30 CALIFORNIA GARDEN FLOWERS. 



stable manure. There is no reason to fear the material. It is good 

 for any plant, provided it is sparingly and evenly distributed. Similar 

 remarks could be made about the manure of swine, sheep and goats. 

 All are serviceable for plant food if wisely used. 



Leaf-Mold and Other Fibrous Materials. Except in forested 

 areas, leafVmold is not as available in California as at the east where 

 woods and wood lots are more evenly distributed. The same is true 

 of old grass sods which are decomposed to supply fibrous materials. 

 Except on low moist lands, the natural grass growth in California 

 occurs during the rainy season and is composed of annuals which 

 are not sod or turf formers. Usually, then, the amateur has to make 

 his own leaf mold or rely upon cow manure to furnish the fiber which 

 acts so benignly with sand in the formation of desirable soil texture. 

 But home-made leaf mold is not impracticable. All falling leaves 

 should be raked up and returned to the soil. This can be done by 

 digging them into beds or 'borders or they may be specially com- 

 posted in a shallow pit in a corner of the garden, into which are cur- 

 rently thrown all rakings of leaves, lawn clippings, small primings, 

 weeds from walk-cleaning, spent flowering stems .and even the vege- 

 table trimmings from the kitchen, if there are no fowls to make use 

 of them. The proper decay of all this material depends upon moisture 

 and wetting down with the hose during the dry season is necessary. 

 If such a pit is emptied at the beginning of the rainy season a good 

 amount of leaf mold can be secured, of which the finer part can be 

 separated with a screen of half-inch mesh and sacked up for use in 

 mixtures for the seed boxes, or for potting, while the coarser stuff 

 can be dug into the open soil. Well rotted straw will serve about the 

 same purposes. In fact, all vegetable matter should be turned into 

 J:he service of the soil; even rank weeds are usually safe, for the 

 composting sprouts and kills the seeds. Much stuff is burned for 

 ease and neatness which should be rotted down for plant food and 

 fiber. 



If one has no supplies of this kind, fibrous peat can be bought of 

 the florist-supply houses. It is imported in large quantities from the 

 peat bogs of Europe, and is a very neat, clean material to use with 

 sand, soil and a dash of commercial fertilizer for house plants; seed 

 boxes or other small uses. 



IMPROVEMENT OF HEAVY SOILS. 



Nearly all that has been said thus far in this chapter has direct 

 reference to the improvement of heavy soils for that is the chief 

 problem. It should be added, however, that the first treatment of a 

 soil disposed to bake and crack is to apply lime at the rate of one 

 pound to each fifty square feet just after digging, because it can then 

 be done with only danger of burning the eyes and not both eyes and 



