502 



THE GARDEN AND ITS FRIHTS. 



[Chap. V. 



preparation of soil, we recommend all who sow the most delicate flower- 

 seeds to sift the earth throiiirh a sieve fine enough for corn-meal. 



570. How to Make a FIowcr-Bed. — The following extract, from a paper 

 read before the Farmers' Chib, tells how the author made a flower-bed upon 

 a very hard, rough spot . 



" I do not expect to tell a professed gardener, nor an amateur who already 

 knows how, anything new ; but I wish to tell some who do not know, how 

 to make a flower-bed. At least I will toll how I make one, and leave it to 

 others to follow suit or not, just as they can afford. I received, May 10th, a 

 package of choice flower-seeds, and a dozen bulbs of Gladiolus. As the old 

 flower-beds had already been appropriated, new ones must be made; and as 

 there is always a right place relative to the house and other things, the right 

 place in the present instance fell in a very bad place — on a spot of sod just 

 beneath the window that gives light to my writing-desk and book-case. 

 Here I marked out the forms of my beds in shapes to suit the ground, and 

 not like any diagram laid down in the books. I first took out a spading, as 

 deep as I could drive the spading-fork, breaking up the turf and the remains 

 of a mortar-bed left last autumn by the masons. This first spading and the 

 loose earth left I threw one side, and the next spade-deep the other side. 

 Then I took out another spade-deep and carted it away, and all the stones, and 

 that not a few, and then broke up another course still deeper, and then threw 

 back the second spading, and then the first, forking it all over loose and 

 mellow. Xext I put in a heavy charge of rich manure, and over that 

 garden-mold and leaf-mold, mixing all up and raking fine. Next I put a 

 coat of sand, and then rich garden-mold, old rotted sods, and leaf-mold, 

 mixed and sifted. Now the bed was ready for the seeds, and after being 

 marked off to suit the fancy of her who does the planting, they were covered 

 by sifting earth over them, and watered. It is true this was a laborious job, 

 but once done, it is done forever. Here is a bed of earth, rich and mellow 

 as an ash-heap, more than thirty inches deep, with a subsoil of coarse sand, 

 gravel, and decayed granite rock, tliat gives good drainage. It will require 

 only an annual dressing of compost, and a light forking and raking, to keep 

 it in order to produce the most lovely ornament that ever added beauty to a 

 farm-house — a beautiful bed of flowers. Early this spring — almost as soon 

 as the snow was away — there came, first the little crocuses, and these were 

 followed by the hyacinths, and tulips, and dielytra spectabilis — beauty 

 upon beauty, enough to pay richly for all the labor of making a flower- 

 bed. 



" "What man with a head a whit better than a pumpkin or a cabbage-head 

 would devote his whole soul to food vegetables, and refuse his family the 

 gratification and cheap happiness of a flower-bed ? 



" "What woman with a soul above soft-soap and scrubbing-brushes, that 

 would live in a country home and not insist upon 'woman's right' to have 

 a flower-bed — ah ! to have her house surrounded with flowers, blooming from 

 spring till snow comes again ?" 



