Hartshorn Rollers Guarantee 
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Windows of an aris¬ 
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Double cords , taut 
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raised and lowered the 
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Window Design by H. F. Huber & Co.. N. Y 
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SHADE"kOLLERS 
AND 
&%WLNDOW shade FA8mcs 
Established 1860 
STEWART HARTSHORN CO., 25O FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY 
House &• Garden 
How to Prepare the Soil 
(Continued from page 106) 
conditions. For choice shrubs more 
careful preparation is advisable, more 
top soil, more bone-meal, more leaf 
mold, should be incorporated into the 
soil when the digging is going on. 
When it comes to transplanting big 
trees, you cannot be too lavish in the 
amount of preparation you make. It 
is especially valuable to make the holes 
wide and deep, not only to give the 
tree good friable soil to start its new 
existence on, but that the roots can be 
flattened and straightened out in a 
natural position before planting. A 
mulching of six inches of manure over 
the entire root area is also desirable. 
BEFORE BORDER PLANTING 
For the flower garden it is a great 
mistake to stint on soil preparation. 
One case stands out quite forcibly in 
my mind where the least possible 
money was expended upon the initial 
preparation of the garden. The flow¬ 
ers were chosen for their tolerance of 
meagre soil but the owner became so 
interested in these beginnings that she 
wanted more and more choice plants. 
It has taken much additional labor and 
constant digging in of manure to try to 
improve the borders which would have 
been a simple matter at the time the 
garden was first laid out. For a really 
good flower border, then, it is well to 
take pains with thorough digging, and 
to spend money on top soil and manure, 
upon bone-meal and wood ashes and 
wood soil—until it hurts. You will not 
regret it for it will save you many an 
annoying hour and much renewal of 
labor later on. After the plants are in 
the ground and the garden is full of 
bulbs it is always difficult to rectify 
shortcomings in a garden soil prepara¬ 
tion. The manure can be spread in 
four or six inch layers and forked in as 
deeply as possible; the bone-meal and 
other fertilizers can be sprinkled on and 
then worked into the surface. 
me as I went along so that by the 
time I got to the end of the border 
there was quite a large hole the depth 
of the upper soil and the depth of the 
hardpan; in other words, about two 
and a half feet deep. Starting with this 
hole I took the turf and laid it grass 
down on the bottom. Then manure 
and hardpan mixed were shoveled over 
this. Some bone-meal also was scat¬ 
tered through. It was a very simple 
matter to shovel the hardpan back into 
place. As one section was Ailed the 
one next to it was emptied and into 
that again went turf, hardpan and 
manure. Finally the top soil mixed 
with leaf mold and manure was filled 
in. On the top I put a sprinkling of 
bone-meal and lime, and left the soil 
heaped up so that it could settle. In 
about two weeks time it had practically 
settled to the level of the surrounding 
turf and it was raked fine. The week 
after that I put in the plants. To 
make doubly sure that the plants would 
have plenty of food, their roots were 
surrounded with leaf mold. 
SWEETING THE SOIL 
TRENCHING 
There are cases, in very sandy loca¬ 
tions, where much of the existing soil 
has to be discarded entirely in order to 
get good soil of sufficient depth for a 
good garden. In heavier soils the 
existing soil is worked and enriched. 
One method of working the soil for a 
garden is what is called trenching. Mr. 
Wright, your editor, has given me the 
method he used in trenching one of 
his new garden borders. I think you 
may like it in his own words as it 
makes the process more real than a 
theoretical-looking specification. If you 
are an experienced gardener you may 
appreciate the joy that went into the 
labor, if you are a novice it may en¬ 
courage you to do the same. 
He writes—“The new border which I 
put in last fall was a very simple 
matter. It measures 65' long by 
4 ' wide. After staking it out I lifted 
the turf and piled it on one side. Then 
I dug the first spit of soil and threw 
that out on the other side. Under¬ 
neath this lay the subsoil which was 
more or less hardpan. As this subsoil 
is usually pretty firmly packed, I dug 
this down to a spit, throwing it behind 
“There is nothing new about this 
piocess. It is simply what in England 
they call trenching. The turfs at the 
bottom will rot and form good soil. 
The manure with the hardpan will 
sweeten the character of that level of 
soil, and of course, the leaf mold, ma¬ 
nure, lime and bone-meal and the top 
spit of good soil will give abundance 
of food. Where a bed needs draining, 
it might be well to throw some old 
brickbats and cinders in the hole before 
you lay down the turf. In my case it 
did not need draining and because the 
soil is very stony I took out most of 
the rocks. They, of course, could be 
used for drainage had drainage been 
necessary. That, for a matter of fact, 
is the only way to make a border, if 
you expect permanent results. So many 
people dig down one spit and let it go 
at that. When the roots get below 
that spit, they hit the hardpan and 
simply curl up and die. The digging 
of this border took me about three 
days working at it in odd moments.” 
THE TEST OF SOIL 
It is a friable garden soil that is as 
important as a rich one. That is why 
the soil should be thoroughly mixed and 
pulverized. A gardener who had worked 
with Mr. Henderson once told me that 
his gardeners were never allowed to use 
trowels for planting flowers. This was 
surely the master test for a friable, well 
pulverized soil, for if they could not 
plunge their hands easily into the earth 
it was not considered good enough for 
planting. I should not go quite as far 
as that. If a gardener can plant a 
bulb, for instance, with one continued 
movement of his trowel—this movement 
comprising plunging the trowel easily 
into the earth with one long downward 
movement, pulling it toward him while 
dropping in the bulb with the other 
hand in back of the trowel in the mean¬ 
while—then you can be quite sure that 
the soil is friable enough for all garden 
purposes. 
