THE FLORAL WOELD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 3 



It is true, that in open districts on a sandy bottom, dead sticks and rotten 

 timber make a first-rate ingredient for composts, and are of great value in 

 the culture of ferns, but in clays and loams that hold moisture pretty liber- 

 ally, the result of the presence of such materials in contact with the soil, is, 

 in the majority of cases, -what we have described above. Let us, then, for the 

 present, content ourselves by pointing our readers to a few obvious con- 

 clusions, that result from a consideration of the facts already stated. In 

 l^ruuing and. dressing the ground, in gardens where the hedges, walls, 

 &c., interfere with that rapid decomposition of vegetable substances 

 that takes place in open woods and heath-lands, every scrap of Avood 

 should be raked off and burnt. Not a particle of dead twig should be 

 turned in, when shrubberies and borders are pointed over ; and in plant- 

 ing trees and shrubs, every portion of root which may have lost its 

 vigour — as indicated by the inability to form fibres — should be cut clean 

 away ; and, in digging, and all stirrings of the soil, the smallest frag- 

 ments of decaying wood should be picked out with even more care than 

 is bestowed in the removal of twitch and bindweed. Whenever trees 

 and shrubs show signs of declining health, an examination of the roots 

 should be made, in the case of small subjects by at once lifting them, 

 in the case of large trees, by laying a portion of the earth bare, which 

 may be done at this season without injury of the surface fibres if they are 

 treated with becoming tenderness. Wherever the grey coating is found 

 on the underground stems, means should be taken to remove it, and, 

 perhaps, the simplest is a brush with a good washing of water, and the 

 removal, by the knife, of the parts most affected. Where the trees have 

 already lost their beauty, and the roots are found to be coated with the 

 mycelium, they should be at once destroyed, and the Avhole of the tainted 

 soil removed, and its place supplied with fresh material, for no 

 specific has yet been discovered whereby to stop the ravages of this 

 plague ; many experiments have been tried, but they have ended in 

 proving our inability at present to provide a remedy. Another and im- 

 portant conclusion is, that care should be taken, in making up composts, 

 to throw out fragments of stick and wood — which may have been swept 

 up with the dead leaves — and as far as possible let leaves be saved in a 

 cleanly manner, for when mycelium once gets hold of decaying matters, 

 it has a tendency to ramify through the whole mass, as we have often 

 seen, when heaps of moss and leaves have been stacked to rot into arti- 

 ficial peat, and which, if used with the fungi in it, would only prove the 

 death of every shrub with which it came in contact. One frequent cause 

 of the growth of the mycelium is the use of wooden stakes as supports to 

 trees and shrubs. jSIany a valuable collection of roses has been lost by 

 the insidious working among their roots of the mould engendered by 

 decaying stakes. In nurseries, where the stock is under constant super- 

 vision, and frequently transplanted, this does not occur, but in private 

 gardens, stakes are put in and left to rot in the ground. The fungus first 

 attacks the base of the stake, gets a firm hold of the decaying timber, 

 then spreads to the roots of the rose, for which it appears to have a pain- 

 ful partiality, and, in the coiirse of two or three seasons, completes its ruin. 

 Many who tolerate scrubby standard roses, that give only two or three 

 blooms a year, would discover that the hope of improvement is a forlorn 

 hope, if they were to examine the stake and the few roots that remain. 



