THE RANUNCULUS. 167 



their height, and therefore the small stringy fibres 

 of the Ranunculus will nearly reach to that depth. 



If your loam is fresh and without manure, after 

 having dug it, put towards the autumn all over the 

 surface of the bed six or eight inches deep of rotten 

 dung from some cucumber pits, and there let it re- 

 main for two months, after which, dig or trench it 

 in a foot deep; your bed will then be ready for 

 planting in the spring ; and if your loam is not 

 well worked, throw the surface mould into small 

 ridges in the winter, so that the frost may have 

 greater power to act upon it ; for frost, after all, is 

 one of Nature's best workmen in preparing soils for 

 vegetation, crumbling the hardest clods to powder. 

 In a bed so constructed, you may plant your 

 Ranunculus roots for three successive years, giving 

 it every autumn a similar dressing of manure : after 

 that time you must give them a fresh situation, or 

 some fresh soil in the garden. 



Almost all flowers confined too long to the same 

 earth and same spot, I was going to say, and to the 

 same air, degenerate and dwindle away : a change 



