GARDENING. 103 



April; manure, dig up, and trench vacant ground; clean 

 old strawberry beds; cut off the runners close to the 

 plants, and apply a slight dressing of proper compost. 



NOVEMBER. 



"Gather your winter fruits, not forgetting your 

 squashes; sow rhubarb, sea-kale, skirret, parsneps; ma- 

 nure and trench your ground for early spring crops; 

 sow early pease if you can protect them from the mice; 

 plant seeds of fruit trees; lay a good coating of litter 

 over the roots of choice trees and shrubs." 



DECEMBER. 



"If the season permits, do which was directed last 

 month and remains undone; collect all your old sticks 

 and poles, and lay them up carefully; procure stakes 

 and other materials which may be wanted in a more 

 busy season. 



DIRECTIONS FOR CULTIVATING FRUITS AND FRUIT TREES. 



"All our garden fruits are but ameliorated varieties 

 of such as are wild. The amelioration has resulted 

 from human skill, time and accident; and being so pro- 

 duced can only by art be continued. Hence the two 

 great operations for procuring and perpetuating improv- 

 ed varieties of fruits are, amelioration and propagation. 



"Amelioration 'consists either in acquiring new or im- 

 proved varieties of fruit, or increasing their good 

 qualities when acquired. There is in all beings a dis- 

 position to deviate from their original nature when 

 cultivated, or even in a wild state. But this disposition 

 is so strong in some as to render them particularly adap- 

 ted to become subject to domestication: for instance, the 

 dog, the pigeon, and the barn-yard fowl are cases in 

 which this tendency is most strongly marked in animals; 

 and domesticated fruits are a parallel case in the vege- 

 table world. 



^Cultivators increase this disposition chiefly in two 

 ways; either by constantly selecting the finest existing 



