Requisites ii 



THE SOIL 



The chances are that you will not find a spot of 

 ideal garden soil ready for use anywhere upon your 

 place. But all except the very worst of soils can be 

 brought up to a very high degree of productiveness 

 — especially such small areas as home vegetable gar- 

 dens require. Large tracts of soil that are almost 

 pure sand, and others so heavy and mucky that for 

 centuries they lay uncultivated, have frequently been 

 brought, in the course of only a few years, to where 

 they yield annually tremendous crops on a commer- 

 cial basis. So do not be discouraged about your 

 soil. Proper treatment of it is much more import- 

 ant, and a garden-patch of average run-down, — or 

 "never-brought-up" soil — will produce much more 

 for the energetic and careful gardener than the rich- 

 est spot will grow under average methods of culti- 

 vation. 



The ideal garden soil is a "rich, sandy loam." And 

 the fact cannot be overemphasized that such soils 

 usually are made, not found. Let us analyze that de- 

 scription a bit, for right here we come to the first 

 of the four all-important factors of gardening — food. 

 The others are cultivation, moisture and tempera- 

 ture. "Rich" in the gardener's vocabulary means 

 full of plant food ; more than that — and this is a 

 point of vital importance — it means full of plant 

 food ready to be used at once, all prepared and spread 



