78 



PROFITABLE GARDENING. 



CHAPTER III. EARTH- WORK AND PREPARATION OP THE SOIL. DRAINING. 



What sort of stuff have you got to 

 work upon? Settle that first, and act 

 accordingly. I am so used to deep, 

 fertile loams, that I am particularly 

 partial to deep digging and trenching, 

 but there are some soils that will not 

 bear this sort of work. Where a 

 shallow mould lies over chalk or 

 gravel, it may not be wise to send the 

 spade too deep, but wherever there is 

 a fair depth of soil, the deeper it is 

 stirred the better. Even where it 

 would be inadvisable to bury the top 

 spit, and bring the second spit into its 

 place, it will still, in most cases, be 

 good, especially on ground that has 

 been cropped for any length of time, to 

 open a trench by removing a breadth of 

 the top soil, and give the under stra- 

 tum a good loosening, for deep tillage 

 secures good drainage, keeps the win- 

 ter crops dry, and enables the summer 

 ones to stand drought better, because 

 their roots work deep into the stuff 

 that has been loosened and sweetened, 

 and so escape the drying action of hot 

 sun and east winds. Wherever you 

 really can do it, practise deep culture; 

 a mere turning over of the surface 

 mould is but child's play, and in the 

 end does not pay. Good soil bears 

 knocking about well, and every expo- 

 sure of the under layer to air and sun- 

 shine increases its fertility, brings into 

 action a larger bulk for the roots of 

 plants to search through, and is, in 

 many cases, actually better than heavy 

 manuring. It has been proved in the 

 Lois Weedon system, as practised by 

 the Rev. Mr. Smith, that on a suitable 

 soil the tillage maybe carried on with- 

 out manure for almost any length of 

 time without exhausting its fertility. 

 Mr. Smith has practised on a piece of 

 stiff, absorbent ground, well furnished 

 with the mineral ingredients of vegeta- 

 tion. He has it well dug, and then 

 plants it with wheat in rows of three 

 together, one foot apart; and with a 

 distance of three feet between each 

 row. As soon as the wheat is up, the 

 one foot rows are well forked and air 

 admitted to the roots of the wheat, and 

 weeds eradicated, and as the wheat 



meets across these rows, the digging is 

 discontinued. But the three feet rows 

 are treated as fallows, and all through 

 the spring and summer are thoroughly 

 turned over and well exposed to the 

 air, until the wheat meets over these 

 rows. When the wheat comes off, the 

 spaces which were fallowed are cropped, 

 and the stubble rows are fallowed, and 

 so on every year ; and thus one half 

 the ground is always in fallow, but 

 thoroughly exposed by repeated dig- 

 ging to the action of the atmosphere, 

 and it amounts to the same thing as if 

 the whole field were planted with 

 wheat every alternate year, except that 

 he takes a full crop every year, namely, 

 from thirty to forty bushels per acre. 

 He uses no dung, no guano, no manure 

 of any kind, } T et the land is manured 

 by the very act of digging, which ena- 

 bles it to absorb from the atmosphere 

 the principles which maintain its fer- 

 tility. It is not merely that the 

 ground gets well pulverized and broken 

 up by a free working of it, it is abso- 

 lutely enriched by its power of absorb- 

 ing ammonia and other ingredients 

 from the air, and the influence of rain 

 and sunshine in dissolving those mine- 

 ral ingredients of the soil which plants 

 require, but which are useless to them 

 until brought to a proper condition by 

 atmospheric action. Depend upon it, 

 unless you have a very peculiar soil 

 indeed, you cannot knock it about too 

 much at every season of the year. 



Now let every reader of this work 

 take a leaf out of the Rev. Mr. Smith's 

 book; dig deep, dig at every opportu- 

 nity, never let the ground rest, except 

 when crops are upon it, and even then 

 keep the surface frequently stirred 

 with fork, hoe, or rake, and you will 

 find your account pay for your work 

 in double and treble crops ; you will 

 be astonished what measures the agi- 

 tation will bring you. Manure well 

 also, and carry the day against all 

 comers. 



Now, supposing you to be quite a 

 beginner, I will just describe the seve- 

 ral modes of digging ground. The 

 jobbing gardener works with an old 



