494 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Part III. 



cauliflowers when they show fruit, in order to swell the head : in a light soil this ought 

 unremittingly to be done. In very dry weather seedlings, asparagus, early turnips, 

 carrots, radishes, and small salads, will need an evening watering." He adds, " Water 

 to the bottom and extent of the roots, as much as may be. The wetting only the surface 

 of the ground is of little use, and of some certain harm, as it binds and cracks the earth, 

 and so excludes the benefit of showers, dews, air, and sun, from entering the soil, and 

 benefiting the roots as they otherwise would do. By wetting the surface of the ground, 

 however, in a summer's evening, as it makes a cool atmosphere, a dew is formed, which 

 pervades the leaves, and helps to fill their exhausted vessels." He recommends " water- 

 ing the roots of wall-trees in dry weather effectually; watering wall-trees with an 

 engine in the evening refreshes them much, and helps to rid the trees and wall of insects 

 and filth. Late in the summer, whdn the nights begin to get cold, it is time to leave off 

 all watering, except things in pots and frames, which should have it then only in the 

 morning. As watering is apt to make ground hidebound and unsightly, let the 

 surface be occasionally stirred and raked, which will make future waterings enter the 

 ground better : when the ground is hard on the top, the water runs away from its proper 

 place, and half the labor is lost. Many things are impatient of being kept wet about the 

 stalks, and therefore watering such plants should be generally at a little distance." 



2596. Watering over the leaves of luall-trees qnd espaliers is essentially necessary, because 

 these trees by their position are deprived in a great degree of the natural showers which 

 would fall on them, if their branches were freely diverged in the open garden. 



Ahercromhie, Forsyth, and Nicol strongly recommend watering the leaves of wall fruit-trees in dry 

 weather every other day in the evening. Forsyth recommends watering infected trees with clear lime- 

 water over the leaves, which he says soon destroys the red spider. Nicol uses water only j leaves oft' when 

 the fruit approaches to maturity ; and after it is gathered, recommences. 



2597. Substittites for ivatering can only be found in contrivances to lessen evaporation 

 from the soil. Mulching is much used for this purpose in all the departments of the 

 gardens of Italy and Spain. Even the Paris nurserj'men cover the spaces between their 

 lines of young trees with litter or leaves, as do the orange propagators at Nervi and the 

 market-gardeners at Rome and Naples. In this countiy similar practices are sometimes 

 tried. Maher, at Arundel Castle, during one very hot and dry summer, " sowed his seeds 

 in drills, and covered the intervals between the drills with tiles, letting the edges of the 

 tiles approach within an inch of the drills, and pressing them close into the earth. The 

 tiles effectually preserved the roots from the scorching rays of the sun, and by preventing 

 the evaporation of the moisture under them, afforded support as well as protection." 

 (Hort. Trans, vol. iv. p. 51.) 



Sect. VIII. Vermin, Insects, Diseases, and Accidents. 



2598. Such vermin as moles, mice, and birds are to be caught by some of the traps or 

 snares before described. (1473. to 1486.) After all the various devices that have been 

 suggested and practised for keeping under the grub, caterpillar, and snail, the most 

 certain is gathering them by hand at their first appearance every season. The grub, 

 wire- worm, and maggot must be sought for by removing the earth from the roots of 

 the plants where it is in action. The caterpillar gathered from the leaves beginning 

 early in the season. The snail picked from the leaves or stalks of plants ; or, in the case 

 of new-sown crops, by strewing the ground with cabbage-leaves, or decaying leaves or 

 haulm of any sort, (the proces.s of decay inducing a degree "of sweetness in the vegetable,) 

 the snails will attach themselves to their under surface in the night, and may be picked 

 off in the morning. Where the earth-worm is too abundant, they may be gathered in 

 digging ; or their casts removed, and the ground watered with clear lime-water. Ear- 

 wigs, wood-lice, and similar insects, may be caught in hollow stalks of vegetables, or in 

 the beetle-trap. Wasps are best destroyed by suffocating them in their nests ; when this 

 cannot be done, recourse must be had to bottles of honied water, or other common modes. 

 Watering is an effectual mode of destroying the red spider. Fumigation is generally 

 resorted to in the case of the aphis and thrips ; but in the open garden, watering and 

 rubbing, or brushing them off, will effect their destruction. 



2599. Diseases in the vegetable kingdom are rather to be prevented than cured. A good 

 soil on a diy sub-soil is the grand foundation of health, both in trees and herbaceous plants ; 

 and, on the supposition of proper culture, the judicious use of the knife to thin out 

 superfluous, diseased, or injured branches, shoots, or leaves, and of the scraper, to re- 

 move mosses and rough bark already cracked and separating, are all that can be done to 

 be depended on. Various unctions, oils, washes, compositions, and plasters, have been 

 tried and recommended for curing the canker, mildew, blight, blotches, barrenness, gum, 

 &c. ; but few or none of them can be depended on. For the mildew, strewing with pow- 

 dered sulphur is considered a specific; for the canker, &c., the most effectual mode of 

 procedure is to correct the faults of the sub-soil and soil, renewing the latter entirely, if 

 necessary j to cut out as far as practicable the diseased or vrounded part ; and in the case 



