VII 



PLANTS AND CULTIVATION 



WHEN plants have reached maturity or approach 

 it, whether flower, fruit or vegetable, watch 

 them closely and do not withdraw constant care from 

 them. Volumes written about them could not cover, 

 comprehensively, all their little queernesses and strange 

 freaks. Each one seems almost a problem by itself, 

 sprung up from the ground to show some new phase 

 of Mother Nature's ingenuity, and each gardener must 

 learn by his own experience how to meet the par- 

 ticular emergencies arising from the combination of 

 soil, weather and plant with which he has to deal. 



But while maturing plants differ in their require- 

 ments greatly and each must be studied by itself, there 

 is one thing that is appreciated by all alike, and that is 

 tillage. The man with the hoe, and the rake, and the 

 cultivator, is the being they hail as friend, be sure of 

 that. Indeed this stirring of the soil is so great a bene- 

 fit that one of the most ancient garden maxims says 

 tillage is manure." 



It is not alone to keep the weeds down, however, 

 that this stirring of the surface must be kept up, 

 surprising as it may seem and contrary to popular 



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