60 



THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



should be aimed at, and thus, by keeping all the legumes, as 

 peas and beans, the brassica or cabbage kinds, the bulbous 

 or onion kinds, and lighter crops, as salads, &c., by them- 

 selves, each following in regular succession, the garden would 

 not only look better, but would, to a certain degree, produce 

 the rotation required. In no case should any of the brassica 

 tribe follow another upon the same piece of ground, neither 

 should peas follow peas, nor beans, beans ; onions are, probably, 

 the only exception in garden culture. A journal, or plan of 

 the garden should be kept, and the ground divided into por- 

 tions, each of which should be numbered, and a careful record 

 kept of all crops, manurings, trenchings, &c. 



The necessity of rotation is pointed out to us by nature ; for 

 all perennial herbaceous plants have a tendency to extend their 

 circumference, and to rot and decay at their centre, where 

 others of a different kind, spring up and succeed them. This 

 is particularly exemplified in the strawberry, and all such 

 stoloniferous growing plants ; mushrooms are said never to 

 rise two successive years on the same spot. The production 

 of the phaenomenon, called fairy rings, has been ascribed to the 

 power of the peculiar fungus, {Agaricus orcac/e"*,) which forms it, 

 of exhausting the soil of the nutriment necessary for the growth 

 of the species. The consequence of which is, that the ring 

 extends itself annually, as no seeds will grow where their 

 parents grew before them ; at the same time, that the interior 

 of the circle has been exhausted by succeeding crops ; but in 

 those places, where the fungus has died, grass has grown luxu- 

 riantly, nourishment being thus left for the support of grass 

 and other plants, after the agaricus has exhausted all that was 

 destined by nature for it. 



All crops for a few years thrive well on newly turned up 

 virgin mould, but in a few years they degenerate and require 

 a fresh soil. Land, in the course of years, often ceases to 

 produce the most common vegetables, and fields which are well 

 laid down with cultivated gi'asses, lose every one of them in a 

 few years ; they become, as it were, tired of them, but the 

 truth is, that they have exhausted the nourishment proper for 

 their respective sorts, and consequently die, and give place 

 to others. This fact is frequently experienced by botanists 



