507LS AND CULTIVATION IN THE FLOWER GARDEN. 285 



surface they infested into good earth. 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 they had with Don Quixote's books, which was to 

 carry them into the yard to burn them. 



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 



Evaporation. loose surface to the earth and prevents evapora- 

 tion, 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, because, 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 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 the prettiest way and not difficult 

 to carry out we often see 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. It 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 sur- 

 face, 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 ways. One result of it is that we may have a beautiful spring 

 garden in addition 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 Pansies and other dwarf plants in the beds 

 we get pretty effects early in the year, and through this living 

 carpet may come up many pretty bulbs. Thus we may have in 

 the same beds with a little care and thought, two or three different 

 types of flower life. 



The plants that may be used in this way are numerous, and 

 mostly rock and mountain plants of Europe and cold countries, 



