378 
THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
purpose, produced. The roots should never be allowed, if it can 
possibly be avoided, to get beyond the reach of atmospheric in- 
fluences. It is in such a position alone that they can procure and 
assimilate the kind of aliment indispensable to the fruitfulness of 
the trees. When the borders are imperfectly drained, the fruit 
produced is not only small in quantity, but of inferior quality, and 
not fit for dessert or kitchen use, compared with such as is grown 
on dry and healthy soil. Where the situation is bad, it should not 
by bad gardening be made worse ; every means should be adopted 
to modify an evil of itself of sufficient magnitude. I should hope 
that nobody would ever think of planting trees in future without 
a complete examination of the condition of the soil, and particularly 
the subsoil, in order, if necessary, to apply those remedies which 
skilful gardening may suggest ; and surely there is sufficient skill 
and talent amongst us to meet, if brought into the field, all thy 
exigencies of the case. 
REMINDERS FOR GARDEN WORK IN DECEMBER. 
LL Hale-hardy Shrubs, Fuchsias, and other plants, not capable of 
standing hard frost, should have litter laid about their roots and up 
their stems. Tender roses should be taken up and laid in by the 
EKS&aSSlI heels in a shed or out-house, where the frost will not reach them, and 
covered wit" straw or litter. 
Heartsease and Pives should have litter over them, in case of hard weather. 
Tulips should be cover--r! against frost, which, though not killing, is injurious 
to the blooms if it reach the bulbs : those in the outer beds, though not, perhaps, 
of so much importance as the lest or show bed, may have hoops and mats over 
them with advantage. 
Carnations, Picottees, and Auriculas, as well, indeed, as all plants in pits 
or frames, should be kept pretty drv, and in mild, dry weather have all the air 
that can be given by taking off the glasses altogether. All dead leaves should be 
taken off, the surface occasionally stirred, and the greatest care should be taken 
that no snails or slugs harbour among the pots, and that the bottom of the pits or 
frames be dry. 
The roots of tender fruit-trees should be protected in hard weather with straw 
and the stems of vines outside of houses, when the heads are growing inside, 
should be bound down and otherwise protected with straw ; the roots also of 
those against walls should be covered with litter ; most wall-fruit trees, being 
earlier excited, should be also covered with litter. 
If the weather he mild, the vegetable garden should have the management of 
last month continued. 
In bad weather, in-door work should be attended to, the making of labels 
preparation of sticks and stakes, the breaking of old pots in small pieces to use 
as drainage, and shifting them through different-sized sieves ; examining all 
kinds of tubers, seeds, aDd other subjects, to see they are taking no damage — are 
all duties which are necessary during the winter, and should be done when nothing 
can be done out of doors. 
In dry mild weather, alterations, planting, and various pruning work should 
he done, and the cuttings gathered up and stacked for fuel, or burned to put the 
ashes on the ground. It is also in the winter season that manures and soils 
should be collected, and the heape turned over to mix well by the time they are 
wanted. No weeds should be allowed to grow among the compost. The prin- 
cipal soils, etc., to collect, are road-scrapings, loam, cow-dung, horse-droppings, 
sand, etc. 
