CULTIVATION 
soil could be too rich. He says: "It is a most fatal 
error to imagine that the flowers of Dahlias will be 
improved, or rendered larger, by being planted in a 
rich and highly nutritive soil; for instead of this being 
the case, they will expend all their strength in producing 
shoots and leaves, and the flowers will be few in number, 
and much impoverished; or they will be so rank and 
coarse, as to lose all that beauty of form which is so 
much desired in the Dahlia." 
Heavy soils must be lightened, or few and poor 
flowers will be the result. One grower states that he 
put twelve ( 1 2) inches of coal ashes over every inch of 
his garden, which was composed of heavy clay. The 
ashes were forked in, not spaded, and a thick spread of 
stable manure applied. After that leaf compost was 
added each spring and limed to neutralize probable 
sourness. The resultant soil proved excellent for 
dahlias. 
A number of experienced and competent growers 
do not recommend coal ashes, claiming they contain too 
much alkali, and injure the plants. Undoubtedly this 
is true concerning the ash of some coals. But such a 
medium for improving the mechanical condition of hard, 
heavy ground, is often the only one convenient for the 
home gardener, and has been used with excellent results. 
Adding the ashes to the garden little by little, through 
the winter, as coal is burned, might allow any soluble 
elements to be washed away by rains. The ashes are 
