12 CULTIVATION 
are naturally lacking in most plant food elements. A 
very light soil will have much of its plant food washed 
out of it by rains in a few years, and fertility must be 
constantly renewed. The artist who said that he mixed 
his palette colors with brains is a model for gardeners. 
Treat the soil, and cultivate your plants, with the same 
incomparable mixture. 
Anyone has sense enough to know that plants will 
do better in some soils than in others, and this is often 
the secret of Mr. A always raising better crops than Mr. 
B. Commercial dahlia growers receive letters from 
some customers praising the quality of roots sent them, 
because they grew so well. Other customers write dis- 
mal tales of ill-success, strongly flavored with hints of 
blame for poor stock sent them. Dahlia results depend 
a good deal upon the soil, and even in a field no larger 
than twenty acres there may sometimes be found 
five different kinds of soil. Soils are very much what 
the gardener makes them. A clay soil requires coarser 
manure and more lime. Any soil is greatly benefited 
by the addition of generous amounts of humus (decayed 
vegetable matter). Just ordinary soil, the soil you have, 
can be so treated that it will grow flowers that can win 
prizes at exhibitions. The soil most to be desired, the 
best soil, is a deep, loamy friable, open one; yet soil 
that retains generous portions of the rains, but with 
such good drainage that it will never become water- 
logged and actually drown out the plants by smothering 
