8 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



seed-sowing season arrives. The digging of the border should be 

 commenced as soon as the first favourable weather occurs after this 

 is read. This winter stirring of the soil will prove of great benefit, 

 for it will let in air and water, and it will break up the lower 

 stratum of earth, which, in so many instances, proves a stubborn 

 barrier to the roots of plants that would, if they could, penetrate 

 deep in the search of food ; more than this, it opens the ground to 

 the influence of that best of all fertilizers, the frost, rendering it 

 more friable and kindly for future working, to say nothing about its 

 sweetening and pulverizing influence. Yet few appear to under- 

 stand that this work is as essential for flowers as for vegetables ; 

 but why should it not be ? If it is necessary to trench deeply 

 and manure heavily for vegetables, surely, to a certain extent, the 

 same principle applies to flower-beds and borders. At all events, 

 my own experience convinces me that to grow flowers successfully 

 in the same beds or borders, year after year, requires the treatment 

 I am now advocating for the Ladies' Garden. There are hundreds, 

 nay, thousands of small gardens, in which the soil at six inches under 

 the surface has not seen the light of day for many a long year ; the 

 top crust has had its yearly scratching, perhaps from the man who 

 "does "the garden. Poor man, I pity his lot, when he is only 

 allowed one day to do the work which, if properly and honestly 

 done, would take two, and yet the disappointed proprietor grumbles 

 when things go wrong. 



If our fair readers have hitherto thought it unnecessary to have 

 their beds and borders properly dug up, what will they say when I 

 tell them that it is also necessary to manure them occasionally, 

 which it is, as much to a certain extent for flowers as for vege- 

 tables, only that a different class of manure would serve for flowers. 

 The poor, trashy soil round the suburbs of London, and other large 

 towns, requires it more particularly ; but in every case it is essen- 

 tial to success. To convince us of this, let us, for a moment, 

 consider the nature of a few herbaceous plants, and see how their 

 characters of growth agree with some of the members of the kitchen 

 garden to which manure is applied without question. We will 

 first look at the nature of the dahlia. Why, its gross feeding pro- 

 pensities would rob any spot of more nourishment than a cauliflower. 

 The phlox, and scores of other things like the hollyhock, the pent- 

 stemon, and antirrhinum, would require equally as much nourishment 

 as a cabbage. Then with regard to beds of verbenas or geraniums, 

 they also exhaust the soil of its nutritive substances, and therefore 

 some matter that will replenish them is necessary, or an uninter- 

 rupted course of success cannot follow. 



In every case, where there is a piece of grass, and a few trees, 

 a capital manure may be made year after year. There are hundreds 

 of waggon-loads of such matter thrown to waste every year out of 

 small gardens, which might, if properly used, be turned to good 

 account. Many, perhaps, will reply to this remark, that we have 

 not room in our limited places to store away the rubbish of the 

 garden ; but that excuse will not bear examination, because a hole, 

 six feet square, and three feet deep, with a few plants of laurels, or 



