28 HARDY PERENNIALS 
of sun and air and the sweetening effects of winter's 
frosts. It is therefore poor, inert, hfeless, and sour, 
and requires a thorough course of treatment to 
fit it for the growing of hardy plants. 
The first step should be to throw up the soil 
roughly in ridges, to expose the greatest possible 
surface to the atmosphere. It is most probable 
the soil will be deficient in lime, in which case a 
dressing of either quicklime or slaked lime should 
be applied at the time of ridging. 
After a few weeks' exposure the ground should 
be forked over, and if this takes place at any time 
previous to the end of September the whole surface 
may immediately be sown broadcast with seeds of 
some quick-growing crop for green manuring. 
In regard to the liming it may be advisable to 
remark that although necessary to correct acidity 
and perform certain other functions in the soil, 
lime cannot enrich a starved and poor soil, indeed 
it would tend to still further impoverish it, and it 
will be necessary soon after the ground is covered 
with the green crop to dig in that crop together with 
something in the way of animal manure. All this 
preparatory work may be done during the winter, 
and thus the ground will be well prepared for spring 
planting. 
Sour and Manure-sick Soil 
There is still another kind of soil that calls for 
careful treatment, viz. that of an old garden that 
