SOILS AND CULTIVATION IN THE FLOWER GARDEN. 283 



instead of enjoying them, as Shelley did, and gardeners are often 



sweeping them up when they would be much 

 Fallen leaves. better employed planting good plants or shrubs. 



What are we to do with the garden leaves ? We 

 cannot, it is true, have them in drifts in the flower garden, but it is 

 better to let them all fall before we take much trouble in removing 

 them. In gathering them up we may best add them to a place set 

 apart for leaf mould. But in every case where they may be let alone 

 it is much better to let them stay on the surface of wood, grove, 

 shrubbery, or group of shrubs, for protection and nourishment for the 

 ground. If any one during the hot years that we have had as in 

 1 893 had stood on a height in a woody country, he would have seen 

 that, while the fields were brown and bare, and cattle and crops 

 distressed for want of water, the wood retained its verdure, and the 

 growth of the year was as good as usual. Why was this? It is 

 explained by the beautiful function of the leaf, which not only 

 does the vital work of the tree, but also shields the ground from 

 the direct action of the sun. When the leaf has fallen its work 

 is not half done, as it protects and nourishes the roots throughout the 

 year, so that in the hottest years the fibres of the trees find nourish- 

 ment in decaying leaves. This surely is a reason that leaves 

 should not be scraped out from beneath every shrub or tree, and there 

 is no reason whatever why they should form part of the rubbish heap. 

 It is not only the better use of the waste as a fertiliser that 

 is a gain, it is the saving of very troublesome labour, often occurring 



in the warmest part of the year, when every hour 

 Wasted labour, is precious over the really important work of 



the garden getting in crops of all kinds at the 

 right time and in the best way. Also we save the disfigurement of 

 the rubbish yard itself, and get rid of the smoke of the fires kept 

 going to consume it another nuisance about a country house or 

 garden. The ash, the one result of all the waste of labour and filth 

 of the rubbish heap, is certainly of some use, but not one-sixth of the 

 good of the stuff used in the direct way. It is not only the summer 

 aid we gain, but all we put on in this way settles down in winter 

 to a nice little coat of humus, which nourishes the roots and protects 

 them from frost as well as heat. 



The destruction of the seeds of weeds is the only shadow of 

 reason for the rubbish heap, but it is bad gardening to let weeds 



go to seed. And though certain areas of town 



Weeds and their gardens have no neighbours from which seeds can 



seeds. be blown, this is not so in the country, where weed 



seeds from woods and fields and young plantations 

 abound in the air. There is no good remedy for weeds except early 



