30 The Amateur's Book of the Dahlia 



with fresh loam. Gravel contains no food ele- 

 ment nor does it hold moisture. 



If the soil is too light and sandy, add clay and 

 some humus either in the form of peat, or, and 

 better still, strawy manure from the barnyard. 



If the soil is of that wicked clay which bakes 

 and cracks and tends to turn to stone, add fresh 

 sand and all the peat or rotted leaf mould that 

 it will hold. 



Remember, according to our table, that in the 

 case of either clay soil or sandy soil, enough of 

 the opposite ingredient should be added to make 

 the quantities about even. 



Bonemeal, wood ashes, and peat (or leaf mould, 

 which may be used in its place) added to 

 ordinary garden loam forms as near the ideal 

 diet for a dahlia as the volcanic soil and leaf 

 mould of its original haunts. 



The matter of leaf mould might almost have 

 a chapter to itself, there is so much to say. It is 

 Nature's own fertilizer. It is all she uses to feed 

 her own garden year by year; yet we, in our 

 ignorance, destroy it to the value of millions of 

 dollars annually. We complain that barnyard 

 manure is almost unprocurable, that artificial 

 fertilizers are expensive and unsatisfactory; yet 

 we have at our doors the most valuable material 

 we could ask for only to burn it up ! 



