eavy clay if well
cultivated and if at the blooming season in case of drouth the plants
are well watered.

Of all soils a sandy one is the poorest for the production of bloom,
although, on the contrary, for the rapid production of roots the lighter
soils are ideal. Such soils not only produce roots much more rapidly
than the heavier soils, but produce a root that divides easier and to
better advantage. But it is with the cultivation of the plant that we
are most interested.

As I have said before, no plant will stand more abuse than the peony and
still give fairly good results, but if given a good soil and then good
cultivation we have no flower that will give us more satisfaction for
the care we give it.

When grown in large numbers peonies should be planted, if possible, so
that the plants can be cultivated with a horse. Deep cultivation seems
to bring the best flowers. Where we can give horse cultivation we start
the cultivator just as early in the spring as we can. As a rule we start
by the middle of April and keep it going through the plants once a week
at least, and oftener if necessary, right up to the time when the buds
start to open. Cultivation here ceases until the blooming season is over
and is then resumed often enough to destroy all weeds up to the first of
August. We use one and two-horse cultivators and run the shovels to
within three or four inches of the plants and two to three inches deep.

But few of us can cultivate in this way. Field cultivating methods are
hard to apply to the lawn and garden. But we may get the same results in
other ways. Clumps of peonies on the lawn should be so planted that a
cultivated space encircling the plant at least a foot wide is left.
This space should be covered in the fall with a mulch of well rotted
barnyard manure which should be forked or spaded into the soil in the
spring. And the soil about the plant should be thoroughly forked over,
to a depth of two to four inches, three or four times before the
blooming season.

Where the plants are planted in borders and beds in the garden, mulch
and cultivate in the same way, stirring the soil all about and between
the plants. Care should be taken in applying the manure mulch not to get
it directly over the plant if the tops have been cut back. The stems are
hollow as they die out in the fall, and thawing snow and occasional
rains of winter leach the strength out of the manure, and this filters
down through these holl