THE FLOEA.L WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 237 



Floral Woeld will, perliaps, wish to know in what consists the 

 preventive process. I can give it in a word. Let the ground be 

 dug a little earlier than usual, and left rough for a week or ten days. 

 Then cart in a good dressing of manure, and have the whole piece 

 trenched, and the manure put in the bottom of each trench. The 

 plant will derive no immediate benefit from the manure, which is an 

 advantage ; for if we have a hard winter, it will endure the frost 

 better in poor soil. Yet the manure is not wasted, for in the spring, 

 when the plant begins to grow again, the roots will have got down 

 on the manure, and in the dry weather of March we shall see the 

 spinach producing huge fat leaves when other things are not growing 

 at all. 



So much for the manure and the plant in their relation. Tou 

 will now ask what about the vermin. Well, the first digging wiU 

 expose the grubs, and the robins, and blackbirds, and rooks — so 

 fond of newly dug or newly ploughed ground — will pick them up by 

 thousands. Then those that escape death that way will be either 

 buried in the trench at the next digging, or exposed to the view of 

 the birds to be devoured. Thus the ground will be well cleansed for 

 a year, and will not want manuring in spring, for the spinach will 

 not consume all the strength of the manure. "When the crop is 

 removed, therefore, a deep digging with a four-tined fork is all it 

 wants to prepare it for any kind of spring seeds, whether green 

 crops or roots. As for other matters, all I need say is, lay out the 

 ground in four-feet beds, use Flander's spinach seed, sow in drills, 

 and thin in good time to six inches apart. All sowings of winter 

 spinach should be finished by the 15th of August. 



T. B. 



STAND THEM IN WATEE. 



HAVE had such remarkable success in the cultivation 

 of plants by standing them in water, that I feel com- 

 pelled to send ^-ou a few lines about it. First, then, 

 let me thank the Floral World for having opened 

 to me a " world," of which a few years ago I knew 

 nothing. It has, indeed, increased my homely pleasures a thousand- 

 fold. Secondly, let me acknowledge that it was from the same 

 entertaining and practical work I first derived the hint that many 

 plants ought, when growing, to have their roots constantly wet. 

 I am no writer, and must say my word in a rough way. 



Calla yEiJiiojjica is not well-grown generally. It does not get 

 enough water. I pot mine in large pots, in a mixture of stiff" loam 

 and rotten dung ; keep tliem in the greenhouse all the winter, giving 

 plenty of water. From the middle of April to the end of October, 

 I keep them out of doors in the full sun, standing in pots inside a 

 tub full of water. Their roots are immersed only about two inches. 

 The effect is wonderful. They grow strong, and are almost always 

 in flower. 



