442 AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 



SOILS FOR FLOWER COMPOSTS, &c. 



GOOD LOAM, ampng the cultivators of flowers, means such as is 

 of a rather dull yellow, not reddish, and, when moderately dry, 

 cutting with a certain cheesy softness, yet friable when thrown 

 up with the spade, breaking into rather coarse granules, a lump, 

 when broken, showing the same structure, yet not clayey or li- 

 able to bake hard after rain. The finest, sweetest pasture 

 grows on such soil. If, however, your loam is more sandy, re- 

 duce the sand or peat in the compost you prepare with it. 



LEAF-MOULD, as its name imports, is the black earth formed 

 in woods, and along fences, and in corners by the annual decay 

 of fallen leaves. In general they should be left to enrich the 

 forest trees from which they fell, but when decayed the mould 

 forms a most valuable element of flower composts. 



PEAT is vegetable matter accumulated upon an uncultivated 

 level surface by the long-continued growth of successive sea- 

 sons upon the decaying product of their predecessors, in which 

 state it has a mixture of sand ; or it is the mass of vegetable 

 matter found in bog meadows and swamps, so compacted and 

 drained as to be readily cut into blocks and dried for fuel. In 

 its wet state it is known as swamp muck. 



Koad-wash is the deposit of sand and gravel made by the 

 running road-gutters wherever the water may find a place to 

 rest long enough to permit its settling, and is valuable upon 

 all strong soil, and especially so for flower composts. 



Sand may either be road- wash, where it is sufficiently free 

 from earth, or it may be common white or silver sand, or ordi- 

 nary clean, sharp mortar sand, not too coarse. 



In preparing composts for flowers, the loam and sand or road- 

 wash may be fresh from the surface, but all manures used 

 should be from one to two years old, and thoroughly reduced by 

 turning, chopping, and mixing. 



The manure of spent hot beds is generally used for this pur- 

 pose, but in composts for. certain kinds of flowers, sheep ma- 

 nure, and blood, or other animal matter, are supposed to be val- 

 uable. 



Peat and swamp muck for these should also be sweetened 



