SOIL FERTILITY 



disturb its roots or make it miss its native environ- 

 ment. It had been transplanted into a shady or 

 sunny corner of the yard best suited to its nature. 

 The garden even at the time of the owner's 

 death was an old one, laid out in quaint box- 

 bordered beds by an old Scotchman, who so thor- 

 oughly understood the value of fine soil that it 

 became a saying that " there wasn't a spoonful of 

 earth in the whole garden that hadn't been sifted 

 between grandfather's thumb and forefinger." 

 For twenty years no attempt was made to re- 

 place plants that died. Yet, today at least a 

 dozen species of ferns and probably eighty kinds 

 of wild plants may be found there. 



For forty years it has been a household tradi- 

 tion that from blossoming of earliest hepatica or 

 crocus until frost, there should be continual 

 bloom among its hardy perennials and annuals. 

 In the many changes during those years, it 

 has sometimes happened that the beauty of 

 the garden could be preserved only by a woman's 

 spading it from end to end. It was never suf- 

 fered to become a tangle, though sometimes for 

 consecutive years it has had to go without 

 fertilizer. It was for many years kept in order 

 by the labor of a gardener hired for three 

 days each spring and fall and by the frequent 

 half-hour periods of weeding that could be given 

 by one almost an invalid. In its earliest days, 

 its bloom took prizes at the county fairs, and to- 

 day, surrounded by city houses, the neighborhood 



lOI 



