GOLDEN RULES FOR GARDEDNING.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1867, 28 December 1874, Page 3

GOLDEN RULES FOR GARDEDNING.

Never grow a bad variety of anything, if you can help it. It takes the same room, and wants the same attention as a' good one. ]Never look out for cheap seed shops. It is only by getting good prices that a needs-man can supply the articles to be depended on. Let the draining ef the ground be your first care. It is impossible to succeed to any extent with vegetables or flowers where the water is stagnant in the soil. Gather fruit in dry weather and, with the sun'shining, and place them as carefully in the basket as if they were glass. The smallest bruise commences a decay. Unless you want seed, remove the flower stems as soon as the bloom decays. The swelling of the seed-pods cUecks the further growth and blossoming of most plants Never grow the same crops, nor crops of the same family, twice on the same .spot without an intervening crop of a different nature. Never transplant shrubs and trees in a growing slate. However carefully it may be done, the check i» dangerous, if not fatal. Never tift up lettuces or endive, or cMTth up!celery, except when perfectly ify. Ihey are sure to spoil if you do. jn ever allow the surface of the soil in a r pot, or in the grot ni to be long without stirring, unless it; be naturally very open, as is the case with peat earth. Meyer grow a plant too fast; it is no credit to you, because anybody can do it, and it spoils the plant to a cer ainty. Uapid growth ina'es a mild flavor; slowgrowth a strotig one. Therefore, grow vegetables quick, and fruit moderately. The exceptions are where size is valued more than flavor. Carefully preserve the fallen leaves of trees, and procure as many as you can ; when rotted into mould the produce is . invaluable. ■ ,t), -■ • - :-V-<;'- -.■ -< v : '\ .■ \.; Hoe the surface of the ground all over once a fortnight, on the same principle as lervants sweep ths rooms. Let hot the moisture that runs from the dungheap be wasted; it is too good for the cultivated part of the ground to be losttoit.- b';i v ■■-.- ■: • ;••■'-'.-- Never allow weeds to bloom; it is the worst proof of thoughtlessness. One day devoted this year will save a month's application next. Never remove a plant from one place till you are ready to put it in another, unless to get rid of it. . Whenever a plant suffers the loss of root, always prune off a corresponding portion/of the head. ' Cut off with a sharp knife whatever part of it root may be broken, bruised, or damaged; it instantly commences a decay. Never trample on the ground in wet weather, or while the ground is swampy ; rather delay the work. Even planting onf^thiiQigs is better as'the ground dries a 1 little. Encourage robins and toads. They are good friends to gardeners, because they destroy their enemies. Procure, whenever you can, turves cut from a pas:ure, to lay in a heap and rot. •• A store is no sore." It is best of all composts. A 1 wayß trench the ground before sowing carrots, parsnips, and beetroot. Cover seeds from ■ birds with a mati until they are -well up, and then devote a day or two to actually scaring the enemy, until the plants gain strength. Prune all prnamental blooming trees and shrubs as soon as the flower ba& decayed; before they } make their new growth, you can shape them as you like. To poor sandy soil.one lode of marl or loam is worth two of dung; but give both if you can, and lime into the bargain. In apportioning crops, never grow too much of anything that does not last in season, and will not keep when, gathered in. : '■■ •■ •■ ■'' ■.. '■ In removing trees and* shrubs, never J loosen a fibre with violence. You can re-j move what you please with the knife; but if broken off or chopped, you lose the best. Leave your newly-trenched or dug ground rough unlil you crop it. In winter time it is exceedingly beneficial. "When a crop is done with, clear it off, lay on your dressing, and at once dig or , trench the ground ; put all the waste vegetable to the bottom; it is so much nourishment returned, and the ground i looks neat. . , I NeverVwater a general crop till it actually begins so ,suffer; for raiu may render it unnecessary, and watering once begun you must go on with it. When you do water, drench the ground all over. < »ne soaking a-week is better than partial watering every day; and rain may serve you a turn now and then. Thin 1 all sorts of fruit; not merely those on the wall, —for everybody does that,— but'those on standards. Let there be not one above an average crop. The tree will give you this every year. Go round the place after a shower of rain to see were the water lies, and fail not to fill up the hollows in time. Nev^r.; work with bad tools. The difference between the work done in a month would buy a set of new ones. -. ' JJ ever give up a place to better yourrlelf until you are sure of the new one, and certain that it is better. Have a place for every tool, and never leare one out of its place ; or to go further, " a .place for everything, and everything 1 ;in,its place." Take every moree! of waste off the vegetables for the kitchen ; it is so much trouble""saved the cook, and so much manure for the garden. l£o, nothing carelessly. Whatever js worth growing at all should be grown well; be it ever so common. <'If you do not lite a thing enough to take pains with it, do not grow it at all. Never waste animal or vegetable refuse.

The very soap-suds from the laundry are rich manure. ' Whenever you have the opportunity, dig in the waste of the crop you took off; it is bo much good returned. Study economy in the means you use to grow everything. It is impossible to bo too careful in this matter* Cover all seeds with at least their own thickness of soil; but as some of it gets washed off, you must allow for it.

A Matrimonial Cushion. —-A lady and j gentleman, lately married, have torn up | all their love letters, and made them into a cushion for a little chair, which is assigned to a friend of the bride's during her visit.. Recently theyoung,lady felt, compelled to' remark, "If .matrimony belike that chair, it is certaiuly very hard!" Enough to Make Him. —The fellow who wanted to cross the Mississippi liver on the ice, and, fe'arinp that it was thin began to crawl over on his hands <and knees, dragg ng a skiff after him as a l<fe preserver in case of accident, felt very wild when, just aft he 1 was nearly across and quite tired out, a pedestrian passed him with a sleigh loaded with pig-iron. The Champion '■„ Pirliaed Playisb.— ■ Cook, the billiard champion, has recently taken a benefit in England, and an English spoiting paper thus ir.it'es of him :—Few professionals, not only in billiards, but in any other sport have more justly earned a complimentary benefit ,than W. Cook, the Champion; and it is to b<? regretted that tLe unfavourable season of the year, when the moors and the sea draw so many from the town, should have been chosen for what probably would otherwise have been a gigantic success. It is a. very rare indeed tiat the championship of any sport dependent upon nerve, and patience, should be won by comparatively speaking a boy ; for it will be borne in mind that W. Cook won that title on the 11th FebI ruary* 1870, when only twenty years of age. It was on t'lis occasion, too. that he defeated the hitherto unconquered Rob*, crts, who must have played with all the confidence that years of victory invariably give. The David, hewever, prevailed over the Goliath, and has sine? most deservedly been crowned the king of billiards playersv It is, we believe, the intention of Cook to leave Hngland before" long, on a visit to America, where we trusts he will meet with the reception he most justly merits; and that he may find in some American players a foeman worthy of his steel. In such opponents as Roberts, junior, Stanley, and Taylor, he has lately had a stimulus to exertion, in the sh^peof plenty of praciice and a healthy lite ; and it would We greatly to be regretted that the removal of such stimulus should be the cause of his growing careless in these respects, as in such .case,^oni his return to England, he miyht find his well earned laurels, plucked from his brow. With rising young players in 'existence, who are known to be capable of making 500 off the balls, and who are content to practice six hours a day on a bottle of lemonade, the championship of billiards can never long remain a? certainty to any man/ hoteven to one who has proved himself to be so incomparably superior to all other as the present champion has. We trust that Cook will return the better for his trip, and that he may take back at least gome of the Alabama's Claims' money with him. ,