172 THE TREE PROPAGATOR AND PLANTER. 



open spot where the sun and free air can get to them. 

 Whenever any quantity of either is required to put 

 into the potting-shed, as much as is wanted should be 

 cut clean down off the end in a perpendicular manner 

 from the top of the heap to the bottom ; it should never 

 be taken off the top only, thereby leaving the under 

 part to get saturated by the rains. There is another 

 kind of loam which comes out of pits, which is tender, 

 and good for dressing some gravelly and drying soils, 

 which is very retentive of moisture. 



Leaf-Mould, 



Leaf- mould is a most important and useful article in 

 gardening. It may be procured from under trees and 

 where the leaves fall from the trees and get blown 

 together into heaps under the brushwood, where they 

 decay ; but this leaf-mould is scarcely safe to use for 

 pot plants, seed-pans, &c, on account of its liability to 

 harbour embryo insects, which often hatch quickly 

 after they get into the warmth of a frame or house, 

 and fill the structure with myriads of various insect 

 pests, especially the wood-louse and red spicier. I have 

 found it so. The safest method of getting pure leaf- 

 mould is to pack up all the leaves possible in a heap in 

 the fall of the leaf, and to let them remain to decay, 

 turning the heap two or three times in the course of 

 the year. Or the leaves may be used to grow Marrows 

 or Cucumbers on during the first season, when they 

 will decay and come into use for pot-plant work in the 

 following spring — i.e. the spring twelve months after 

 the fall. 



Any leaves will make leaf-mould, but those of the 

 Oak are preferable, being stronger, and perhaps con- 

 taining less injurious matter. Successful gardening 

 cannot be done without peat, maiden loam, and good 

 leaf-mould. Leaf-mould must be used for raising 

 seedlings, and also in some cases for delicate bedding 

 plants, as an addition to the original soil ; and in the 

 composition of fresh-made beds to suit the thing in 



