The
porous nature of the earth must ever be borne in mind; fertilizers
pass through it and disappear, and therefore are applied to the
surface, to delay this process and enable the roots to obtain as
much nutriment as possible during the passage. Equal and even
greater advantages are secured by a top-dressing of barnyard
manures and composts to the heaviest of clay. The surface of such
soils, left to Nature, becomes in hot, dry weather like pottery,
baking and cracking, shielding from dew and shower, and preventing
all circulation of air about the roots. A top-dressing prevents
all this, keeps the surface open and mellow, and supplies not only
fertility, but the mechanical conditions that are essential.
If we are now ready to begin, let us begin right. I have not much
sympathy with finical, fussy gardening. One of the chief
fascinations of gardening is the endless field it affords for
skilful sleight of hand, short-cuts, unconventional methods, and
experiments. The true gardener soon ceases to be a man of rules,
and becomes one of strategy, of expedients. He is prompt to act at
the right moment. Like the artist, he is ever seeking and acting
upon hints from Nature. The man of rules says the first of July is
the time to set out winter cabbage; and out the plants go, though
the sky be brazen, and the mercury in the nineties.
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