140 JOTTINGS OF A GENTLEMAN GARDENER 



stems, can be thrown into a pit to be made into vegetable 

 humus. The others should be burnt. 



Many beginners are apt to wait till they have a quantity 

 of rubbish to get rid of and make one fire do for all. This 

 is a very great mistake. Weeds have such hardy constitu- 

 tions that they can ripen seeds on rubbish heaps, and these 

 may be blown back again into the garden. It is of great 

 importance to burn them at the earliest possible moment, 

 and complete burning is, in the case of long rooted weeds, 

 absolutely essential. The fire, however, should be a slow 

 one, then the ash left will be of the greatest value. 



GARDEN PESTS. 



Garden Pests are of two kinds, live creatures and 

 diseases. Here prevention is better than cure. Good 

 cultivation, as that described in Chapter XXIV, is the 

 best preventative ; but there are cases where this is 

 ineffective, and then war must be waged. 



In a chapter of this kind it will not be possible to enter 

 very fully into the matter. Several interesting works 

 have been written on the subject, which is also dealt with 

 in the smaller gardening dictionaries. 



Soil Pests : By far the most effective way of ridding 

 the soil of live pests is by the use of gaslime. Its applica- 

 tion has already been described earlier in this chapter. 



But a less violent way is by using a mixture of two 

 parts quicklime and one part salt at the rate of 4 ozs. 

 per square yard, or by the use of fresh quicklime alone at 

 the same rate. Opinions differ, but I would never let the 

 quicklime lie on the surface of the ground for three or 

 four weeks before digging it in as some writers advise. 

 I prefer to dig the soil over, and while doing so to scatter 

 it with ground quicklime. 



At the present time there are a n Mnber of proprietary 

 compounds known as " soil fumigants " on the market. 

 I have tried very nearly all of them, and found them useful 

 for the purpose of destroying soil pests. The directions 



