The Lady's Country Companion; Or, How to Enjoy a Country Life RationallyLoudon, Mrs. (Jane)
General
The Lady's Country Companion; Or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally
Loudon, Mrs. (Jane)
Cooking; Country life; Home economics
I do not think you have ever told me what soil yours is, and perhaps
you hardly know. You will, however, easily recognise gravel or chalk;
if the soil be red, it is probably, if loose, a sand, and if close, a
marl; a peaty soil is black and loose; and a clay may be known by water
standing in little pools after rain, without running off. This is one
of the worst soils for gardening purposes; but it may be improved by
mixing it with sand.
I shall now give you a list of half-hardy plants for autumn, as most
of the annuals will begin to look shabby in July or the beginning of
August. No. 1. Verbèna Melíndres, bright scarlet; No. 2. Œnothèra
Drummóndi, yellow; No. 3. Lobèlia bícolor, blue; No. 4. Calceolària
rugòsa, pegged down; No. 5. Verbèna Tweediàna, crimson; No. 6. common
White Petunia; No. 7. Verbèna Arraniàna, or Henderson's purple; No.
8. Calceolària integrifòlia, yellow; No. 9. Purple Petunia; No. 10.
Verbèna teucrioìdes, white; No. 11. Frogmore Pelargonium, bright
scarlet; No. 12. Musk plant, yellow.
In October the following bulbs and other plants may be put in for
flowering in early spring. No. 1. Von Thol Tulips; No. 2. Cloth of
Gold, or common Yellow Crocuses; No. 3. Blue Hepatica; No. 4. Yellow
Crocuses, or White Anemone; No. 5. Scílla vérna and sibírica, blue; No.
6. Àrabis álbida, white; No. 7. Double Pink Hepatica; No. 8. Winter
Aconite; No. 9. Purple Crocuses; No. 10. Snowdrops; No. 11. Primroses;
No. 12. White Hepatica, or Àrabis alpìna.
If you do not like the plan for a garden which I have sent you, you can
draw one according to your own fancy, of any figure you like; but, as
I believe you have not yet a regular gardener, it will be necessary to
teach you how to transfer the plan you have decided upon from the paper
to the ground. In the first place, the ground must be dug over, raked,
and made perfectly smooth. The pattern, if a complicated one, must then
be drawn on Berlin paper, which is covered with regular squares, and
the ground to be laid out must be covered with similar squares, but
larger; the usual proportion being that a square inch on the paper
represents a square foot on the ground. The squares on the ground are
usually formed by sticking in wooden pegs at regular distances, and
fastening strings, from peg to peg, till the whole ground is covered
with a kind of latticework of string. Each string is then chalked, and
made to thrill by pulling it up sharply and letting it go again, which
transfers the chalk from the string to the ground. When the ground is
thus covered with white squares, it is easy to trace upon it, with
a sharp-pointed stick, any pattern which may have been drawn on the
paper; the portion in each square on the ground being copied on a
larger scale from that of the corresponding square on the paper.
[Illustration: Fig. 8. _Plan for a Flower-Garden._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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