138 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN aUIDE. 



that ground broken on tlie surface absorbs an immense quantity, and, 

 perhaps, that is all that need be said about it. Suffice it that in practice 

 the use of the hoe or small fork to break the surface is as good and better 

 than a heavy watering, independent of the killing of weeds and the pro- 

 motion of cleanliness. Now, to use water, the plan that makes the most 

 of it is the one to be preferred. If you cannot soak out-door plants to the 

 root, do not water them at the root at all. A mere moistening of the 

 ground is more harm than good, for it brings the roots to the surface, and 

 the next blaze of sunshine will burn them ; but you may keep them moist, 

 nevertheless, by means of the syringe. Suppose a row, or bed, or large 

 mass of any kind of plants established in the ground, and watering to be 

 impossible ; after sunset ply the syringe or garden-engine, so as to tho- 

 roughly wet the foliage ; or, if it cannot be done at night, do it early in 

 the morning, while the leaves are yet wet with dew ; but the night is pre- 

 ferable, as during the cool hours the plants will absorb the whole of it, and 

 the coolness of the leaves will induce upon them a heavier deposit of dew. 

 On light soils wonders rcaxj be done by mulching, not only in such a hot, 

 dry season as this, but in all seasons and all weathers, while plants are in 

 growth. "We can hit upon nothing better for mulching than stable-dung, 

 the old-fashioned friend, and the fresher the better, even if but just re- 

 moved from the stable-floor. But littery dung is very unsightly, and all 

 mulchings attract vermin. These are the objections that force themselves 

 most prominently iipon our attention whenever mulching is proposed in 

 summer time. A heavy mulch now of fresh short dung would do wonders 

 for the second bloom of roses, and render watering the ground quite un- 

 neces3arJ^ Of course no amount of mulching will do away with the 

 necessity or advisability of drenching overhead, and to wet the foliage 

 of roses regularly after sundown is to increase their beauty tenfold. 



]N"ow, here is another use of water of which the roses remind us, 

 namely, that it is an inveterate vermin killer. We have scarcelj- seen a 

 green-fly yet this season ; our roses are as clean as if j ust modelled in 

 wax or paper. But we were troubled with fly on some potted peaches 

 wholly through cutting off their supplies of drink. Those peaches, when 

 almost leafless, were set together in a batch, and the syringe used with a 

 one-hole hose with all the force possible. The flies were drifted we know 

 not where, and in three weeks those trees were breaking beautifully, and 

 in good time to make their wood and ripen it. There are no flies that 

 can endure water, especially if used with force and repeated frequently. 

 Brown scale will not appear on plants that are kept familiar with the 

 syringe, and grabs of all kinds, like dirty people that they are, hate 

 water, and pronounce it objectionably wet. 



There arc hundreds of other ways of turning water to account, apart 

 altogether from the regular routine of what is called "watering." In 

 plain truth, it is well to "know when not to give it, and the truth must be 

 told that indiscriminate watering is mischievous, and should not be tole- 

 rated in ?a\j garden pretending to be well kept. All plants not of a 

 decidedly marsh or aquatic habitat will do better if left to themselves — 

 that is to say, when once they get hold of the ground — than by fortuitous 

 sprinklings. A moistening of the sui'face will cause them to send fibres 

 upward where the sun will burn them, but an absence of surface water 

 will cause them to send their roots down where there is moisture enough 

 to sustaia them till the next rain comes. But marshy plants, such as 



