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WHY GARDENS GO WRONG 



Bringing up plants is very much like bringing up children. 

 There are folk who understand the matter instinctively — ^but 

 not many. To embark suddenly on a large garden enterprise — 

 to begin with a wide variety of trees and shrubs and plants, 

 expecting them all to prosper — ^is hke adopting an entire 

 orphan asylum aifd then wondering why each individual 

 child doesn't do one credit. 



Therefore, for one's peace of mind and for one's credit in 

 the community, it is better, when making a first year's gar- 

 den, to bid valor wait on discretion and choose the strongest 

 and most easily grown plants, turning resolutely from extraor- 

 dinary novelties as from so many temptations of the devil. 



There are, in gardening, obvious evils for which there are 

 definite remedies, such as when insects descend or when disease 

 thins the ranks; but when, with no apparent cause, one plant 

 or another simply does not flourish, here are some of the pos- 

 sible causes : 



When Sheubs or Trees Do Not Succeed 



Wrong Planting. — ^The hole may have been neither wide 

 enough nor deep enough, in which case the roots were cramped, 

 perhaps broken. Not only should the hole admit the roots 

 comfortably, but there should be room enough for a shovelful 

 of manure in the bottom to give the plant-roots some incentive 

 to go down. In planting, look for the earth-mark on the stem 

 and plant it precisely as deep — no deeper. 



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