CHAPTER XXXV. 



LABOURS FOR GOOD OR EVIL : SOILS : WATER : DRAINING : EVAPORA- 

 TION : ROTATION : WEEDS AND RUBBISH HEAPS : MONOTONY : 

 STAKING : GLASS : WASTED LABOUR IN xMOVING EARTH : 

 WOODEN TRELLISING BEST. 



The cost of the making and keeping of the gardens and pleasure 

 grounds of the British Isles is too vast to realise ; no other people in 

 the world spending so generously on their gardens and plantations — 

 not a selfish end either, as all noble planting and gardening add to the 

 beauty of the land. In every case it is therefore worth asking, does 

 the labour so freely given work for good ends : — for ugliness or beauty ; 

 waste in stereotyped monotony ; or days well spent in adding to the 

 treasures of our gardens and plantings, both in enduring variety and in 

 picturesque effects ; pictures, in fact, all round the year? In any case 

 there is immense and hideous waste in misapplied labour and bad art, 

 and therefore some of these enemies of good work deserve a little 

 thought. 



Soils Good and Bad. — Most garden lovers strive for an ideal soil, 

 but this does not always lead to happy results, and, even if we could have 

 it, would only lead to monotony in vegetation. No doubt many will seek 

 at all costs for the soil called the best, but the wisest way is rather to 

 rejoice in and improve the soil fate has planted us on. A good deep 

 and free loam is best for many things, and from the view of high 

 cultivation or market work, deep valley soils are almost essential, but 

 we often see poor peats giving excellent results, from a flower 

 gardening point of view, in enabling us to grow with ease many 

 more kinds of plants than could be grown on heavy soil. How fertile 

 sand may become with good cultivation is shown by the fact that 

 some of the very best soils for hardy plants are those that have been 

 poor sea sand, but improved by cultivation, and sometimes such soils 

 are drought-resisting, as on reclaimed seashore lands. Yet now and 

 then we sec certain sandy soils absolutely refuse to grow Roses and 

 Carnations, and in such cases it is often better to give up the struggle. 

 Chalky hills are wretched for trees and some shrubs, but there are few 

 soils more congenial to garden vegetation than some chalky soils, and 

 chalk tumbling into a valley soil is often excellent. In limestone 



