228 YARD AND GARDEN 



grown as a potato, jjerfeftly hardy, demanding 

 but little attention, were until recent years 

 but little known in America. Yet importations 

 were made among the first products brought 

 from the land of the Mikado. We have been 

 dilatory in planting them, but now, however, 

 they are planted by the thousand every season 

 in America, and each season the demand in- 

 creases. 



We are always advised that they are "excel- 

 lent for naturalizing in the water garden," and 

 that here they thrive best and their flowers 

 attain greatest size. This is true, but not ex- 

 clusively true. We do not need a water gar- 

 den to have Japanese irises ; we do not need 

 even a "swampy" situation. Hundreds of 

 them have been grown without either. Some 

 employ a sunken bed. To prepare this, dig a 

 trench two feet wide for a single row, or wider, 

 according to the width of the bed projected. 

 Remove all the dirt to a depth of two feet. 

 The soil in the bottom of the trench is then 

 loosened to a further depth of twelve inches, 

 well-rotted manure is liberalh^ spaded in, and 

 the earth first removed from the trench, mixed 

 with manure, is returned until the surface of 

 the bed thus prepared stands some three or 



