Cultivation and Management of the Ranunculus. 365 



for an untoward and dry season; for the ranunculus delights 

 in natural moisture ; and if the flowers be not deficient in 

 number, they will be so in size, color, or vigor. I recom- 

 mend sand as a top covering for the soil of the bed, it being 

 always at hand, and answering well the purpose of keeping 

 in its moisture; but old tanners' bark, and especially, I 

 would observe, moss, will prove excellent expedients. Moss, 

 if compactly placed amongst the plants, would not only have 

 a neat appearance, but would afford, perhaps, the most effi- 

 cacious means of preserving the soil moist. Its value is fully 

 attested in a recent number of the Gardeners^ Chronicle^ 

 wherein, also, the evils of watering in hot, droughty weather, 

 and the benefits of top-dressing, are judiciously insisted upon, 

 in entire accordance with my own views and experience. In- 

 deed, the spreading and luxuriant foliage of the ranunculus 

 at once points out the utility of, and affords, a covering for 

 the soil ; and it was greatly on this account that I recom- 

 mended that the wide distances between the rows should be 

 abolished, and the roots set but about four inches apart. 



P. S. — As many of the views in the preceding part of my 

 last communication may be subversive of the opinions and 

 practice of others, and hence, possibly, looked upon with some 

 disinclination or distrust, I beg to detail a fact corroborative 

 of their soundness and efficiency. The beds of five extensive, 

 and usually very successful, cultivators of the ranunculus at 

 this place, have this year, with one partial exception, proved 

 an absolute and total failure — such was the continued hot, 

 droughty weather during the whole of the critical month of 

 May; whilst my own collection, treated as I have advocated, 

 was one general mass of bloom ; though, for the sake of se- 

 verely testing one portion of my plan, no shading of the bed 

 was resorted to ; and yet the soil, an inch from the surface, 

 indicated an almost sufficient degree of moisture. It may 

 further be added, that one amateur (the partial exception al- 

 luded to,) who was induced to follow, yet but in part, my 

 suggestions, — namely, by using (although but a little) fresh 

 cow-manure in summer, and resorting to (though but to a 

 thin) covering of sand, and refraining from watering, — had 

 more and better flowers than all the remaining four cultiva- 

 tors conjointly. 



