SOILS AND CULTIVATION IN THE FLOWER GARDEN. 395 



bad weeds out of the soil, owing to the broken roots of Bindweed, 

 Twitch, and Goutweed which escape the closest forking and sharpest 

 eyes. Next there is harrowing or carting to take the weeds to some 

 rotting heap, while, on the other hand, the friendly fire eats up and 

 kills at once the whole of the weeds, and converts them and the burnt 

 surface they infested into good earth, and all this is gained at once 

 without barrow or horse labour. So that, whatever we may think of 

 cremation for ourselves, it is a good friend in fighting weeds and in 

 helping us to thoroughly cleanse foul garden ground. We have not 

 even the trouble that they had with Don Quixote's books — to carry 

 them into the yard to burn them — as we can so often burn the weeds 

 on the spot, insects and grubs included. 



Evaporation. — Mulching or covering the surface with various 

 kinds of light materials, such as leaf mould, cocoa fibre, manure, and 

 sand, or anything, in fact, which gives an inch or two of loose surface 

 to the earth and prevents evaporation, is a great aid on many soils, 

 but not so important where the beds have been thoroughly prepared, 

 at least not for Roses, Carnations, and many of the best flowers, be- 

 cause, if the roots can go down and find good soil as far as they go, 

 they really do not want mulching, save on very hot soils. Mulching of 

 various kinds or loosening the surface of the ground is, moreover, much 

 easier to carry out in the kitchen and fruit gardens or orchard than in 

 the flower garden, all the surface of which should be covered with living 

 things during the fine season. This is the prettiest way and is not diffi- 

 cult to carry out, as we often see it in cottage gardens and in Nature 

 itself, where the health of the forest and other fertile lands depends to a 

 certain extent on the ground being covered with vegetation, which of 

 itself prevents direct evaporation. Taking a hint from this, I am very 

 fond of covering the surface with dwarf living plants of fragile nature, 

 which do not much exhaust the soil, and which in very hot weather may 

 help to keep it moist. This is done in the case of Roses and other plants 

 which, being rather small and bare at first, want some help to cover 

 the ground, and a number of very pretty plants may be used for this 

 purpose, which will give us bloom in spring and good colour on the 

 ground. This, of course, prevents the use of manure, hitherto common 

 on the surface of flower beds, Roses especially. It is much better 

 that the aid of manure should be given at the root instead of the surface, 

 and if we have plenty of manure and rich soil, there is no need for surface 

 mulching it. Covering the surface with living plants is worth doing, 

 for the sake of the effect alone, even if we have to pay for it in other w^ays. 

 One result of it is that we may have a beautiful spring garden in ad- 

 dition to the summer garden — that is to say, if our garden is planted 

 for summer and autumn with Roses and the like, by the use of Tufted 

 Tansies and other dwarf plants in the beds we get pretty effects early in 



