What You Need to Know 5 



successful unless a few fundamental things in 

 connection with it are right: 



Soil is the first of these things. Any one who 

 attempts to do any kind of gardening very 

 quickly discovers that seeds planted in some 

 soil will come up to have only a starved and strug- 

 gling existence, or to flower prematurely, and 

 then turn yellow and die. And the same seed, 

 with the same care, in other soil, will send up 

 sturdy little seedlings, dark green and thrifty 

 looking, that will "grow hke weeds" and put 

 forth blooms as though they were doing it by 

 piece-work, at so much per dozen! 



So, in the greenhouse, good soil is wanted — 

 the kind of soil that in other garden work would 

 be called a "rich, friable, loam"; the kind of soil 

 that one finds in old beds that are well manured, 

 year after year, and kept hoed and dug, till the 

 soil in them is so mellow that one likes to dig 

 holes in it with one's fingers to set plants in; 

 and so suitable for plant roots that every little 

 seed in it will sprout and start out to make a 

 husky plant every time you leave the surface 

 undisturbed for a fortnight or so! 



Such soil is needed to make plants thrive lus- 

 tily under glass, as well as outside. Usually, 

 the same soil that is giving good results outside 

 may be used inside. 



