THE GARDEN CALENDAR 103 



arm aches with an assurance of much water, the surface of the soil 

 responds with muddy declaration of the same thing, and the plant gives 

 the He to both vain shows by spindling and yellowing to its death. 

 There is in fact too little water applied and it is applied in the worst 

 possible way and it results in a puddling of the surface, which, by 

 repeated action, deepens until the soil-mass around and beneath the 

 plant becomes a slab of baked soil from which moisture flies away by 

 evaporation and into which after a time neither moisture nor air can 

 penetrate, nor roots extend. The watering-pot has killed the plant 

 therefore, knock a hole in the bottom of it. 



Two things well used will bring escape from the evil just indicated: 

 the garden hose and the garden ditch. For seedlings, or other small 

 plants, in borders and for the lawn, the garden hose with a fine nozzle 

 is the proper medium to convey water, providing the water is spread 

 in a gentle shower of fine drops and continued long enough to pene- 

 trate deeply in imitation of a gentle rainfall. But even so good a friend 

 as the garden hose may be taught deceit. Rush into the garden with 

 it, turn on full pressure, dance about with a squirt here and there and 

 then rush back into the house to dress for dinner with the virtuous 

 exclamation that you have "hosed down" the garden and you have 

 done as little for the yearning plants as would a sprinkle of baptism 

 for a man perishing of thirst in the desert. 



The quantity of water must be adequate for deep penetration: the 

 method must be that which carries this water to the roots with the 

 least loss by evaporation, and the least puddling of the soil fol- 

 lowing such application. Obviously the secret of garden irrigation is 

 the use of as much water as the soil can hold without actual saturation 

 and recourse to watering at as long intervals as is possible without its 

 drying out. The daily hosing may be cleanly and refreshing in a dusty 

 locality, and worth the trouble from that point of view, but it is not 

 a satisfactory irrigation to secure thrifty growth of plants. One good 

 soaking a week or a fortnight, according to the hold which the soil 

 has on water and the thirst of the air to remove it, is incomparably 

 better than the frivolous flirting of the hose which most amateurs are 

 apt to indulge in. 



For this reason the ditch along the bed or border from plant to 

 plant, and the freshly made basin around isolated trees and shrubs, 

 with a small stream of water running in the ditch, and the basins filled 

 from the ditch or from the open hose, are ways of garden irrigation 

 which should be employed as widely as possible except for the lawn. 

 The true method for the lawn is to allow the hose or revolving 

 sprinkler to stand in one place until the ground is thoroughly soft and 

 wet to a foot or more in depth. 



But there are other things to do in June. Keep the walks scrupul- 

 ously clean. Remove the spent bloom-shoots of all plants down to the 



