January . 
49 
you learn of Vegetable Physiology the more you 
will learn to grow into clever gardeners. 
I have explained all this to you here because it 
looks so stupid to go blundering on without caring 
to know the why and the wherefore of the things 
that are. 
To return to our tree stumps. 
If then you want to have very luxuriant leaf- 
age, and climbers twisting round and covering the 
sides, you are pretty safe in getting well decayed 
leaf-mould. It is much the better if it has been 
thoroughly frozen through and exposed to the air, 
some time— one wintry work is, therefore, to turn 
over the heaps, if heaps you have, of soil. 
The stumps then should be well filled up with 
soil. Don’t plant things at first. Heap the soil 
up well, and then when it has sunk, as it is sure 
to do, fill it up again till it seems to sink no more. 
For any other stumps, too, that you may have got 
before there cannot be a better time for putting in 
new soil. If in the autumn, the plants were taken 
out — for they were most likely greenhouse plants 
or annuals — and if the soil was removed, you have 
only now to find a fine frosty day for getting ready 
a wheelbarrow or two full of soil and filling them 
all as usual. Of course the soil you use need not 
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