THE HARVESTHsTG OF SOILS. 
247 
HARVESTING OF SOILS AND COMPOSTS AND THE PREPARATION OF 
CHARRED MATERIALS OF GENERAL UTILITY IN CULTIVATION. 
By Mr. G. T. 
This is one of those apparently trivial but really important subjects in gardening, to which 
sufficient value is far from being generally attached, although a little reflection will render 
it obvious that such items are deserving of a greater amount of attention from gardeners 
than they usually receive. What, for example, is more conducive to success in plant 
cultivation, or indeed in any branch of culture whatsoever, where it is necessary for the 
soils and composts employed to undergo some degree of artificial preparation before being 
used, than to have at command at all times and at all seasons — on rainy as well as on 
sunshiny days, — an appropriate stock of soils in healthy condition for immediate use. This 
it must be admitted is the very " primum mobile," so to speak, of success in cultivation, and 
although the benefits derived by plants from the soil in which they grow, originate as much 
or perhaps more, from its mechanical action and arrangement, as from any inherent 
chemical properties which it may possess, yet it must not be forgotten that a sweet, 
moderately dry, mechanically healthy condition of soils is as much secured, enhanced and 
preserved, by timely harvesting and protection, as are the chemical constituents which they 
may partake of. 
If more indubitable evidence of the especial value that ought universally to attach to 
what may expressively and emphatically be designated a healthy condition of composts, is 
desired, we need but just take a peep into the potting sheds and compost departments of 
the great " specimen " plant cultivators of the day, and here may be seen " fibrous peat," 
" turfy loam," " leaf-mould and silver sand," and the numerous et caeteras, unnecessary here 
to particularise, preserved as items of indispensable importance in the aggregate, and as fit 
for use in January as in June ; but if we extend our observations in another direction, how 
frequently shall we find the compost stores exposed alike to every vicissitude of the seasons 
and the elements, unfit for use perhaps at the time most needed, overgrown with a lux- 
uriant vegetation, appropriating the greater part of what is elementary and valuable ; thereby 
subjecting the rare exotic which these soils are destined to nourish and support, to a 
deprivation of its rightful, and it may be its most essential food, which has been usurped 
beforehand by the indigenous nettle and its compeers. 
If this be true of ornamental plants in pots, the same principle will apply with equal, 
if not with greater force, to soils and composts necessary for all the purposes of artificial 
cultivation from the winter frame-grown radish and carrots, to the cucumber, the melon, 
the pine-apple or pot-grown grape vine. Early melons and cucumbers, it is well known, 
are especially fastidious respecting a healthy condition of soil to root in ; indeed half the 
failures of the earliest crops of this fruit (the melon) might be easily traced to the uncon- 
genial, uncomfortable condition of the soil in which they are made to exert a lingering 
unkindly growth, and the same might be said of other things as well as melons, but enough 
has for the present been adduced to invite more attention to a subject of such first- 
rate importance in cultivation. 
No establishment, not even one of moderate extent, should be without a ^' compost 
department," by which I intend a plot of ground proportioned to the requirements of the 
case, situate conveniently in rear of the plant or forcing departments, (or in any other 
situation rendered more suitable by local or particular circumstances,) surrounded by a close 
evergreen hedge 5 or 6 feet high, for the purpose of concealment, with one or more 
entrances wide enough for the admission of carts loaded with soil, &c., and if the situation 
is somewhat elevated and (being free from the vicinage of trees) fully exposed to atmo- 
spheric influence, so much the better. 
If sheds and out-buildings already exist to a sufiicient extent in the establishment, for 
the necessary accommodation of composts and potting materials to which particular value is 
attached, the erection of any in the compost ground may of course be dispensed with, but 
