CHAPTER VI 



Making Beds and Borders 



Being intended solely for the purpose of 

 accommodating living plants, beds and borders 

 should be made so that they will furnish every- 

 thing that a plant demands of the soil. This 

 implies not only that the soil shall be of such 

 a nature as to supply abundant food for the 

 roots, but that it shall be of sufficient depth 

 and of proper consistency, and that it shall 

 contain no undesirable constituents. 



Soils are as we find them, and not always 

 as we would have them, so that the gardener 

 who, by force of circumstances, has to till an 

 intractable soil, must adopt artificial means 

 to bring it into a better condition. Reference 

 has already been made to the subject in 

 Chapter 11. 



Let us assume that the gardener is breaking 

 virgin ground, say a piece of old pasture. He 

 has staked out the main lines of his garden plan, 



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