THE LURE OF THE SOIL

Evening Star, Issue 21880, 17 November 1934, Page 25

THE LURE OF THE SOIL

If there is one thing that characterises an Englishman, it is love for his garden. It comes to all of ns sooner or later; it came to me late. Tennis and motor cycling absorbed all my leisure until one day the maelstrom of life landed me far from home where there was no tennis possible and the thrill of motor cycling had passed away. It was in the heart of the country; .1 had a fairly large house and about half an acre of garden, most of which was kitchen garden. Before I came here I had never handled a spade and could hardly tell a cabbage from parsley. My mother asked me once to fetch some leeks from the garden. They were surprisingly hard to dig up, but I was not going to be done by a vegetable, and I arrived triumphantly in the kitchen with my leeks. What was, my mortification when I was informed " that 1 had ruined a superb bed of irises 1

That was the extent of my knowledge of gardening when 1 found myself in possession of this piece of ground. I bought a spado—that was tho beginning. Now, there is good digging and bad digging, and it is rather more difficult to dig well than to dig badly. This spurred me on. and I found infinite satisfaction in contemplating a large square of soil freshly dug, with no lumps and dead level from corner to corner. It takes a bit of doing. I take a rake to help sometimes, but the real gardener uses only his spade. The question of manure was a thorny one with me. To get manure into my garden I had to throw it over tho garden wall from the road, or barrow it through tlie kitchen, so 1 turned my attention to artificial or chemical manures.

The soil is a veritable chemical laboratory. If you want to province a line plant the 'laboratory must be supplied with chemicals. What chemicals? What is necessary to the growth of a plant? A plant absorbs its food from the air by its leaves and from the earth by its roots. Through its leaves it'absorbs carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; and through its roots it must find sufficient nitrogen, potash, phosphorus, and lime, as well as other substances. 1 experimented with sulphate of ammonia for nitrogen, sulphate of potash, superphosphate, and lime. These chemicals can often be found ready mixed together in a single compound, although I must admit there is an absorbing interest in finding out the nourishing effect of each, and applying them accordingly; they are certainly far easier to handle than manure. Manure is, however, necessary, say, once in three years, for it supplies the micro-organisms which convert the chemicals into the form in which the plant can absorb them. As it is with children, so with plants. Some require more or less of -a certain food than another. Beetroot and potatoes are particularly fond of potash, and will starve if they do not find sufficient supplies in the soil. I always thought gardening was an old man’s job, until I put my hand to a spade. Little by little the infinite possibilities of the soil became revar.led to me. I was’infected with the hire of it. The growing plant became an absorbing occupation, and the assistance one can give it furnished hours of interesting study. I needed no tennis after two hours every evening with my spade. —H. A. 11. Fry. in ‘ Popular Gardening,’ London.