140 



GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



MULCHING, SHADING, AND WATERING. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Mulching. — Mulching is placing litter of various kinds, 

 as leaves, pine straw, or strawy manure, upon the surface 

 soil over the roots of plants and shrubs. If leaves are 

 used, a little earth may be required to keep them in place. 

 Mulching is used as well to prevent moisture from evap- 

 orating from the soil in summer, as to prevent frost 

 from penetrating to the roots in winter. In summer a 

 mulch is usually applied to trees and shrubs newly trans- 

 planted, and to herbaceous plants that are impatient of 

 heat about the roots. Irish potatoes, mulched, produce 

 more abundantly, and are of better quality. Strawber- 

 ries, thinly mulched, with the crown uncovered, are much 

 more productive and continue longer in fruit. Rhubarb 

 and other plants, requiring a cool soil, can thus be more 

 easily raised ; and so with many other crops. Summer 

 mulching should be applied directly after a rain, that the 

 moisture in the soil may be retained. It should not be 

 applied to potatoes or other tender plants until the danger 

 of frost is over, as the increased evaporation from damp 

 mulch will produce a white frost when there is none or 

 little elsewhere formed. Fruit trees, by having their roots 

 mulched, are kept in better health and vigor. Mulching 

 not only wards off drought, but, in this way, by keeping 

 the ground moist, and by the decay of the mulching sub- 

 stance, a good deal of food is conveyed to the plants. 

 Some authors are of the opinion that ground will become 

 continually richer by being shaded. A supply of small, 

 fibrous roots is thrown out at the surface by mulched 

 plants, and thus is prevented the formation of tap-roots, 

 which are inimical to the production of blossom buds. 

 But the great benefit of mulching is that a steady perma- 



