ALLOTMENT AND COTTAGE GARDENING. 



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found as low standards planted at intervals down the garden quarters, 

 although sometimes nice well-cared-for bush trees are seen. The cottager, 

 however, is not, as a rule, a capable fruit-grower, and he prefers trees or 

 methods of training that call for only moderate technical skill. Thus we 

 rarely see the walls of a cottage utilised for the training of good Pears, 

 Plums, or Morella Cherries, fruits that well repay good culture. Presum- 

 ably the occupier does not care to embark on such culture of fruit, remem- 

 bering the uncertain tenure of his possession, the original cost of trees, 

 and his comparative lack of knowledge as to suitable training, pruning, and 

 attention. But if the utilitarian rule of the cottage walls be neglected, at 

 least some consideration is often shown for their decoration by means of 

 climbing Roses, Clematises, Honeysuckles, and other suitable plants. 

 Windows may be seen dressed with boxes filled with gay flowering plants, 

 or else with plants in pots ; not infrequently beneath the dressed window 

 is a flower stand, with tiers of shelves, on which very effectively grouped 

 are many plants in pots ; and sometimes also a singular beauty is added by 

 plants, especially drooping ones, such as Musks, Creeping Jenny, Campa- 

 nula, Isophylla, trailing Lobelia, drooping Begonias, Ivy-leaf Pelargo- 

 niums, and similar plants grown in pots, and secured by wire to wall-fixed 

 brackets, or planted in hanging baskets. In the garden the flowers include 

 Roses, Dahlias, hardy perennials, Carnations, Pinks, hardy and tender 

 annuals, and not infrequently many tender greenhouse plants, especially 

 Begonias, Fuchsias, Petunias, Pelargoniums in variety, all assisting to give 

 much delightful floral beauty. Naturally with all this evidence of garden 

 taste there is found neatness that seems to be almost excessive. Still it is 

 looked for, and when seen bears warm testimony to the tastes of the cot- 

 tager for cleanliness and order, without which even the best of crops may 

 fail to give satisfaction. How common it is to find the cleanliness of the 

 garden indicating the neatness and domestic comfort found in the cottage ! 



Cultivation and Manuring. — The picture of beauty and industry thus 

 drawn is yet one that never fails to arrest the attention of the passer-by 

 if near a highway, and presents a striking example to the other cottagers 

 of the locality. But all this, as seen in the summer, is only secured by 

 hard work. The industrious cottager now knows the value of deep culti- 

 vation ; hence in the winter months he trenches 2 feet in depth some portion 

 of his garden, and thus serves the whole of it so far as is practicable in 

 such way once every three or four years. The importance of deep cultiva- 

 tion has been made manifest to him in dry hot seasons, and he has been 

 taught that the deeper roots go in search of manure and moisture in dry 

 weather, the more effectually will the crops resist drought. He knows 

 too the value of manure dressings and of having a good portion placed 

 low down in the soil to induce roots to seek low for it. He knows the 

 value of manures for annual summer mulchings as a top dressing also, and, 

 not least, has learnt to understand how valuable a summer cultivator is 

 the hoe, kept in constant use in dry weather, thus keeping weeds from 

 growing and preserving on the surface about crops a fine coating of well- 

 pulverised soil which acts as a mulch also, and greatly assists to retain 

 moisture in the soil when great heat is prevalent. 



Cropping an Allotment. — While the areas of allotments differ, so also 

 do the shapes. But as a rule they comprise strips of ground of equal widths 



K 2 



