132 



THE GREEN-HOUSE. 



a sandy, gravelly, limy, peaty, stony, or clayey soil at 

 first sight ; and it would not be easy to communicate 

 tliis fact verbally to a person who only knew soils by 

 reading about them. It may be sufficient to say, 

 that all nursery gardeners choose it for the scene of 

 their operations when they can, and that it is finely 

 exemplified in most of the London nurseries west of 

 the Metropolis. It can nowhere be better studied 

 than in the vineyard at Hammersmith, or in the gar- 

 den of the Horticultural Society. 



The gardener knows how to collect loam for 

 green-house plants, by paring off a few inches of the 

 surface of a loamy grass field; or taking in a body 

 the earthy materials of an old hedgerow standing on a 

 loamy soil. This should be carted to a convenient 

 part of the garden, laid in heaps or ridges, and turned 

 over two or three times a year, so that every part may 

 be heated by the sun, moistened by the rains or snows, 

 and frozen by the winter's frosts. 



Peat soil is to be collected chiefly from peat bogs ; 

 but what is better, the turf from the surface of a moor 

 where heath naturally grows. This laid in heaps 

 will gradually decay, and moulder into peat earth. 

 At present there are few districts of country so en- 

 tirely subjected to aration, as not to admit of situations 

 where peat earth may be found ; but the time may 

 come, when this material may have to be imported 

 from the north of Scotland, or Ireland, or even from 

 other states in the north of Europe. But before such 

 a scarcity occurs, it will be found that leaf-mould, 



