SOILS AND CULTIVATION IN THE FLO WE R GARDEN. 391 



WEEDS AND THEIR SEEDS. The destruction of the seeds of 

 weeds is the only shadow of reason for the rubbish heap, but it is 

 bad gardening to let weeds go to seed. And though certain areas of 

 town gardens have no neighbours from which seeds can be blown, this 

 is not so in the country, where weed seeds from woods and fields and 

 young plantations abound in the air. There is no good remedy for 

 weeds except early and regular hoeing and cleaning. Moreover, there 

 are many conditions in which even if we do allow weeds to go to seed, 

 they can be used as a mulch ; as, for example, in young orchard and 

 turf and other planting in or near turf where weed seeds can do no 

 harm. Burning therefore should be kept to a few essential uses. 

 The source of success in flower gardening is to be always busy 

 sowing or planting ; there is scarcely a day or a week when some 

 things have not to be planted or attended to if we want a succession 

 of beauty ; but when the men are from morn to night busy hoeing 

 and watering and with other routine work, it is difficult to get time 

 for securing the successions of plants of various kinds on which the 

 lasting beauty of a garden at all seasons, depends. 



The old labour of grubbing up walks, which was so constant and 

 dreadful in the very heat of summer, is got rid of by weed-killers, of 

 which one dressing a year will sometimes suffice to keep the walks 

 clean, and, better still, prevent us from having to rip up the surfaces 

 of the walks, which was common in every garden until quite recently, 

 and is carried on still in many places. The great gain of abolishing 

 ignoble routine work, in this and all ways we can, is that we have 

 time for the real work of the garden, in adding to its beauty with new 

 or beautiful things and improved ways of growing and arranging them. 



FIRE AS A CLEANSER. A fire on the spot is a great aid in the 

 garden when active changes have to be made, and foul borders or 

 shrubberies renovated or replanted. Where, in stiff soils, Twitch and 

 other bad weeds take possession, with perhaps a number of worn-out 

 shrubs, the simplest way is often to burn all, not trying to disentangle 

 weeds from the soil in the usual way, but simply skinning the surface 

 2 inches, or more if need be, and burning it and the vital parts of the 

 weeds, first removing any plants that are worth saving. In light 

 soils the labour of cleaning foul ground is less than in heavy, ad- 

 hesive soils, but fire is a great aid in all such cases. If we are remov- 

 ing ugly and heavy masses of Laurels or other evergreens, which have 

 never given grace or flower to the scene, we should burn them root 

 and branch at the same time, the result being that we get rid of our 

 worst weeds, and turn enemies like Goutweed into ashes. This weedy 

 surface of garden ground is often some of the best of the soil, and it is 

 much better to keep it where it is, but purified. Regular cleaning 

 will keep down all young weeds, but it is a struggle to get the old and 



