Well this was the principal of the old "French gardening" and later the "Hot
bed" you took out around 6 to 8 inches of soil then built a heap of about 2
ft of fresh Horse manure to form Beds around 6ft wide, then the soil was put
back on top to form the beds, after the heap had heated up and the "Manure"
was cooling down then the beds were planted with a variety of veg.
This was the first form of soil warming, and worked very well, and you can
immagine what the soil become like after 20 or 30 years of this form of
growing.
In the ld french gardening you used around 300 tons of manure to the acre of
garden, but when horses were the only form of transport you had no problem
geting the quantities, and any way if the folkes in the Big house had a
stable of a dozen or so horses you were fairly self supporting for manure
for the garden.
Ahhhhhh....... those were the days.

--
David Hill
Abacus Nurseries
www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk