512 GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS 



heat, cool slowly. For most fruit-forcing they are best. In many small 

 gardens a greenhouse is built rather cheaply against a wall or to the 

 side of a house, and thus lean-to's are common in that way. A frame 

 which has but one slope is a lean-to in one acceptation of the term, but 

 generally the description is given to houses only. Small lean-to houses 

 can often be economically warmed. 



Loam. When advice is given about potting composts or soils, it 

 is universally recommended that a good proportion shall consist of 

 " turfy loam." By " turfy " is meant the combination with the loam 

 of grassy matter such as pasture grass and roots, all of which being of a 

 fibry nature helps to keep the loam from becoming close and hard, and 

 as it decays also becomes plant food. But " loam " to be so described, 

 must be neither clay, which is close, sticky, and, when dry, very hard, 

 nor sand, which is the reverse, as it is always loose and in fine particles. 

 It is a very happy compound of both these minerals or soils, somewhat 

 in the proportion of two-thirds clay to one-third sand, yet no human 

 agency seems able by combining them to produce such a remarkably 

 well-constituted material as Nature does in good loam. It should be 

 free from stone, and when pressed hard in the hand be so far free as to 

 fall apart again at once. Turfy loam should be dug in the winter in 

 spits of 9 inches deep, and be stacked in heaps, turf downwards, for six 

 months before it is used. 



Maidens. A curious term chiefly used in nurseries where fruit 

 trees are largely raised every year. The term is applied to fruit trees and 

 Roses grown from bud or grafts the first year, and before they have been 

 pruned in any way. When nurserymen offer fruit maidens for sale, and 

 they are then usually cheap, they mean, of course, single-stem trees, quite 

 unpruned. In the case of trees from buds, the fodding is performed 

 the previous summer. The bud remains dormant all the winter, and 

 then starts into growth \ery strong in the spring. As the bud shoot 

 extends, the top of the stock on which it is budded is cut away until 

 nothing of it is left above where the bud shoot breaks out. Very 

 frequently on good ground these bud shoots reach from 4 feet to 7 feet 

 in height that season. Good standards can be made from strong 

 budded maidens. 



Marl. This substance, though much appreciated by gardeners who 

 have light soils, is, like clay and chalk, useless for potting purposes. 

 But as a dressing at the rate of three barrowsful per rood, applied to 

 light porous soils, it is excellent. It is a combination of chalk and clay, 

 and in that respect forms what may be called a clayey compound, whilst 

 its value lies in its tendency, when well mixed after exposure for a 

 winter on the surface, to make loose soils more adhesive, and the chalk 

 assists to create carbonate of lime. As an occasional dressing it is very 

 useful. Marl is found as a subsoil in various localities, and in some 

 districts is excavated from pits. Pure chalk dressings are good for 

 heavy or clay soils, and clay dressings for light soils needing body or 

 adhesiveness. All these minerals may be applied moderately with good 

 results as winter dressings every two or three years. 



