20 CULTIVATION 
A neighbor bought some tubers to establish a row 
of dahlias each side of her front walk. It was a fairly 
new house, and the top soil, as is usually the case, was 
the last thrown out of the cellar excavation. The lot 
was graded, but this centuries-old hard pan, from six 
feet below the surface, formed the top soil for lawn and 
garden. She did not wish to spoil her grass, so the 
holes for the dahlias were little punctures, not over 
five inches across, and not any deeper. The tubers 
were choice, but one certainly felt sorry for them. The 
solid clay in which they were planted caked and baked 
almost as hard as a flower pot. At a time when the 
plants should have been luxuriant green bushes eighteen 
inches high they were poor, stunted six-inch things, 
doomed to absolute failure. Yet the house was equipped 
with copper water conductors throughout, because such 
fine equipment was known to bring the most satis- 
factory results. Ignorance concerning plant life, and 
lack of thought as to what a living plant might reason- 
ably require, is all the more surprising when so much 
common sense is exercised in other directions. 
First-year amateurs are likely to write the nursery- 
man a complaining letter because small tubers have 
been received. Yet dahlia tubers vary in size according 
to variety. Some dahlias, John Wanamaker, Perle de 
Lyon, Madame Marze, for example, produce large 
tubers. But the beginner, and even the amateur of 
several years experience, wants large roots. He seems 
