XVI.GARDENING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.Itis not every one who can toss off his provocations with so good a grace as our correspondent, whose letter we insert:—New York,April 19th.Dear Mr. Beecher: Suppose you were fond of flowers and shrubs, and that the plat of Mother Earth allotted you was at the back of your city house, say about seventeen feet square,—the most of it occupied by the space for drying clothes; the rest a hard clayey soil, baked by the sun so quickly that you wish the Israelites might have had it to make brick, and one that no amount of foreign admixture improves.Suppose the florist came every spring, hoed and raked, and distributed roses, verbenas, geraniums, and the like, at regular intervals, also sticks, bare evidence of the burial-place of various cherished bulbs that never come up, but seem, like your carnations, to disappear with the wheelbarrow.Suppose the occupants of the tenement-house close to your rear fence,—who always,in all the storiesof the day, nurse a geranium in a cracked pot,—instead of thanking you for the pleasant sight under their windows, garnished your bed with egg-shells, old paper collars, rags, bones, empty spools, and otherdébrishandy for the purpose.Suppose the nine thousand and ninety cats and their families roosted on the fence in the twilight, and tried their claws on your shrubs, and the softness of your soil generally, in the small hours of the night.Suppose, with the first green leaves, the worms came also, and the green lice, and the ants, and made your bushes a sorrow and a vexation.Suppose the hoop of the laundress was over it all, so to speak, and the hose always burst when the weather was dry, and your watering-pot held about a teacupful.What wouldyoudo, Mr. Beecher? Would you give over the space to old shoes and ugliness, or would you fly in the face ofmanifest destinyand cultivate?Dejectedly yours,Breeze.The very first thing to be done with a tenacious and obstinate clay soil is to have it dug out and carted away bodily, and its place supplied with good fresh loam. This would be a serious job if there were several acres. But when there is but a plat of seventeen feet square, and the larger part of that reserved for laundry purposes, only borders being used for flowers, the amount to be removed would be comparatively small, and the satisfaction would be ample repayment. Any one with a cart can carry off the clay, but not every one can get good soil. An honest florist or garden jobber could put you in the way of that.If you will have a garden, it is best to be your own gardener. Adam and Eve set the example.The cats may be managed in various ways. A black-and-tan terrier kept in the back yard has a wonderful influence on cats, arousing in them a strong local prejudice. If the boys in the neighborhood knew that a premium were offered for cat scalps, it would be found greatly to interest the cats. At any rate, their number would grow less.As to worms and aphides, no one is fit to own flowers who, in so small a space as seventeen feet square, cannot exterminate them,—worms by hand picking, and aphides by whale-oil soapsuds. A vigorous fidelity will in a short time put the last wormhors de combat. The whale-oil soap may be had at any large seed-store,—directions for use accompanying the little jar. A tin garden syringe may be had at the same place, costing but little, lasting, with care, twenty years, and carrying the soapsuds like spray over every leaf and twig.We, too, in Brooklyn havelawn dresseswith equatorial hoops, and yet manage to have many a charming patch offlowers. But, of all things in this world, a garden needs the presence of its owner. If you do not love it enough to care for it as you would for a baby, better let it alone. Flowers know who love them. They will not be put off with arm’s-length cordiality. But, if you love them, you will easily overcome a hundred obstacles, and rejoice in your flowers all the more because they are the trophies of your patience and industry.
Itis not every one who can toss off his provocations with so good a grace as our correspondent, whose letter we insert:—
New York,April 19th.
Dear Mr. Beecher: Suppose you were fond of flowers and shrubs, and that the plat of Mother Earth allotted you was at the back of your city house, say about seventeen feet square,—the most of it occupied by the space for drying clothes; the rest a hard clayey soil, baked by the sun so quickly that you wish the Israelites might have had it to make brick, and one that no amount of foreign admixture improves.
Suppose the florist came every spring, hoed and raked, and distributed roses, verbenas, geraniums, and the like, at regular intervals, also sticks, bare evidence of the burial-place of various cherished bulbs that never come up, but seem, like your carnations, to disappear with the wheelbarrow.
Suppose the occupants of the tenement-house close to your rear fence,—who always,in all the storiesof the day, nurse a geranium in a cracked pot,—instead of thanking you for the pleasant sight under their windows, garnished your bed with egg-shells, old paper collars, rags, bones, empty spools, and otherdébrishandy for the purpose.
Suppose the nine thousand and ninety cats and their families roosted on the fence in the twilight, and tried their claws on your shrubs, and the softness of your soil generally, in the small hours of the night.
Suppose, with the first green leaves, the worms came also, and the green lice, and the ants, and made your bushes a sorrow and a vexation.
Suppose the hoop of the laundress was over it all, so to speak, and the hose always burst when the weather was dry, and your watering-pot held about a teacupful.
What wouldyoudo, Mr. Beecher? Would you give over the space to old shoes and ugliness, or would you fly in the face ofmanifest destinyand cultivate?
Dejectedly yours,
Breeze.
The very first thing to be done with a tenacious and obstinate clay soil is to have it dug out and carted away bodily, and its place supplied with good fresh loam. This would be a serious job if there were several acres. But when there is but a plat of seventeen feet square, and the larger part of that reserved for laundry purposes, only borders being used for flowers, the amount to be removed would be comparatively small, and the satisfaction would be ample repayment. Any one with a cart can carry off the clay, but not every one can get good soil. An honest florist or garden jobber could put you in the way of that.
If you will have a garden, it is best to be your own gardener. Adam and Eve set the example.
The cats may be managed in various ways. A black-and-tan terrier kept in the back yard has a wonderful influence on cats, arousing in them a strong local prejudice. If the boys in the neighborhood knew that a premium were offered for cat scalps, it would be found greatly to interest the cats. At any rate, their number would grow less.
As to worms and aphides, no one is fit to own flowers who, in so small a space as seventeen feet square, cannot exterminate them,—worms by hand picking, and aphides by whale-oil soapsuds. A vigorous fidelity will in a short time put the last wormhors de combat. The whale-oil soap may be had at any large seed-store,—directions for use accompanying the little jar. A tin garden syringe may be had at the same place, costing but little, lasting, with care, twenty years, and carrying the soapsuds like spray over every leaf and twig.
We, too, in Brooklyn havelawn dresseswith equatorial hoops, and yet manage to have many a charming patch offlowers. But, of all things in this world, a garden needs the presence of its owner. If you do not love it enough to care for it as you would for a baby, better let it alone. Flowers know who love them. They will not be put off with arm’s-length cordiality. But, if you love them, you will easily overcome a hundred obstacles, and rejoice in your flowers all the more because they are the trophies of your patience and industry.