14 OPERATIONS OF GARDENING. PART T. 



cultural Society, principally for potted plants. This is procured 

 from the banks of the river, and seems to be something of the 

 nature of anthracite, perfectly insoluble in water, and affording 

 not a particle of nutriment to vegetation. Pounded course, it 

 seems to serve very much the same purpose that pure sand, or 

 charcoal broken small, would do. 



True peat, Sir J. Paxton describes as " the sodden vegetable 

 remains of rushy bogs inert, antiseptic vegetable matter, that 

 can be brought to little worthy account in the garden. This/' 

 he says, " is not what is meant when gardeners speak of peat ; 

 but by the earth, which of late years it has been fashionable to 



call peat, gardeners mean ' the soil of heath-commons.' 



Gardener's peat ought to be called, what it in truth is, ' heath 

 mould,' being the earth found at the siirface of commons or 

 wastes where heaths grow naturally, and which was formerly 

 called * bog-earth ' as inappropriately as it is now called ' peat.' 

 The best heath soil contains much fibrous matter ; but, upon the 

 whole, not one-tenth part consists of decayed vegetable matter. 



"Nothing can be compounded which will answer every pur- 

 pose of heath-soil. Where, however, it cannot be obtained, it 

 can be most successfully imitated by collecting masses of leaves 

 and small sticks of trees (the fir tribe particularly) which do 

 not grow upon chalk, and exposing them to the weather till 

 they decay to a complete black or brown mould. To the soil 

 thus produced, one-third part by measure of fine white sand may 

 be added at the time of potting." * 



TANK-SOIL. The soil dug from tanks when cleaned out is 

 sometimes thrown over the ground as a fertilizer ; but it appears 

 to me to differ little from the ordinary soil of the locality, 

 except for the vegetable matter incorporated in it, that has, 

 from time to time, subsided and accumulated at the bottom of 

 the tank. Its beneficial effects, at the best, are said to be but 

 very temporary. 



VEGETABLE MANUKES. 



GREEN MANURE. Mr. Knight has stated it to be his opinion, 

 deduced from experiments, " that any given (I presume pro- 



* See Paxton's ' Magazine of Gardening,' vol. ii. p. 191, and vol. vii. pp. 230 

 and 249. 



