378 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



made no progress worth mentioning. The only way to make 

 ivy a good carpet is to plant it outside, instead of inside, and 

 train it along the ground in^vards towards the stiunp. Say 

 a cedar has neither grass nor any other vegetation under it 

 for a circumference of thirty feet distance, or one hundred and 

 eighty feet. Thirty plants of ivy would reach all round at 

 six feet apart, hut as the sooner the ground is covered the 

 better, use sixty plants three feet apart, and let these plants 

 be well grown, with six feet of gTOwth already. Plant the 

 Ivy all round at these distances, and peg the branches inwards 

 towards the tree, but spreading them wide enough apart to 

 cover the ground as well as you can so far as they go. These 

 plants derive their nourishment from a part of the ground 

 where the rain and air reach them partially, and where the 

 influence of the roots of the tree does not reach them. Their 

 growth is rapid, and is to be constantly directed inwards, and 

 will reach, in an incredibly short time, the stump of the tree 

 itself, the ground being closely covered with Ivy, as if it were 

 a mat of it. IS'othing is so sure as its growth, for no matter 

 how barren the ground under the tree, it will progress so that 

 the roots are but well provided for. 



It has another good effect ; it kills all sorts of weeds and 

 other vegetation wherever it assumes the lead, and when 

 thoroughly established, begins to grow upwards, that is, 

 assumes a shrubby habit at the joints. It has this great 

 advantage over other underwood, it derives its chief nourish- 

 ment far from the barren place which it covers, and other 

 underwood has to live on the place it has to cover. The 

 Berberis Aquifoliiun and varieties wiU live almost on nothing, 

 and under the most impenetrable shade. The St. John's 

 Wort, common Laurel, and some other subjects, will exist in 

 bad soil, but the Ivy grows vigorously and healthily even if 

 the ground it has to pass along and cover were solid stone. 

 It is worth anybody's while to try the experunent in any 

 barren place ; but let the root be at the edge of the starvation 

 space, and so get the nourishment it requires, while its 

 branches will fare as well on a surface of hard gravel as it 

 would on a brick wall ; and we have aU seen Ivy many feet 

 from its ground root, wandering over all sorts of surfaces, 

 from the rough bark of a tree, to the hard smooth surface of 

 a stone wall. There is not a more obedient servant than I^^', 

 but he is a brid master ; he wiU conquer whatever he lays 



