THE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN. 
30 
o 
o 
December. 
“ Rain and wind beat dark December.” 
Make plantations of rhubarb, seakale, asparagus, and horse- 
radish. Roots of dandelion, packed together in leaf-mould 
and put into gentle heat, will furnish a delicate salad, in five 
or six weeks. Keep dung and all soluble matters under cover. 
Turn over manures, and put aside in heaps to be frozen rotted 
leaves and other materials suitable for potting, and when , 
w r ell sweetened and pulverized remove to bins in the potting 
shed to keep dry for use. Get sticks and stakes tied up in 
bundles ready for use; wheel turf and weeds to the muck-pit; 
get pots washed and sorted over, and crocks shifted into sizes 
for the potting-bench. This is a good time to make new drains, 
improve watercourses, and plant hedges. Sow early peas and 
beans on dry slopes ; broccoli to be heeled over with their 
heads to the north. 
Dig round old fruit trees, and lay down a layer of old dung- 
six inches thick, in a ring, four feet distant from the stem of 
each, and the size of the fruit will be improved. Trees that 
are sufficiently luxurious should not have manure. Give pro- 
tection to tender fruit trees, and lay boards in a slope over 
vine borders to shelter them from excessive cold rains. UnnaiK — - 
from the walls the younger shoots of tender wall-trees toprevent 
premature growth. Bush fruits properly taken up and properly 
planted out do not miss the move in the slightest degree, but 
you are sure to loose a whole season if they lay about waiting 
to be planted. Strawberry beds may be made this month, but 
it is not a good time to plant strawberries. Bush fruits should 
be planted, potted, pruned, and manured. Burn the prunings, 
and if the ashes are not wanted for any particular purpose, 
throw them round the roots of trees ; they are powerfully 
fertilizing. Gooseberries and currants may be lightly forked 
between to mix the manure with the soil, but raspberries 
should have three or four inches of dung, not very rotten, laid 
over the piece, and the soil between them should not be dug 
at all. Orchard-house trees may be pruned at once, and 
washed with a solution of eight ounces of Gishurst to a gallon 
of soft water. 
