July 14, 1863. ] 



JOTJBNAL OF HOBTICULTUEE AKD COTTAaE GARDENER. 



39 



supply is a very serious consideration, that such glorious 

 days and bright suns bring irith them any feeling of anxiety 

 and alarm. This great water question has for a long time 

 been like a coil of ropes round our legs, impeding freedom 

 of action. If a bit of envy should ever enter and find a short 

 resting-place in ou_r mind, it would be from seeing a garden 

 where \vater in abundance was ever present, and where, by 

 the mere placing a pipe on a tap, quarters of Strawberries 

 and vegetables might be flooded at will. There can hardly 

 be a comparison made between such a place and another 

 in which water must be dribbled out as if it were wine. 

 The practical deduction to di-aw would be the importance 

 of securing such water-sixpply for the site of a garden, and 

 the imprudence of fixing on the top of a hill for a garden, 

 and especially if there was much done in the way of bedding 

 plants, the water to be depended on being merely that which 

 can be caught from the atmosphere. 



We are rather pleased than otherwise that the hint the 

 other week about landlords building cottages and leaving 

 the tenants to scoiu- the ditches and dirty pools by the 

 highway for water has so far told. Entering into particulars 

 is out of the question. Kindly intentioned improvement — 

 not bitter acrimonious criticism or exposure — will ever be 

 our motto and i^ractiee in such matters. We ai-e well aware 

 of what one correspondent tells us, " that many landlords 

 wordd be bonified at such a state of things, which exists 

 solely from their ignorance of the matter, and from no want 

 of kindly sympathy." Then would it not be good policy to 

 try in a quiet way to dispel that ignorance ? PhUosophers 

 may debate, and never settle, how far, if at all, human cha- 

 racter is moulded by mere circumstajuces. Simple obser- 

 vation tells us that there are men of such strength of deter- 

 mination as to rise superior to all circumstances of position, 

 however seemingly unfavoiu'able. With the mass of us 

 common folks circumstances exert a most powernil influence. 

 Look at that little girl, who, with the instinctive love of the 

 beautiful so largely inherited by woman, is as much or more 

 pleased with her pretty new frock than the beUe of the 

 ball-room is with her satin and pearls. Would she be so 

 likely to roU in the dust and the mud (though children may 

 do much worse), as if clothed vrith a ragged garment, so 

 •Jirty that it would require a microscope to speak of its 

 colours ? We could instance the wonderfid transformations, 

 even in outside appearances, eft'ected by moving a family 

 from a tumble-down ricketty homestead, and settling them 

 in a nice cottage, on the conditions that cottage and garden 

 were to be kept clean, and the latter weU ciiltivated. Even 

 in such a cottage, however, a woman's attempts at cleanli- 

 ness and honest respectability of position, must be greatly 

 neutralised if she must hunt the ditches to get even a little 

 of muddy water. If a few more landlords woidd inquire 

 into such matters for themselves, we would be delighted. 



StJEFACE-STIERINu. 



The general reader will, we trust, excuse the above di- 

 gression as to pure water for cottages. The want of plenty 

 of water in the garden has caused us to resort to many 

 makeshifts. Surface-stirring is one of the most generally 

 applicable. From several notes received there seem to be 

 much doubt and darkness stdl existing on the subject. One 

 lady tells us that her plants are dying, that the ground is 

 very hard on the surface and is cracking in many places, and 

 that she imagines that if she slightly forked over her ground 

 she would be stUl worse off, as the heated air would pene- 

 trate and dry up her soil more and more, until the roots 

 could find no moisture to nourish them. The cli-y hard- 

 baked surface of many a border and bed is sufficient evi- 

 dence that such an idea is very general. It is, however, 

 based on a thorough fallacy. Here, however, let us note 

 that an excess of luxuriant growth and an excess of fruitful- 

 ness are two very distinct tilings. To secure great fruit- 

 fulness at the expense of diminished growth the soU. can 

 scarcely be too firm, either at the surface or anywhere else. 

 To secure rapid growth the soil should be more loose, and 

 the surface open enough to receive the air and its oxygen. 

