good for your soil, and most useful in keeping off slugs. In a town you would not use it at all except as a defence against slugs. Leaf-mould is good for all soils, but it is not a rich food. Sand should be mixed with clay land that is heavy and sticky. Lime is valuable where soil is ‘sour,’ dark, and mossy, and some plants need it, as a child needs milk; but you had better not try to apply it by yourself. It has to be ‘slaked’ by the air or with water before it is used, and makes a white powdery dust that would not be liked on your clothes. Mortar from buildings contains lime, and is easier to manage.

If you cannot enlist a gardener, and are going to make your own garden, you must learn to dig it over properly, and for this you will want a strong spade suited to your height. You begin by digging a trench ten inches deep from one end of your garden to the other. The earth you take out should be put in a wheelbarrow or on the farther side of the border. When the first trench is finished you put some manure all along it; then you start a second one, close to the first, and this time you put the earth you take out into the manured trench ready for it. In this way the manure and the soil that was on the top get buried beneath soil that has been hidden till now from the light and air. You go on making these trenches side by side until you reach the edge of the border, and you fill the last one with the soil you first removed, which is waiting for you in the wheelbarrow. In digging you should put your spade straight down into the ground, and help it with your foot to go in deep; then lean back on it, lift it out full of soil, and tilt it sharply into the empty trench. But you should not try to dig with a full-sized spade, as even with a small one you will find it hard work. The operation is a most important one, because when the buried soil is brought to the top the weather comes and gardens for you there, as well as deeper down, where the manure now lies covered. The winter frosts, the summer rains, the air and the sunlight, all affect it strongly, sweeten it, break it, and make it ready for your flowers. In the winter the surface of your beds should be left as rough as possible, because then the frost can get in easily and do its work. We will tell you later several ways of protecting some of your plants from frost, for the degree of cold that improves your soil will kill your favourite plants if you do not take care of them. But if you become a really keen gardener, you will find that you often look at the weather from the gardener’s point of view. The rainy day that is disappointing other people will be settling in the newly-planted things, or helping your seeds to germinate, or persuading your bulbs to put out roots. When warm weather comes, you know that everything will take a start, and get on quickly; but the frosty days that skaters love will make you anxious, especially while you are a beginner. When you have had a garden for a year or two, you will have seen many a plant hang its head for a time and after all recover.

The tools used by your elders will be too large and heavy for you, but on no account have a ‘Child’s Garden Set,’ as they are never strong. Buy each implement separately, of good quality, and the size to suit you. You will want a spade, a hoe, a rake, a broad flat trowel, and a small hand-fork. If possible, you should also have a two-quart watering-can, a sieve, and a little galvanized iron or wooden wheelbarrow for rubbish. Always knock the earth off your tools when you have done gardening, scrape them clean, and put them away in a dry shed. They should never be left out in the wet. The watering-can should be emptied and turned upside down to dry. If you cannot have a wheelbarrow of your own, you must use an old pail or basket for weeds and rubbish. These should be carefully collected as you work, and then either thrown away or saved in a neat heap for your bonfire. Weeds are sometimes burnt, sometimes buried deep under the soil to make ‘humus,’ and sometimes left on a rubbish-heap until they have decayed and are ready to make soil again. ‘Humus’ is the dark earthy substance that you get from decayed vegetation, and it is useful to plants; but in your little plot you will not have a large quantity of weeds, and when you have planted it you will not want to dig holes to bury them. You will see many operations going on in the large garden that you cannot imitate and need not understand until you have learned to cultivate your own. When that time comes, and you know all that we can teach you, there are many larger, fuller books that will tell you a great deal we must leave untold. We shall only discuss things that you can grow without much skill, or strength, or expense. A little sense and patience, and a little of your pocket-money, will enable you to carry out our instructions.

But we do not mean that you can grow all the plants we talk about in one summer. We have chosen a few from thousands, and from those few you must choose again, according to your taste and your conditions. All the beautiful annuals and perennials we speak of will grow in any country garden that has sun part of the day, and we will tell you which do best in towns. But it is most important not to grow more things than you have room for or time to tend. There is no pleasure in a crowded, badly-grown annual, for instance, that is mean and stunted, because twenty plants are struggling for life where one would just flourish comfortably. You must consider well what you want to grow and what you can grow, both in your flower and your vegetable garden. You must find out what size the plants will be, what colour, and when they will flower. It is no use to say to yourself that a scarlet autumn Gladiolus would look well next to a white Foxglove; you must remember that the Foxglove flowers in June and the Gladiolus in August. You must be careful not to put orange and magenta next to each other; but, on the whole, we should advise you not to trouble much about colour yet. Out-of-doors flowers harmonize in unexpected ways. You should consider the height of your plants, and put the tall ones at the back of your border. There are some exceptions to this rule, but we will leave you to study those in any well-kept gardens you are lucky enough to see. As long as your garden is a child’s garden you had better put your dwarf plants in front and your tall ones behind. But you must find out which plants will like your climate and your soil, and which you have room for comfortably. If you have a tiny plot, do not choose anything that will make a big bush. Some lovely plants are quite small, so that you could grow a good many in a garden two feet square.

We have not said anything yet about the edging of your garden, because you are quite likely to find that ready-made. Tiles have the merit of keeping clean and tidy; a Box edging is pretty, but it has to be clipped neatly, and it affords shelter to snails and slugs. Turf requires much attention, and wears bare easily. The best edging is one of rough stones laid well into the soil, and with soil worked into the spaces between them. In case you have not seen these edgings, and yet can get some stones, we had better explain that each stone should be wedged as firmly as possible into the ground, but not covered; then in the pockets of earth between the stones you plant all kinds of tiny creeping plants, and these soon make a charming border. We will give you the names and habits of some in the chapter on rockeries. Do not, at any rate, have an absurd border of little pebbles, as they get out of place at once, and look untidy.