1879.] SOIL FOR FRUIT-TREES, ROSES, ETC. 39 



and consequently the improved cultivation which has brought these 

 departments into their very high state of cultivation has absorbed too 

 much of the attention which ought to have been given to our hardy 

 fruits and our kitchen-garden soils. We by no means blame gardeners 

 for this state of matters. Fashion has led to our present demand for 

 sensational parterres and perennial supplies of cut-flowers and decora- 

 tive plants, and many gardeners have had to meet an overwhelming 

 increase of work without any addition to their staff, and the inevit- 

 able result is neglect somewhere. But though this is true, it is also 

 true that many do not give these matters the attention they might do 

 and which they deserve. Our opinion is that soils are injured through 

 getting too much farmyard straw dug into them. We have a great 

 antipathy to soils which have lost the brown colour of their virginity, 

 and we are certainly of opinion that with proper treatment they ought 

 not to lose it. Were less stableyard straw dug into the soil, and its 

 place supplied by the urine which is often wasted, this result would not 

 so readily ensue. Practically it is an impossibility to turn brown 

 loam into black garden-earth with urine — and practically the very 

 finest kitchen-garden crops can be raised by its aid with very little 

 solid manure, and the less straw the better. And many of our arti- 

 ficial manures might be profitably employed for the same purpose. 

 And the same means which are useful to prevent soil losing its best 

 properties are of equal use in restoring what is often called worn-out 

 soil ; and if deep trenching was called into aid the results would be 

 better still. We have sometimes seen portions of large kitchen - 

 gardens laid down in grass, kept close by sheep, and the improvement 

 effected was immense. We once had a hand in clearing out the whole 

 of the beds of a large parterre, and replacing it by soil from the 

 kitchen-garden, and the results were most favourable. What we have 

 written is not theory merely : we have proved it to be fact, and the 

 course laid down we are in the habit of following. Loam is not always 

 attainable, and in cases of this kind it becomes a double reason for 

 maintaining the soils we cultivate as near that condition as possible ; 

 for although a change of soil for permanent plants is certainly as 

 advantageous as for temporary crops, it is also as certainly true that 

 permanent plants often — almost always — do ill because their roots 

 are in unsuitable soil. When the soil is right the trees them- 

 selves find a change, because the roots are ever extending outwards 

 to "fresh fields and pastures new;" and learning the lesson 

 thus taught, we ought, when we lift and root -prune, to fill in 

 the pit with other soil than that removed, even although the soil may 

 seem quite the same. No plant takes quite the same kind of food 

 from the soil as its fellow, and although we may only make an ex- 



