January . 
47 
as they are more like large flower-pots. The 
trunks require filling very well, and a good deal of 
care should be taken in all cases to mix plenty of 
sandstone, and clods, and s pieces of turf, or char- 
coal best of all, amongst the finer soil with which 
we fill the hollows. This prevents the soil from 
getting into a great lump from want of sufficient 
drainage. 
The soil itself is best used light and rich. A 
good deal of leaf-mould answers very well — and 
cottagers’ children often do grand things for their 
fathers’ gardens, by collecting leaves in autumn to 
be put in a heap to decay. And in the winter 
months they help to burn soil and bits of stick and 
refuse — which may be one reason, young ladies 
and gentlemen, why your own 'gardens do not look 
so brimful as theirs sometimes do in the summer. 
Decayed vegetables are the best things to feed 
new vegetables. Charcoal also, or carbon, is ex- 
tremely useful, because it has the quality of suck- 
ing out moisture from the air, and thus it supplies 
the plants, not only with the carbon that they 
require, but also it brings near them the gases 
that they want, and more abundant moisture. I 
have sometimes heard of a crop of weeds being 
sown and let grow nearly up to blossoming time. 