 Thus, to secure a dwarf standard or pyramidal Apple tree, 

 we must resort to means somewhat different from those we 

 should adopt for securing a very large head of CaiUifJower, 

 In the first case we should have what firmness we could, with 

 as much mulching or more moving of the surface as would 



prevent cracking, and in the second we would have deeper 

 than sui^face-stirrings of the sod in order that air should get 

 to the roots, that the roots themselves might be multiplied, 

 and thus the organs increased for sucking up the rich 

 waterings presented to them. We have often seen a piece 

 of ground in Cabbages that had become case-hardened in 

 April or earlier wonderfully improved in its appearance in 

 twenty-four hours merely fi-om deep surface-stirring, .'5ay 

 3 or 4 or more inches deep— a very different thing as respects 

 roots and afr from mere surface-scratching with a Dutch 

 hoe, &e., though that, too, has its uses and iidvantages. 

 By such means the air is admitted, to effect mechanical and 

 chemical combinations with the materials in the soil ; but 

 the great effect iipon the Cabbages is not produced so much 

 by letting heat in and moisture out as our correspondent, 

 by her reasoning, liught suppose, as by quite contrary means 

 — namely, the keeping the moisture in and the heat out. 



On this principle, when we wish to get a mass of soU as 

 much heated as possible by the sun's rays, we would have 

 the soil firm and the exposed surface smooth and level rather 

 than rough. Hence, when we have wished to obtain very- 

 early Cauliflower imder hand-glasses, we have kept the sur- 

 face of the sod. rather smooth and firm ia early spring, that 

 the great stimulus of heat should get down to the roots, and 

 then as the leaves began to shade the ground and we could 

 receive little help from dii-eet absorption and conduction of 

 sun heat, we have then stirred the soU. for the purposes 

 ali-eady stated. All this we should do on the simple prin- 

 ciple that, as a general ride, bodies absorb, conduct, and 

 radiate heat in proportion to their density. Thus, if we 

 place a two-foot rod of seasoned wood in the fii-e, we may 

 hold the end of the rod without feeling any inconvenience 

 imtU the flame of the burning wood comes too near- to us ; 

 but if we place a simUar bar of iron ia the fire, the end 

 which we grasp w-ould soon be too hot for us. In such an 

 experiment the wood should be old and seasoned. We 

 reeoUect long ago, when burning a piece of green wet Ash 

 and holding "it by the end, it got so hot that we thought we 

 had discovered some unknown heat-conducting power in the 

 Ash; but we had done nothing of the kind— the moistiure in 

 the wood was heated by the fire, and was thus forced though 

 the pores and vessels of the wood, just as steam or hot water 

 rises from a boUer. 



We come, then, to two conclusions— first, that firm soU is by 

 absorption and conduction sooner and more highly heated 

 by the sun, and just so much sooner cooled by radiation of 

 heat when the atmosphere is colder than the ground, 

 than a loose open soU would be ; and, therefore, surface-stir- 

 ring ai-rests extra heat from the sun during the day, and 

 lessens the loss of heat by radiation at night ; and secondly, 

 as the less of moistiire by evaporation is in proportion to the 

 heat applied, then the looser the siu-face the less the amount 

 of moisture raised by evaporation. Those who stUl doubt 

 as to the first, may satisfy themselves by burying two ther- 

 mometers that indicate alike— say U inch from the surface 

 —the one in loose soU and the other in very firm soU, the 

 soU in both cases being of the same consistence as to dry- 

 ness, and examining both at 3 p.m. after a sunny day. We 

 wUl be surprised if that under the firm soU do not show the 

 higher temperatiu-e. After a diUl day and a clear night we 

 shoiUd expect it to stand the lower of the two in the early 

 morning. 



We satisfied ourselves as to the second in a very simple 

 manner. We took two good-sized bell-glasses with rourded 

 conical, not flat tops, because we wished the vapour raised 

 during the day not to drop fi-om the top when condensed, 

 but to nm down the sides. The bottom of each glass was 

 then fitted into a lead gutter, formed of the material often 

 used for the small squares of cottage windows, but which 

 we ti-ust wiU be soon superseded for that purpose by che-ap 

 glass. These two glasses with their troughs were set, one 

 on firm ground and the other on moved ground, >>"t as 

 much alike as possible in other circumstances, and both tuU 

 in the sun, care being taken by earth and putty out^side 

 that neither air nor vapour shoidd enter the glasses j-om 

 without, so that whatever moisture was found withm in a 

 morning must have been entu-ely oiving to the heat of the 

 sun raising it as vapour from the ground enclosed. Ihe 

 results were very varied ; but when the glasses were examined 

 early before the next morning's sun had tune to vaporise 



