176 GARDENING FOE YOUNG AND OLD. 



the spade, that will be sufficient covering. When the 

 plants appear, hoe carefully between the rows and as 

 close to the plants as you can, pulling out any weeds that 

 may be left. As the plants grow, thin them out, and 

 ultimately leave only one good plant in a place. 



DRUMMOND'S PHLOX. 



Of all annual flowers, Phlox Drummondii is my fa- 

 vorite. Although it is a native of Texas, it is admirably 

 adapted to our climate, and every garden should have a 

 large bed of it the larger the better. It can be grown 

 as easily as onions or carrots, in fact with less labor, as 

 the plants are farther apart and nearly all the weeds can 

 be removed with the hoe. On my farm I grow this Phlox 

 in the field, sowing it with a garden drill, in rows twenty- 

 one inches apart, precisely as turnips are sown. I mention 

 this to show how easily this plant can be grown. It requires 

 rich, clean, dry land; a sandy loam is better than either 

 a very light sandy soil or one that approximates to a clay. 

 For Phlox, as for many other garden crops, the true plan 

 is to prepare the land in the autumn, making it as rich, 

 deep, clean, and mellow as possible. The more manure 

 you work into it, the larger and more brilliant will be 

 the flowers, and this is especially the case if we have a 

 dry, hot summer. 



The seed should be sown as early as possible in the 

 spring. As I said before, you ought to have a large bed 

 of it. Single plants set out in beds with other flowers, 

 are very pretty, but to bring out the real beauty and ef- 

 fectiveness of the Phlox, you should see it in large 

 masses. If the bed has been well prepared in the au- 

 tumn, as soon as it is dry and in good working condition 

 in the spring, hoe the whole surface of the bed three or 

 four inches deep, and work it with a potato-hook and 

 steel rake until not a lump remains; then mark the bed 



