274 SUBURBAN GARDENING. 
Dwellers near our manufacturing towns whose success in business 
enables them to live away from their places of business, surrounded by 
plots of ground capable of unlimited adornment, are as a body aspirants } 
after successful gardening. But their failures, even when cost is no 
consideration, are far more frequent than their successes. Money is 
often lavished in vain, because of the lack of needful guidance. The 
ordinary villa garden is almost always at the mercy of the ignorant 
jobbing gardener, whose sole purpose in life seems to be to make his 
employer spend money in vain. He is always striving after the (to him) 
impossible, for he knows nothing, or next to nothing, of what he pretends 
to have mastered; anda glorious pursuit, capable at once of being a 
refreshment and delight, is often, from ‘‘lack of knowledge,” barren 
and resultless, except in disappointments. 
Noone unfamiliar with the routine mismanagement of villa gardenscan 
have the least idea of the waste of resources every day going on inall parts 
of the country. It seems the lot of those who have such gardens, and who, 
themselves knowing nothing of gardening operations, rely for the culture 
of their precious plots on totally unqualified men, to labour and spend 
money in vain. The sums spent unproductively in this way are enormous. 
The most feasible remedy for this state of things would be for our 
suburban residents to strive after a personal knowledge of the principles 
of successful gardening. This is the ties which will soonest yield 
satisfactory results. It each for himself will only master the details of 
successful practice they will as a body very soon find their own reward, 
and the ignorant persons they employ to ‘“‘do their gardens” will no 
longer be able to trade on their employers’ want of knowledge, but must 
be content to ‘‘ do as they are told.” 
AUTUMN CULTIVATION. 
The year of gardening operations commences as soon as the summer 
crops are gathered and the ground is unoccupied. It is a great mistake 
to leave the remains of crops to ‘‘ cumber the ground.” They should be 
cleared off as soon as possible, and either placed on the rubbish heap to 
decay, or, which is preferable, particularly where the garden is small and 
the house uear at hand, they should be partially charred, and the ashes 
added to the compost heap. There is another method of dealing with 
them, and that is to bury them deeply in trenches. In one way or other 
they should be got rid of as soon as possible for the sake of health, tidiness, 
and economy. The exact time for doing this will vary as the summer is 
prolonged or short ; but at the earliest time when crops no longer remain 
to be gathered the ground should be prepared for those which are to 
ollow. 
The work of preparation may be divided into two parts: (1) cultivation 
whereby the surface soil and that immediately below it are loosened and 
their positions altered, the whole being afterwards thrown up in rough 
ridges so as to expose the largest amount of surface to atmospheric 
influences ; and (2) the addition of fertilisers, usually in the form of stable 
or mixed farm-yard manure; or in some other way replacing what crops - 
have withdrawn from the soil. 
