; faeces, feces, excrement, ordure, dung, crap [Vulg.], shit [Vulg.]; sewage, sewerage; muck; coprolite; guano, manure, compost. dunghill, colluvies^, mixen^, midden, bog, laystall^, sink, privy, jakes; toilet, john, head; cess^, cesspool; sump, sough, cloaca, latrines, drain, sewer, common sewer; Cloacina; dust hole. sty, pigsty, lair, den, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... compounds, some of them, indeed, being dissipated into the air, but other portions are retained and then oxidized, and these latter become the real fertilizing materials. Through the agency of bacteria the compost heap thus becomes the great source of plant food to the farmer. Into this compost heap he throws garbage, straw, vegetable and animal substances in general, or any organic refuse which may be at hand. The various bacteria seize it all, ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn

... inquisitor; but in the act of setting foot at its entrance, the trap opened, and the world of the living heard no more of him. I examined some of the earth found in the pit below this trap; it was a compost of common earth, rottenness, ashes, and human hair, fetid to the smell, and horrible to the sight and to ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson



Words linked to "Compost" :   composition, compost heap, convert



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