54 
House & Garden 
HOW YOUR GARDEN GROWS THIS YEAR 
Photographs by W. C. McColloin 
With this article, the fifth of a series setting down for 
inexperienced gardeners the things they should know about 
plants and planting, Mr. Edson takes up the actual work 
of cultivating. The series commenced in the January 
number and will continue through several issues — Editor. 
When properly cared 
for the garden is weed¬ 
less and covered with 
a dust mulch which 
helps conserve soil 
moisture 
T he miracle of plant growth which is main¬ 
tained throughout the season is no less 
wonderful, although it may occasion less 
wonderment than the germination of the seed 
and other facts and phenomena of plant life which 
we have already considered in their relation to 
actual garden work. Success from now on will 
depend just as much upon the gardener’s under¬ 
standing of what is taking place, and upon what 
in the light of that undersatnding he does, as it 
did in the steps we have already discussed. 
In order to bring freshly to your mind such of 
the facts about plant growth as I have already 
mentioned, I will briefly recapitulate them, be¬ 
cause they have a very direct bearing on what you 
have to do this month to keep things growing. 
The ground is not solid, but is largely nothing 
but air spaces, or interspaces, much like those you 
might And between the pieces of furniture packed 
in a van on moving day—they can’t be packed any 
tighter, but because of their irregularities there 
is a good deal of unoccupied space between them. 
So it is with the particles of rock, soil, decayed 
vegetable matter, etc., which compose the soil. 
Another surprising thing is that this same soil 
which, when we take up a handful of it, seems 
so cool and moist, is in reality composed of par- 
tides which are dripping wet. Examining it 
through a lens, we might almost imagine our¬ 
selves looking through a glass window in a sub¬ 
marine. Every object in view is encased in a thin 
film of water; each crag of rock, boulder, lump 
or piece of log—which viewed without the lens 
would seem a minute particle of soil—appears 
to be dripping wet on the surface. In fact the 
general atmosphere of the place is that of satura¬ 
tion. You would not want to venture far through 
that glass partition without a raincoat and a pair 
of rubber boots, and you naturally wonder that 
there are not more vegetables of the oyster plant 
family growing in your garden. 
Activities Underground 
And the first thing that you notice is that the 
soil you supposed to be dead and inert is very 
much alive! For, at the least, most of the room 
seems to be rented to very active citizens. In 
fact, as the spot we are looking at has been made 
quite rich with old compost, and has been under 
cultivation for some time, there seem to be many 
of them and they are anarchistic in their ten¬ 
dencies, apparently attacking everything. 
But even as you look down from above to this 
dark, strange country, there comes forcing its 
way irresistibly, pushing aside logs, boulders, or 
twisting around them, an interminable white sau¬ 
sage. You needn’t shrink back, for it is not a 
subterranean serpent—only a little rootlet, mag¬ 
nified by your lens. But how can that gather 
food? you ask. Wait and see. 
As it grows it throws out almost up to the ever- 
advancing tip innumer¬ 
able transparent little 
loops or cylinders, mat¬ 
ted so thickly together 
that they quite cover it, 
sticking out like iron 
filings on a magnet. 
“Ah! those are the 
feeding roots—’’ you 
exclaim. “But still how 
do they eat? I see no 
mouths or openings.” 
There is none. But 
watch and yon will see 
what we ha ve been 
waiting for. The mois¬ 
ture is disappearing, 
wherever these flimsy 
walls of tubes come in 
contact with it. It is 
not sucked up but ab¬ 
sorbed by their porous 
surfaces; and the plant 
foods in the soil which 
were in solution in the 
moisture are going 
along with it. 
“But,” you say, “these 
greedy roots are not 
getting all of the water. 
It seems to be moving 
upwards everywhere.” 
And so it is, for the sun (which has been getting 
most uncomfortably warm on the back of your 
neck here in the vegetable pit) has begun to heat 
up the surface of the garden soil, by which the 
water from below keeps traveling up through 
every square inch of soil in your garden. It is 
high time to get out of the pit and put a stop to it! 
The Gardener’s Worst Enemy 
So climbing out of our pit, we go down the 
garden path to where mayhap Pat, the old gar¬ 
dener, is pausing for a moment in the hot May 
sun to wipe the sweat from his furrowed brow. 
Ask him why he is using his hoe so diligently in 
the beans, and after a look which questions your 
sanity, you get the expected time honored reply: 
“Why, sure, to be killin’ the weeds, before they 
are after killin’ everything else. I would have 
been doin’ it in the cool o’ the mornin’, but you 
can’t trust ’em with the dew on, or by the Virgin, 
it will put the blight onto the vines. But for the 
weeds I’d as soon be workin’ here as in the garden 
of Eden; they are the worst enemies we have, 
not exceptin’ the brush themselves.” 
But if we look at the ground where Pat has 
been so diligently using his hoe, we will notice 
something just as conspicuous as the fact that 
he has destroyed such young weeds as there were. 
The surface of the ground in the row ahead of 
him is firm and fresh and moist; behind him it 
is soft and loose, and at the end of the row where 
he began work it is already quite dry. In fact, 
after ten minutes in this bright sun, the soil he 
stirs up begins to dry on the surface, while in 
the adjoining row not a foot away it remains 
dark and moist. 
Why? Simply because Pat with his hoe, think¬ 
ing that he was doing nothing but destroying 
weeds, has by disturbing the surface of the soil 
put a stop to just the process which we saw 
through our glass walls just now, going on under 
the surface—the upward movement of the mois¬ 
ture in the soil to replace the surface moisture 
evaporated by the sun and the wind. (Setting 
under the surface and breaking up the crust has 
destroyed temporarily the millions of infinitesi¬ 
mal channels or tubes which the moisture has 
made for itself in rising. The upward move¬ 
ment cannot be resumed until new passages have 
been formed; and the soil on the surface, which 
quickly dries out, acts as a mulch or blanket, just 
as grass or leaves spread there would, to prevent 
evaporation and keep the soil below it moist and 
cool. If you would take the trouble to look again 
four or five days later you would find the soil in 
the row which had been hoed over still soft and 
moist right below the dry surface, while that in 
a row perhaps only 2' or 3' away, which had been 
left untouched might look still more moist on the 
surface but would be perceptibly drier at a depth 
of 3" or more. 
So our morning’s ob- 
servation will have 
taught us at least two 
tremendously important 
things: first, that the 
growing plants can ob¬ 
tain their food from 
the soil, even when 
there is enought mois¬ 
ture present to hold it 
in solution : and second, 
that we can save the 
moisture in the soil and 
hold it for future use 
by keeping the surface 
constantly stirred so 
that there is always a 
dn^t mulch upon it. 
So far, however, we 
have considered only 
surface cultivation. Let 
{Continued on page 76) 
The scuffle hoe Made should he adjustahle 
to various depths. It cuts the weeds be¬ 
low the surface, loorking forward and hack 
When it comes to weeding in the rows, a 
claw ivill serve the double purpose of kill¬ 
ing the iveeds and cultivating the soil 
