Digging and Trenching. 



NoAV tliat the winter has come, too great importance 

 cannot be attached to clearing all vacant land of 

 weeds and getting it dug or trenched as early as 

 possible. Perhaps a few practical notes on this 

 operation from one who has done much digging in 

 his time may be useful to your readers. 



In the depth of winter it is easier and more com- 

 fortable to dig over vacant land when there is 

 very little frost in it. One does not get so dirty, 

 and the soil does not stick to one's spade. For 

 really good digging a spade one foot deep should 

 only be used : the " toy " spades used by some 

 gardeners are no good at all. 



Sandy soils are the only soils which should not 

 be dug now. It is better to leave them till Feb- 

 ruary, and then manure freely with cow manure. 



The soil in our garden is fairly good and tends 

 to clay. We take out a good trench at the end of 

 each plot to be dug, and wheel the soil to the other 

 end of the plot. Then we put in a good layer of 

 manure and scatter soot or Killogrub over it, and 

 turn on to it the top spit behind the trench. Before 

 we manure the trenches we break up the soil of the 

 second spit as far as we can, removing any large 

 stones. 



If we do not want the land to be too rich we only 

 manure every other trench, and we find that this 

 acts well. We apply very little manure, indeed, 

 to the plots devoted to Carrots, Parsnips, Beet, and 

 other root crops, for we find that if these plots 

 (which have been well manured for a previous 

 crop) are merely well dug over and some soot or 

 pest-killer freely scattered in, we get good results. 



In digging it is a very great mistake to break 

 up the clods with the spacle. It is chiefly inex- 

 perienced amateur gardeners that sin in this direc- 



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