12 NOVEMBER 1948, Page 17

In the Garden

No manure spreads itself so kindly as the autumn leaves, and they fall at or about the dates when worms, those great tillers of the soil, are most active (as you may see on any golf course, where now worm- killer is being spread lavishly on the brown greens). Now, the worms delight in leaves, even the stalks. I have, for example, seen a patch of ground fairly bristling with the vertical stalks of Virginia creeper. I cannot but think that good results follow the immediate spreading of leaves on the beds, even of roses. Apropos, the zealots of the no-digging campaign justify their purely surface treatment by committing the work