A dictionary of modern gardening - University Library

ROS 522 ROT
and by layers, is the only mode of pro- derive different materials from tlie soil ;
i
pagating the gold and silver-striped and though the vegetables having the
varieties. Sow in March or early in smallest systems of leaves, will propor-
April, in drills one inch deep and six
inches apart. The rooted slips, and
the cuttings of the young shoots, must
tionately most exhaust the soil of corn-
mon nutritive matter, yet particular
vegetables, when their produce is car-
be from five to seven inches long, and ried off, will require peculiar principles
planted in a shady border, in rows to be supplied to the land in which
eight or ten inches apart. Previously they grow. Strawberries and potatoes
to being inserted, remove the leaves
from the lower two-thirds of their
length. Layers may be formed by cut-
at first produce luxuriantly in virgin
mould recently turned up from pasture,
but in a few years they degenerate and
ting young branches half through on require a fresh soil; and the organiza-
their under side, and pegging them tion of these plants is such as to be
producing the migration of
! down an inch or two below the sur- constantly
face ; they become established plants their layers. Thus the strawberry by
by autumn. Water must be applied its long shoots is continually endeaabundantly
at the time of planting, vouring to occupy a new soil ; and the
and occasionally afterwards until es- fibrous radicles of the potato produce
tablished. bulbs at a considerable distance from
The plants require no further care the parent plant. The most remarkable
;
than to be kept clear from weeds, and instance of the powers of the plant to
in September to be transplanted to re- exhaust the soil of certain principles
main, being performed, in preference,
during mild "showery weather; but if
not removed thus early in the autumn,
necessary to its growth, is found in
certain fungi. Mushrooms are said
never to rise m two successive seasons
they are best left until
March. They may be
the following
either grown
on the same spot; and the
of the phenomena called
production
fairy-rings,
in rows two feet apart each way, or
trained in a fan form against a wall.
ROSE OF HEAVEN. Lychnis Call-
Rosa.
ROSE OF JERICHO. Anastatica.
ROSE OF THE WORLD. Camellia
japonica Rosa-mundi.
ROSE SNOWBALL TREE. Viburnum
Opitlus roseum.
ROSMARINUS officinalis. See
Rosernary.
ROTATION IN CROPS. There are
has been ascribed by Dr. Wollaston, to
the power of the peculiar fungus which
forms it to exhaust the soil of the nutriment
necessary for the growth of the
species. The consequence is that the
ring annually extends, for no seeds
will grow where their parents grew
before them, and the interior part of the
circle has been exhausted by preceding
crops; but where the fungus has died,
nourishment is supplied for grass which
usually rises within the circle, coarse
three circumstances to be regarded in and of a dark green colour."
regulating the order in which crops
should follow each other:—1. Each
crop should be as dissimilar as possible
from its predecessor. 2. The exuviaj
of the preceding crop should not be
offensive to its successor, 3. A fusiform-rooted
crop should succeed a
Again, exhausting crops should never
be grown successively; and the following
observations of one of the best of
modern gardeners, the late Mr. G.
Sinclair, afford much light npon this
point
fibrous-rooted crop, or vice versa
:
" If we take the weight of nutritive
matter which a plant affords from a
]. Dissimilarity in the following crop given space of ground, the result will
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be found to agree with the daily expe-
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;
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is desirable, because, so far as the saline
constituents of the soil are con- I rience in the garden and the farm ; and
cerned, every tribe of plants in
measure takes from it distinct
some the following figures represent the pro-
food. portion in which they stand to each
Sir H. Davy truly observed upon this other with respect to the weight of nupoint,
that, " though the general com- tritive matter they contain, with their
position of plants is very analogous, having exhausted the land :
'•' yet the specific differences in the pro- Potatoes .... 63
ducts of many of them, and other well Cabbage .... 42
ascertained facts, prove that they must Mangold wurzel ... 21
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