SOILS FOR TUB LANDSCAPE GARDENER

By Edwin A. Kanst, Chicago, Ill.

Subject: Soils for the Landscape Gardener.

The subject of my paper soils I'or the landscape gardener is intend-ed to cover a field of operations in soil that pertains to the homegrounds, private estates and favors the horicultural use of soil ratherthan agricultural. 'Hence, I have used the term" Landscape gardener in abroad sense. I choose to call anyone a landscape gardener who embelisheshis home grounds though he may not be a professional landscape gardener,by so doing I cover the 'field I wish to talk about because all horticul-tural operations are covered more or less by this term in much the samemanner that Forestry, Pomology and other studies are included under agri-culture. To'use the word gardener and florist would bring"us into anoth-er field of operations, Tl;e florists methods for preparing soils arerarely ever those practised by the amateur landscape gardener.

Professional landscape gardeners are frequently called upon for in-formation relative to soils suitable for the building of lawns, gardens,orchards, public parks, cemeteries and private estates. The public parkaare probably the largest users in the field and these institutions inChicago alone have spent over two and"one-half millions dollars($2,500,000.00) for soil in the making of their parks and many thousandsmore will be expended before the present extension and improvement planeare completed,

Nearly every householder has occasion at one time or another to usesoil. This is not only true in Chicago but in every large City andSuburb throughout the country. This is particularly true of communitiesin sandy regions. I give as illustration the nearby cities of Gary,Indiana, Michigan City"and others located in this sandy region. In thelatter instances the cost of 'obtaining a"suitable soil is enormous whenyou take into consideration the fact that some eight hundred cubicyards are required to cover an acre of ground to a six inch depth andthat a supply is rarely obtained at less than one dollar a yard andwhen to this is added the handling cost, the labor cf spreading, rolling,etc., the total expenditure per acre will run from eight to sixteenhundred dollars to obtain a lawn. When the soil is brought in from anydistance the transportation cost becomes quite a factor and will bringmy estimate as high as twenty-five hundred dollars (62500) per acre, soyou see the expression, "Cheap as dirt" does not apply nere. Now, Ihave used this word Dirt purposely, and with your permission I willdigress momentarily from my subject, and give you my own idea of theabsurdity of employing, this term in referring to soil. Soil is notdirt and the converse is also true that dirt is not soil, dirt is some-thing you clean off the window sill or sweep out with a broom. I thinkone of the objects of this Society should be to instill into the publicthe vast difference in the meaning of these two words and to teach them

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never to use the word dirt" in" reference to. soil or earth. Dirt" is neversoil--yet one half of the people in Chicago place their order' for ' dirtwhen they require black earth for their lawns and places. Many of thenalso imply the term clay dirt when speaking of clay. You say, why makeso much fuss about this word? What harm in using it? A lot of harm Isay, A mother says to her child, you are dirty, go wash your' hands' andface, your shoes are dirt% d"on''t track so 'much dirt in "to the house.Our ideas in life are often traceable to impressions made and receivedin childhood and so in time the child learns to abhor dirt. So when itis time to repair the lawn or when the garden making is on, Fatherorders some dirt. Now right here it requires a very bright child toreason that dirt is not dirt. To a child raised in the country theremight be no confusion, but for the city parent to speak of dirt forthe lawn or garden is no less than a crime; f o r , in the improper use ofthe word, the child has a gross misconception of your meaning and in-stead of instilling a love for the soil you turn the child against it.Someone will say, Why this is all nonsense, but as I said before ourchildish impressions are in a measure lasting, so let no Father orMother employ that detestable word Dirt when meaning soil or earth.

But to resume my subject. The average,man in building his homegives but little thought to where a supply of soil will be obtained.The architect will perhaps advise the placing of all good earth to oneai'de, but quite frequently the building goes on without a thought tothe conservation of the soil. It is removed, cast to one side andthen becomes mixed with plaster, and building rubbish is trampled bythe workmen and rendered utterly useless. As the building nears com-pletion and the builder's thoughts turn to plantation, green lawns,trees and shrubbery and -flowers the landscape gardener is called uponfor advice and estimates. These being given the owner awakes to therealization that although his house is built there are still addition-al expenses to be incurred on matters given no previous thought byhimself or his architect. As I have said previously no thought wasgiven to the conservation of the immediate soil supply and hence theowner must procure at a considerable cost, soil which was naturallyhis, and on the ground, but thoughtlessly destroyed. So when calledupon for this additional expenditure the owner is often times forcedto stint on the plantation work, buying perhaps four or six inchesof soil to maintain a lawn which would"have been maintained a greatdeal better and with a more luxuriant growth with twelve inches ofsoil as a foundation.

It is customary with many apartment builders in cities wheresoil is expensive to grade the grounds smooth and then to sod theareas. This is a dishonest practice, for, the grass has nothingsuitable to live on and the following year the unsuspecting pur-chaser finds that ih order to maintain his lawn a supply of earthis required and"is forced to spend several hundred dollars in addi-tion to his original investment.

Every large city has teaming contractors who make a practice of

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supplying soil. Their supply is usually obtained from building excava-tions where they have contracted tor the excavating and it naturallyfollows that the money they obtain for the sale of this soil representsnearly one-hundred per cent in gain. Then the regular dealers in soilbecome the object of much criticism because they ask a fair price forthis commodity commensurable with the many costs and overhead expenseinvolved that are not taken into consideration by the excavator.

