174 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ August 27, 1885. 
in gardens with the greatest ease, for all that is requisite is 
to scatter seeds on vacant ground and work them into the 
surface with a rake. In some gardens this is done as part of 
the ordinary routine of cropping, hut by no means in all, and 
the advisability of extending the practice is worthy of consi¬ 
deration at the present time. There is at least this in its 
favour, that if the produce is not used it will be worth far 
more than the cost of the seed for digging into the ground 
as manure, especially in light lands. Seed may be sown at 
any time from now till the middle of September. 
Spinach should be grown more freely than is customary 
in gardens where the vegetable supply is likely to be limited. 
This is a most, wholesome vegetable, and when properly cooked 
and served, dishes of it are aj t to be sent empty away. It 
is quite immaterial whether the round-seeded or summer 
Spinach, or the prickly-seeded or winter Spinach be sown 
now, and persons who have surplus seed of the former may 
use it with the variety purposely obtained for sowing at this 
period of the v ear. If there be any difference between the 
two it is not unlikely the so-thought tender variety will prove 
the hardier, and it will be at the least equally productive. 
I grew no “ winter ” or prickly Spinach for ten years, yet 
never failed to have an abundant winter supply with the 
summer or round variety. I presume the reason why the 
one is considered hardy and the other tender is because some 
fanciful or enterprising individual printed a statement to that 
effect at some remote period, and the compilers of catalogues 
have copied each other with characteristic fidelity ever 
since. 
Is it generally known that the round-leaved Batavian 
Endive is excellent when cooked ? Some persons enjoy it 
in that way better than any other, and it has on more than 
one occasion proved serviceable as a culinary vegetable in 
midwinter. Those who have plenty of plants or can raise 
them quickly might do worse than grow a few extra for the 
purpose indicated. Judging by the bare appearance of many 
gardens it is obvious that “ something must be done,” or 
there w’ll be unpleasant reminders of the scarcity of green 
vegetables before spring Cabbages are ready for cutting ; and 
we must remember that these will be late in many gardens, 
the dry weather having arrested the germination of the seed 
and checked the growth of the plants. 
This is a plain article on a plain subject, yet not unim¬ 
portant, for after all that can be said in praise of the skilful 
cultivation of flowers, it remains that the most important of 
all the duties of a gardener is to “ keep the pot a-boiling.”— 
Experientia docet. 
FRESH SOILS AND COMPOSTS. 
There are two reasons why no better period during the 
whole year can be chosen for collecting and preparing soils for 
the ensuing winter operations in the fruit garden than the early 
part of September, provided the weather is dry. In the first 
place, soils should never be handled when in a close or stagnant 
state; and in the second, there can be no doubt that loams and 
other adhesive soils are then much fuller of the gaseous matter 
of the atmosphere than at any other period. Soils handled in a 
damp state become what country folks term “ livered,” or, as 
some have it, “ soured,”—their particles become forced closer 
together, whereby the qualifying: and wholesome air contained in 
their interstices is forced out, and the air cavities of course com¬ 
pressed. This occurs through the tread of the foot of either 
man or horse, and is also continually taking place through the 
action of the spade or other implement employed in digging and 
collecting it. 
Soils thus circumstanced are with difficulty pulverised again: 
indeed, if buried orthwith below the ground level they will long 
retain these awkward properties, and if preserved in the compost 
yard, many months pass away, and some handling is requisite in 
order to get them in a wholesome condition again. They are 
fuller of the invigorating and mellowing agencies of the atmo¬ 
sphere in the end of summer, for it is well known how pent-up 
and stagnant moisture becomes evaporated by the heat of sum¬ 
mer, the place of which must of necessity be filled with air. 
Strong soils, moreover, contract much by drying, and this, 
as is well known, causes them to rift in all directions, which 
mechanical action is of the utmost benefit to the soil, as ulti¬ 
mately promoting easy pulverising. We need scarcely add that 
the latter process is absolutely essential to fei’tility. 
