6oo 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF GARDENING, 



worked when rain falls, has just fallen, or is imminent. It is in Such case far wiser to 

 allow clay soils, if the winter time be wet, to remain just as left after the autumn crop 

 was taken off, as the worms create in it abundant pores for rain to pass through and air 

 to follow. It is a good plan also to allow a crop of annual weeds, Chickweed or Groundsel, 

 to grow on the ground during the winter, as keeping it more porous ; or better still to sow 

 on it early in October Rye, Oats, Tares, etc., to furnish a green crop to dig in during the 

 spring. If a dry spring follows a wet winter, such soils will work far better than will those 

 turned up for exposure early in the winter. 



DRESSINGS FOR STIFF SOILS. 



These should largely be of a gritty nature when obtainable. Sweepings of town streets, 

 including manure and grit, are good ; so also are dressings from country roads and trimmings 

 from roadsides and ditches, stacked to decay and dressed with lime. Decayed leaf soil is good 

 dressing; so also is manure containing plenty of straw fibre, as that helps to keep the soil 

 porous. Corn stubbles are good in this way. Cow and pig manures, being cold, should 

 be largely avoided. All these dressings — and not least vegetable ashes from wood fires or 

 of garden refuse — are valuable aids to the better pulverisation, aerating, and feeding of 

 stiff soils. 



Light Soils 



are more easily dealt with. These are of a sandy nature, and in such cases often deep, or 

 a sandy loam on gravel, perhaps not very deep and soon drying ; or of brash on chalk, also 

 often rather shallow. But they neec iittle special exposure to the elements, being always 

 porous and therefore well aerated. They never retain water, which percolates away rapidly, 

 and artificial drainage is not required. 



In all these cases great good is done by breaking up the subsoils deeply, though again 

 not bringing them to the surface. The greater the pulverised depth of light or dry soils the 

 more readily can plant roots find moisture in dry weather, whilst the sun's rays penetrating 

 into the soil serve to attract water from lower strata to the surface, and thus furnish moisture 

 to roots that is not found where subsoils remain hard, impervious, unbroken. Whether these 

 lower soils be sandy, or gravelly, or chalky, in any case they do in time become aerated, 

 manured, and fertile, and crops find at once greater moisture and food than can be found 

 on soils shallow worked. 



During dry summers crops on deep-worked soils always thrive doubly as well 

 as those growing on shallow-worked soils. Light soils, whilst benefited by almost 

 any manure, are most so by applications of half-decayed stable or cow-house manure, as 

 these are both fertile and retentive of moisture. Where practicable, a dressing of clay 

 laid on in the winter for the frost to disintegrate is very helpful. So, too, is the addition 

 of retentive loam. In summer all soils, no matter of what nature, may be in a large measure 

 kept moist by having the garden hoe run over the surface frequently, thus keeping on it a 

 mulch of fine soil. 



Too much importance cannot be attached to this matter of preparing soils. Unless 

 the soil is in good condition healthy growth is made impossible, and if beginners in gardening 

 would only lay this truth to heart, vegetable crops would be more abundant in years of 

 prolonged drought. Insufficient stress has been laid in the past upon the advisability of 

 providing a firm foundation or root run, to prepare the plants for times when all their strength 

 is necessary not merely to fight against insect plagues, but in times of drought. The way 

 to make a plant ready for insect attacks is to strengthen it. Weakly stock is always 

 first seized upon, whether of the greenhouse or the kitchen garden. In the articles 

 upon the vegetable garden much space is devoted to the consideration of soil preparation, 

 and we are pleased to find that the matter is receiving more attention now than heretofore 

 from young gardeners. 