The average man in this latter business knows but very little aboutthe kind or character of soils used in landscape work. He is simply ateaming operator. Now you as soil men know it is impossible to removesoil :'rom a vacant city lot which has been used by the boys as a play-ground; trampled upon until it is as hard as rock; and which has beenutilized as a neighborhood refuse dump and expect to grow; lawns andshrubbery as well as with a properly selected and prepared soil.

Ninety per cent of all ot' the soils used in cities is sold duringthe months of April and May; a time when the garden making is fullblast. It is then that the excavator puts the sign on the wagon, "Dirtfor sale." And that is just about what the customer usually obtains.

Many a man who is a keen buyer of every other commodity will per-mit a load of the worst kind of rubbish to be dumped on his front landand will spend his evenings in watering it and fussing with it in hisendeavor to build a lawn.

How here again is where your Society can be of much service tothe people of the large cities throughout the country by educatingthe'in to the importance of obtaining a supply of suitable soil beforeattempting to improve their places.

A soil bureau in every large city to give intelligent advice andsuggestions to the public would be 01 great benefit to the city as awhole, through these suggestions given the individual. The expense ofmaintaining such a bureau would be infinitesimal. And in this connec-tion, I believe that a city soil bureau should be as important a fac-tor as the city forestry bureau and perhaps 01' greater importance.Trees'and shrubbery cannot be 'grown without soil and from what Iknow of the amount of money squandered in one year on poor soiltwenty soil experts could be maintained at a large salary and stillrealize a saving,

I know of one man in Chicago who filled his entire lawn space150x150 with sewerage cleaning from city streets because he was toldthat this material constituted a proper foundation for a lawn,

In every large city there are found numerous inspectors for thisand that and the other, so why not'create the office of soil inspector.It may be that there are cities who have already established this of f icebut if there are I am uninformed. A competent landscape gardener orforester has as a rule only a superficial knowledge of soils as com-pared to the man who is a soil expert who has been specially trained

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in this line and who has made it his sole study and life work.

Soil as a study is a deep subject. It is not only necessary for oneto have a knowledge of the" various kinds of soils but he must also havea thorough knowledge of the condition. This is almost as important forthe reason that regardless of the good quality of the soil ' if it behandled out 'of condition it is rendered into not good" soil. Every farmerrealizes that fact and knows that his entire field may be ruined by thehandling and working ground out of condition.

Condition to my mind means much more than color or kind. I havemet very intelligent people who judge all soils by the standard that ifthe soil is not black it is not good. This is especially true of peoplewho have been raised in the"black soil district. The soil expert knowsthat there are as many unproductive'black coils as there are of otherColored soils. And, then again, colored soils are as a rule just asproductive as black soils but you cannot say the average cf the soil isgood or bad until you have taken its condition into cons idera t ion , itmay be too wet, too dry, too lumpy, too firm and etc., because a soilis productive in one place is not always a sure sign that when moved itwill continue to be productive. Take for instance, a very heavy claysoil off of a subsoil where it is always damp and friable during thegrowing season and put on a sand foundation and it will become hard andcrack, or take a light soil where it ie twelve inches or more in depthand apply a six inch covering elsewhere and the vegetation burns up inhot weather. More people get fooled on peat more than any other "kindof soil. I don't mean in any agricultural way but in a horticulturalway. I know a man who bought a peat farm for the purpose of shippingthe soil into town for the making of lawns and other horticulturaluses. This soil had all the requirements for that purpose, he thought.It was light in weight, rich black in color it analyzed 5% of ammoniawhen dry. The corn crop on this land was tremendous and oats lodgedbecause it grew so heavy. Yet his theory was 9/10% wrong. For thesame reason that you can keep a horse fat on a good hay stack becausehe consumes a lot and picks out just what he wants. Fill a sack withhay instead of oats and he will nearly starve to death. Just so withthe plants the roots run through this immense supply of humus on thefarm and take what they need but when you put six inches of this mater-ial oh a lawn you are putting hay in the nose bap. Time will not per-mi t 'me t'o go further into this subject. I would like to impress uponyou, however," the importance of having soil men especially trained togive advice on the uses of soils in the horticultural field, because •it is only through the' knowledge 'of ' the soil expert that the land-scape gardener or amateur can obtain accurate results. All unguidedef for t s are either hit or miss.

I would like to say a word about freight rates in transportingsoils by the railroad, also about the measure standards. Freight onsoil is always reckoned by the net ton basis and soil is nearly al-ways sold by the cubic yard basis. You load f i f t y yards of soil on afreight car when it is dry and the freight costs we will say twenty-five

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dollars. You load a car after a hard heavy rain or in the Spring whenthe frost is just corning out and you pay as high as thirty-three dollarsfreight for the same amount of soil, or an extra eight dollars for waterand perhaps get a fine for" over-loading the car. Stone, gravel andsand and other materials are sold on either a ton or yard basis but theweight per cubic yard is always a fixed standard, because these mater-ials do not absorb water as does the Boil, I maintain that soil shouldbe sold by the ton instead of by the cubic yard, and people should beencouraged to get a soil supply in summertime when the soil is lightand easilty handled in good condition. The weed seeds have germinatedand whatever loss the purchaser may have on account of excess water ismore than made up by the condition of the soil, then, too, there is nochance to get beat on measurements because one always has the weighttickets to fall back upon. By the yard basis each wagon has to bemeasured and there are so many different kinds of wagons and trucksthat the chances of being defrauded are much greater than by weight.This is an important matter especially when the subject of clay istaken into consideration and I believe that a committee from thisSociety on weight measures could point out a way to solve this problem.

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