September 8, 1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
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14th Sunday after Trinity. 
Royal Horticnlturnl Society—Fruit and Floral Committees at 11 A m. 
National Chrysanthemum Society’a Show, Westminster. 
DEEP versus SHALLOW CULTIVATION. 
T may well be asked before the season of drought 
passes out of memory, What advantage is there 
in deeply cultivated soil as compared with 
that which is cultivated in a shallow manner ? 
I believe the advantages are many, but what 
strikes one most is the slight hold the dry 
weather takes on vegetation established in 
deeply worked fertile soil. Naturally deep¬ 
rooting trees like Apples are greatly improved in the 
quality of their produce. Currants of all kinds have 
borne enormous crops of tine fruit which has been sweeter 
than is general, even in good seasons. Deep-rooting 
vegetables, of which Peas are an example, have been alike 
remarkable for their general healthiness and for the large 
crops of fine quality they have produced. Taking Dahlias 
as presenting a good type ot deeply rooting plants, we 
find these to he very fioriferous, the foliage healthy and 
the flowers large. Shrubs growing in deep soil have gone 
on in a perfectly satisfactory manner; those growing in 
shallow ground have been severely punished. Of course 
there are many plants which delight in a dry warm 
medium, but these we do not refer to, for w r e find Dahlias 
in soil of slight depth dried up and flowerless, Peas 
yellow and incapable of producing any pods, and Apple 
trees stunted, fruit small and falling prematurely. The 
reason for these things is to be found in the one case in 
the soil containing a sufficient amount of moisture to 
enable deep-rooting plants to supply themselves with a 
liberal quantity of food to carry out all the processes of 
their existence beneficially. But with shallow-worked 
ground the stratum of fertile soil must have been so 
thoroughly freed from moisture as to cripple the plants 
by lack of food, and very probably those roots which 
did pass beyond the reach of the drought were in a 
medium entirely deficient in the elements of plant food, of 
which moisture itself is only one, though most important. 
There is another point worth calling attention to, and 
that is the greater capacity thoroughly well-worked soil has 
for retaining moisture. This fact points to the necessity of 
cultivators not only turning over ground to a fairly good 
depth, and incorporating, if possible, manure throughout, 
but further than that all clods and lumps of soil must 
be well broken up to its entire depth, this process 
rendering the ground of a greater staying quality in such 
periods of dry weather as -we have this year experienced 
than that which has been merely roughly trenched and 
clods left unbroken. That such is the case is proved by 
mounds of fertile soil, such for example as the banks 
between Celery trenches, being more productive in very 
dry weather than even ground on the level. We refer of 
course to broad mounds of soil. 
No. 370. —Yol. XV., Third Series. 
Troceding to consider the case of plants which do not 
require a deep rooting medium, and to which therefore 
it may be thought the drift of these remarks does not 
apply, it may be here pointed out that a deep body of 
soil in good fertile condition exerts throughout its whole 
depth an influence on the plants growing therein. Bapid- 
growing plants, such as Cabbages, summer Cauliflowers, 
Phloxes, Asters, and annuals generally, one-year-old 
Strawberries, &c., do not root deeply, and any manure 
which it may he considered necessary to apply to the soil 
as a direct help should not be applied deeper than 9 to 
12 inches; hut if the soil is worked no deeper at any 
time than the above figures such crops will cut but a sorry 
figure in dry weather, whereas on a deeply cultivated 
soil under proper management most of them will succeed 
well. The reason is to be found in the fact that, although 
the roots of the plants may not travel deep enough to 
obtain direct supplies from the deeper soil, yet there is a 
continual passing of moisture laden with plant food in 
solution to take the place of the diner medium in which 
the roots are active. If there be no means of staying the 
upward progi’ess of this moisture its final destination will 
be the atmosphere, and much of its value is destroyed by 
this means. However, a layer of pulverised dry soil 
formed on the surface of the ground by means of hoeing 
acts as a very complete foil between the dry atmosphere 
above and the comparatively moist soil beneath. 
No doubt also plants growing in deep soils have time 
to adapt themselvc-s to the circumstances of their life. 
The environments of animals exert a powerful influence 
on their habits and capacities to exist under very differing 
conditions. Plants exercise this peculiarity in a greatly 
enhanced degree, and it is wonderful to see how plants 
are capable of extracting support from soil which to all 
appearance is of a very dry nature. There is a limit to 
this, but it is much sooner arrived at in the case of a 
shallow cultivated soil than with a deep one. 
The great benefit derived from adding to the depth of 
fertile soil by the addition of material added to it from 
outside sources, such as soil, decayed garden rubbish, and 
so forth, has been clearly shown this year. We have 
instances of poor shallow soil which has not yet been 
improved by any such additions, and others where deep 
dressings have been given, and the difference in the two is 
measured by success in the latter case, and failure in the 
other. There are gardeners wealthy in the sense of pro¬ 
curing at their wish the best of everything, who would 
hesitate to add anything of a poorer quality than good 
loam to their garden soil; but decayed vegetables, leaves, 
sweepings of roads, and soils which have been used and 
left to lie by for a year or two are quite as effective in 
many cases as loam. At any rate, no one need hesitate 
to employ these who may wish in vain for the other—B. 
BEDDING VIOLAS. 
It may interest not a few growers of these plants to 
know how they have behaved during the present summer, 
also the conditions under which they have existed, 
and what varieties have succeeded or failed, as the case 
may be, under such conditions. The strain upon the 
durability of these and many other hardy flowers is en¬ 
tirely without precedent, and only those that have been 
well cared for in the planting season will have borne the 
exceptionally severe test to which they have been sub¬ 
jected. It would be difficult to conceive times more 
trying than the past few months, so that with all these 
No. 2032.—Toil. LXXVII., Old Sebies. 
