Soil.
462. The soil of the flower-garden should of course be various. For the general borders a loamy soil is pre ferable. The sot lace earth from old pastures, taken along with the turf, is accounted excellent. There may be mixed with it a quantity of old hot-bed dung, or other rotten manure ; a third or a fourth, accoi ding as the earth is naturally rich or poor. If the compost seem apt to bind, a small proportion of sea-sand is the remedy. if a poor soil be wished for, which at the same time is open, then half-rotten tan from the bark stove is substituted for dung.
It may here be remarked, that vations composts should always be in readiness, and others in a state of preparation: and for this purpose a convenient spot, as much hid from view as possible, but near to the garden, should be set apart as a compost yard.
Peat-soil is very useful in the flower-garden. It is of two sorts, boggy peat, and sandy or surface peat ; the former adapted only to the larger and more hardy kinds of American plants ; the latter, to other American plants, to alpine plants, to Cape heaths, and to many green-house plants. The best sort of peat-turf is frequently to be found constituting a mere skin over a bed of sand. The turf or sod should be taken with what peat-soil adheres to it, and should be allowed to moulder in the compost yard. Spots where wild heath grows luxuriantly, or where it closely covers the surface, are likely to afford excellent light or sandy peat. It may be added, that at the points where mountain rivulets enter the flat country, accumulations of peat earth and sand may often be found, the peat being freed, by the washing of the rivulet, from the chief part of the salts and other principles likely to prove hurtful to vegetation. A mixture of nearly equal parts of peat soil and loam is suitable for very many kinds of plants. For the succulent tribe Miller recommends a compost prepar ed or one-half earth from the surface of a common, where the soil is light ; and the other half drift sea sand and old lime rubbish screened, in equal parts. Decayed leaves of
trees have long been considered as forming the most suit able ingredient in composts, where it is wished to imitate a vegetable soil. Large pits are dug in convenient parts of the woods, and into these the heaps of leaves and small spray arc raked during winter, as light sprinkling of the surface soil being thrown over all, to prevent the leaves from being blown about. After the lapse of a year, a very light vegetable soil is thus procured ; while the half rotten spray forms an appropriate soil for some kinds of epiden drum, cultivated in the stove.
In the first forming of composts, considerable attention should be paid to the thorough mixing together of the in gredients. The heaps should not be round and of great bulk, but should rather be formed into long and narrow ridges, the sides of which may more effectually be exposed to the influences of the atmosphere. The compost should remain for at least a year before being used, and should be several times turned over and mixed in the course both of summer and winter.
The best kind of rich manure for the flower-garden is found in old hot-beds which have been formed of stable dung and litter ; but even this should not be delved into the borders without being mixed with a portion of good loam ; for there are few flowers to which very rich manures do not prove detrimental.
A quantity of pit sand should always be in readiness for mixing with other soils, or for striking cuttings of different plants. The purest and finest pit sand is preferred. How ever pure to appearance, it still contains a portion of very fine vegetable matter ; sea-sand being destitute of this, is not nearly so proper.
To enlarge further on soils for the flower-garden seems unnecessary. In Cushing's Exotic Gardener may be seen a table of genera, sheaving the peculiar soil most suitable, in a general way, to each genus ; and the same little book contains some very useful remarks on the preparation and use of composts.