150 THE VILIA GARDENER. 



§ 5. Renovation of Suburban Gardens. 



226. — Renovating suburban gardens. — Whoever does not build or take 

 possession of a new house, so as to have the garden to lay out himself, will, 

 on changing his residence, probably find that the garden of his new abode 

 requires renovating. To ascertain how far this is necessary, he has only to 

 test every part of his garden by the principles and rules for laying out and 

 planting which we have already laid down ; and we shall therefore confine 

 our remarks here to directing his attention to those points in which an old 

 garden will generally be found defective. 



227. The soil in old suburban gardens has frequently a sodden, black, soft 

 appearance, and the fruit-trees are barren, cankered, and covered with moss. 

 This is the combined effect of bad drainage, over-watering, and over-manur- 

 ing. Over-watering is a common fault in town gardens ; and it is particu- 

 larly injurious in the neighbourhood of London, where the soil is generally 

 clayey and badly drained, and where the soil is frequently loaded with stable 

 manure. Most persons imagine that manure and water are all that are 

 wanted to make a garden fertile ; and, if the fruit-trees do not bear, and 

 the flowers and vegetables do not thrive, manure and water are considered to 

 form an universal panacea. Now, the fact is, that so far from this being the 

 case, most small gardens have been manured and watered a great deal too 

 much ; and in many, the surface soil, instead of consisting of a rich friable 

 mould, only presents a soft black slimy substance, totally unfit for the pur- 

 poses of vegetation, and into which the manure is changed, from being satu- 

 rated with stagnant water. " No appearance is more common in the gardens 

 of street houses than this, from these gardens being originally ill-drained, and 

 yet continually watered ; and from their possessors loading them with manure, 

 in the hope of rendering them fertile." — {Gard. for Ladies, first edit. p. 26.) 

 The obvious remedy for a case of this kind, is to trench the ground so deeply 

 as to bury the surface soil, and to supply its place with the subsoil, or to 

 mix the surface soil with lime or sand ; but no remedy will be permanently 

 efficacious if the drainage is defective. " Why is land improved by good 

 drainage? " asks Dr. Lindley. " Many believe the whole advantage consists 

 in removing water: but water is not in itself an evil ; on the contrary, it is the 

 food of plants, and its absence is attended with fatal results. It is the excess 

 of water which injures plants, just as an excess of food injures animals; with 

 this difference, that animals can refuse what is hurtful to them, while plants 

 have no choice, but must take into their system whatever is in contact with 

 the spongioles of their roots. The latter therefore are more readily gorged 

 than the former. But undrained land is not merely wet; it is water-logged. 

 Alhthe interstices between the particles of earth being filled with water, air 

 is necessarily absent, except that small quantity which is dissolved in the 

 water. In this way plants are deprived of the most essential part of their 

 food : but when the water is removed, air takes its place, and holds in suspen- 

 sion as much water as the roots can thrive upon ; for it is not water in a fluid 

 state that plants prefer; it is when it has assumed the state of vapour that 

 they feed upon it best ; so that the removal of water permits air and air- 

 borne vapour, the best of all food for roots, to take its place." — {Gard. 

 Chron. for 1849, p. So.) 



228. The underground drainnrfc , in a garden which has been in cultivation 



