2 THE LITTLE GARDEN 



relation to nearby buildings, if the outlook is closed. The little 

 garden properly related to its environment in position and in 

 proportion is the little garden beautifully begun. 



The situation of the little garden will be varied — as varied as 

 are the different parts of any town or city. Li buying land, a lot 

 to live upon, the first considerations are general location, sur- 

 roimdings, outlook; the next, drainage and soil. With a good 

 soil, time, labor, money are saved for the gardener. Good drain- 

 age is an essential, not only to the health of people, but to that 

 of trees, shrubs, and flowers. A dry and fairly cool position is 

 always best for the majority of growing things. The best soil for 

 success in gardening is what is called a medium loam, a friable 

 loam, with, perhaps, a clay sub-soil. Everything grows in such a 

 soil as this; but where sandy or peaty loam exists, it is easy, by 

 adding, to the first, natural fertilizers, manure, and clay, or, to the 

 second, clay and sand, to get the best possible soil for a garden 

 or lawn. The clay enriches and holds moisture; the sand gives 

 drainage. Lime is an essential where ground may have been over- 

 fertilized, or where it has become sour. 



For most purposes nothing is so good in fertilizing as stable 

 manure, except for evergreens and rhododendrons, where stable 

 manure is considered to do more harm than good. But now, 

 when beasts are few and motor-cars many, the gardener is cut 

 off from his former source of supply, and commercial fertili- 

 zers must take the place of better ones. Let me reassure the 

 reader, however, as to one thing. Commercial fertilizers, adver- 

 tized in all good seed-catalogues, with the directions for using 

 them always carefully given, are really to be relied upon. And 

 the catalogues of your region — north, south, west — are the 

 ones whose advice you may with safety take. 



Bye the bye, make a collection of plant-, tree-, and seed-cata- 

 logues. The standard ones to-day contain advice that is inval- 