Now, a winter’s fallow or exposure to the alternations of 
frost and thaw will produce the same mechanical effects ; but 
then the soil becomes filled again with moisture Thus it will 
be readily seen why the end of the summer is decidedly the most 
eligible time to collect soils. Another point recommends this 
course : the turfy material at this period contains a greater 
amount of organic matter than at any other period. Gross 
herbage will be found to prevail, and a vast accumulation of 
organic remains of the previous spring’s growth, and we need 
scarcely say that all good cultivators esteem their soils in pro¬ 
portion to the amount of organic matter they contain. 
We would have all young gardeners pay the utmost atten¬ 
tion to these points. Much, very much, is to be learned from 
the study of this apparently simple affair. Of course the re¬ 
marks here made apply principally to what are termed loams 
that indefinite class of soils fully understood by the practical 
man, the squeeze of whose thumb and finger will determine with 
tolerable accuracy the character of such soils. 
Now, it must not be supposed that in speaking of composts, 
soils, &c., that we would wish our readers to infer that we are 
continually harping about loam. It must be confessed that 
loam—good loam—is the very elixir of the compost yard; still, 
as we are not advising the year round about Strawberry potting. 
Melon culture, and the like, we must cast our eyes over the 
wants of the cottager and the amateur, and see what advice can 
be given them in the improvement of the staple in their respective 
plots, more especially as concerns fruit tree culture. 
Various, then, are the materials that may be collected for 
such purposes, varying, too, with districts. Besides, the question 
is not always what ought to be had, but what can be had ; and 
it so happens that many self-taught amateurs, possessed.of much 
horticultural acumen, will turn materials to account which some 
gardeners would utterly despise. Amateurs, cottagers, &c., as 
well as folks already possessed of good gardens, frequently have 
to enclose and reclaim plots of ground where nothing of a loamy 
character exists. Sometimes the new plot is gravelly, sometimes 
very sandy, and oft-times of a peaty, boggy, or moor soil cha¬ 
racter. It not unfrequently happens, also, that the plot is in a 
town or in the suburbs, where, it may be, brick rubbish and the 
most ordinary soil lie side by side in pell-mell confusion. 
In anticipating improvements in such soils or sites, the 
first thing, of course, is valorously to determine on thorough 
drainage if necessary. This we will take for granted. Next, to 
consider the general character of the plot, and if great inequal¬ 
ities exist in point of texture, to determine on making the clay 
help the sand and gravel, or vice versa, as the case may be These 
things concluded and plans of culture laid down, it will be readily 
ascertained how much and what character of improveable material 
is requisite to carry out the plan. Such, then, forms a legitimate 
course of procedure for the end of summer, provided the chance 
offers ; and an active and thinking person will set about getting 
together materials according to the demand. 
We need hardly remind townsfolk or suburbans of the facility 
that exists in general for getting together such imperishable 
materials as brick rubbish, old plaster, charred material, &c., by 
which to open the staple of soils hitherto retentive of moisture. 
On the other hand, the refuse of the carpenter’s bench or work¬ 
shop may be sought for such things as shavings, sawdust, &c, 
all of which are available as vegetable or organic matter to add 
to the embryo dung-heap. 
The turfy material from ordinary commons or wastes is not 
to be despised because it is easily procurable. It is astonishing 
what an amount of nutritive qualities is contained in the sur¬ 
face shimmings of such places, albeit the staple of the soil 
beneath is below consideration. Here will be found an accumu¬ 
lation of vegetable matter, the wort, it may be, of ages ; and 
here by consequence, a vast amount of nutritive qualities which 
all organic matter in its progressive decay furnishes in a steady 
way to the generation of vegetables or trees by which it is 
susperseded. 
We have now been speaking of organic matter chiefly; for, 
indeed, many sterile plots need much in this way. We have 
many a time seen fresh garden enclosures or reclaimed waste 
lands, in which a thorough drainage and a liberal addition of 
such matters, would at once set the plot agoing. 
Speaking of the obtaining of materials for improvements, 
we may here advert to the one of charred matter, and in so 
doing must beg to recommend those who wish to avail them¬ 
selves of such a useful and profitable article to direct their atten¬ 
tion at once to its accumulation. No better time can be taken 
for the purpose. Nature, ever bountiful in her vegetable pro- 
