A GARDEN IN VENICE 



or self-sown, in a year or two their abundant 

 vigour seems to exhaust the soil and that place 

 knows them no more. The Iris that grow with 

 us as people say like a weed, is no exception to 

 the rule, and requires rather than manure that 

 the soil they stand in should be changed, and the 

 lilies that we so love give us only of their joy on 

 condition that their site be changed or the fresh 

 earth they need be brought them from another 

 place. 



So, too, Christmas roses. A single plant per- 

 haps will thrive for years ; a plot of say twelve 

 to twenty plants, planted together, however care- 

 fully manured, will die out in the centre of the 

 plot after a few years' strong growth ; the out- 

 side plants in an enlarging circle still doing well. 

 We seem to lack the worm, that kindly gardener 

 which prepares the vegetable mould and renews 

 it, fitting the soil for the rocts of the plants, and 

 bringing them the food they have eaten out of 

 it ; that keeps the soil moist too with humus in 

 dry weather, and lets the surplus water drain 

 away in rain. One ought to import some of the 



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