GROUND OPEEATIONS. 



II 



sparrows or blue dahlias or blue roses at any season. 

 And hence, notwithstanding the dictum that the 

 land which will grow good wheat or mangold will 

 also grow very excellent vegetables or flowers, it 

 is found by far the best and cheapest policy in the 

 end, to thoroughly remodel and overhaul most ground 

 before it is devoted to garden purposes. 



For the fact is that the labour-bill and other 

 expenses of the garden reach of necessity such a 

 considerable sum, that only the best soils yield a 

 profitable return. Never was the penny-wise pound- 

 foolish maxim so vividly illustrated as in the en- 

 closure of gardens by brick walls or other fences, 

 the planting of valuable trees, bushes, or other 

 plants, the sowing of the choicest of seeds, and 

 the devotion of skilled labour to horticulture — all 

 doomed to failxire through the poverty or bad con- 

 dition of the soil. Horticulture handicapped with 

 inferior soil is bound to prove a losing concern. Skill 

 and energy can do and are daily doing very much to 

 vanquish and destroy other difficulties, such as those 

 of an uncertain oHmate, the constant assaults of 

 foes, and hindrances of all kinds. But when the 

 earth is in league against the cultivator, he must and 

 does sm-ely fail. Taking it therefore for granted 

 that certain ground operations will be needful, it will 

 be useful to describe the most important, and to 

 give as plain and clear instructions as possible for 

 their proper and prompt performance. The chief 

 are the levelling, trenching, draining, dig-ging, and 

 ameliorating of the ground. 



LeveUing does not mean that every kitchen or 

 flower garden or lawn is to be converted into a dead 

 flat. Nothing could be in worse taste, or lead to less 

 profit, than such dead seas of unproductive and un- 

 sightly uniformity. Inequalities of surface, causing 

 incUnes less rather than more steep towards the 

 sunniest and consequently the most genial point of 

 the compass, are among the most potent causes of 

 augmented fertility and increased yield. The term 

 " level," as used here, is synonymous with evenness 

 of surface, and even that need not be too rigidly 

 enforced, for some of our best gardens are so imeven, 

 and lie on such steep inclines, that the heavy rains 

 convert the walks into toiTcnts, and carry the gravel 

 pell-mell before them to the lowest points of the 

 walks; while summer showers of unusual severity 

 not seldom bear crops and surface tilth away bodily 

 also, reminding us of the farmer on the blowing sands 

 in East Anglia, who found his barley field, that he 

 had sown over-night, blocking up the drift-way from 

 bedge-top to hedge-top the following morning. But, 

 of course, such steep inclines are far from desirable — 

 they may insure early crops, or mature fruit on walls 

 that could not be otherwise grown in the climate or 

 locality, but they have many drawbacks. The crops 



may be washed out or burnt up, and are not infre- 

 quently subjected to something apx^roaching to both 

 catastrophes in turn, while the labour of transporting 

 manure, removing produce, and of cultivating the 

 land, is almost doubled. All such unlevel sites should, 

 if possible, be avoided. Of course, the erection of 

 boundary-waUs of hot-houses, and other buildings, 

 is greatly simplified and much facilitated if tho 

 garden is or can be made level, or to fall gently to 

 the south, south-east, south-west, west-south-west, 

 or even, though that is not so desirable, north- 

 west. 



The most Common Mistake in Levelling. 



— This important and vital operation, on which so 

 much of the future success or failure in any givea 

 garden so largely depends, is too often left wholly 

 in the hands of architects or builders. Tb& result is 

 that the surface is laid level or smoothed over, at the- 

 sacrifice of a portion, and not seldom the whole, of the 

 surface soil. Now, as every tyro in rural affairs- 

 knows, this soU is not only the best, but very oftem the- 

 only soil of any possible use or value. Nevertheleasi 

 the mere mechanical leveller throws it here, there-,, 

 and everywhere, into any and everj' dee]> rut ®3i 

 depression, just as if it were nothing worth. Why, 

 with hardly any figure of speech, that surface tfl-th 

 may be defined as fragrant roses, crisp celery, sweett 

 cauliflower, luscious peaches, in another and not very 

 distant form. And yet in how many gardens in th* 

 course of formation, has it been degraded to the level 

 of mere ballast or builder's rubbish ! sold to surface 

 other gardens with a few inches of presentable soil, 

 that lures so many amateurs to their bitter disap- 

 pointment in horticultural pursuits ; screened to make 

 sand for mortar in the running-up of contract houses, 

 or virtually stolen by speculators ; the barren subsoil 

 alone being left for the future owner of the tempting 

 suburban or "^dUa residences, so tellingly posted up 

 and alluringly described as " self-cpntained within 

 their own grounds." Why, the ground proper has been 

 cleared out years ago, almost as clean as a hungry 

 dog picks a bone, and instead has been placed the 

 vilest possible compound of dead subsoil, brick-bats, 

 and builder's rubbish, about as barren and as utterly 

 useless for horticultural purposes as the same depth 

 of the old or new red sandstone. 



Neither has this robbery, denudation, and degra- 

 dation of surface been confined to the immediate 

 neighbourhood of great and populous cities. Not 

 a few of the noblest mansions in the country have 

 had the surface of their grounds destroyed for some 

 considerable distance by the overspreading of the 

 subsoil dug out of the foundations all round the 

 house. The stuff was on the spot, such as it was, 

 and the cheapest way to get rid of it was to raise the 



