CULTIVATION IN THE OPEN AIR 



few weeds, and if the hoe is kept fairly well in use, there will be 

 little or no trouble from insect pests. 



An improvement in a wet, heavy soil may be accelerated by the 

 addition of quicklime to the surface after trenching and manuring 

 About a bushel of quicklime may be spread in small heaps over 

 every 30 square yards of ground. Each little heap should be 

 covered with some of the wet soil and left for about ten days. 

 During this time the moisture from the soil will be absorbed by 

 the lime, which thus becomes slaked and powdery. It is then easy 

 to spread the heaps of soil and slaked lime evenly over the surface, 

 but not dug in. As time goes on the lime gradually dissolves and 

 sinks into the soil, and, coming in contact with the buried manure, 

 liberates fresh food, and encourages the development of those 

 mysterious soil bacteria which are so essential to good cultivation. 



Whenever a new garden is being started, or where it is intended 

 to renovate an old one and do things properly, it will be found best 

 to adopt the practice of deep cultivation. All surface weeds and 

 rubbish can be easily disposed of by burying them in the trenches 

 as the work proceeds — the rank, green, and undecayed refuse being 

 put at the very bottom, the best-rotted material being retained for 

 placing in the last trench near the top. 



Once a garden soil has been treated somewhat in the way indicated, 

 there will be no necessity to disturb it so deeply again for some few 

 years. Indeed it would be impossible to do so when once it is 

 cropped with bulbous and other plants that are to remain for 

 years. 



In the case of old gardens and old flower-borders, however, that 

 have become overgrown with plants, and in which the upper soil has 

 become more or less exhausted, the best thing to do is to have all 

 plants and bulbs taken out, preferably in early autumn, and then 

 have the ground deeply trenched and manured, bringing the under- 

 soil to the surface, and placing the top spit beneath to give it a rest 

 and time to recuperate its lost strength. 



DEPTH FOR PLANTING BULBS 



In the following pages it will be noticed that the usual sizes or 

 (.liameters of most of the bulbous plants are given, and that these 

 vary from ^ inch to 2, 3, 4, or more inches. So far as planting bulbs 

 that are to be grown under glass is concerned there is practically no 

 question of depth involved, as they are nearly all so placed in the 



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