~. 
4 a 
STIRRING THE SQ1L. 19 
cold by standing on the damp earth, but because the soil, when 
damp, adheres to the spade, and is much more difficult to work (as 
the gardeners call it,) than when it is dry. The ground in fields, 
&c. becomes very hard in dry weather; but this is never the case in 
a garden, the soil of which is well pulverized by the constant dig- 
ging, forking, hoeing, and raking, it must undergo, to keep the gar- 
den tolerably neat. Every lady should be careful, when she has 
finished digging, to have her spade dipped in water, and then wiped 
dry; after which it should be hung up in some warm dry shed, or 
harness room, to keep it free from rust: as nothing lessens the labour 
of digging more than having a perfectly smooth and polished spade. 
Should the earth adhere to the spade while digging, dipping the 
blade in water occasionally, will be found to facilitate the operation. 
The purposes for which digging is applied in gardening are: sim- 
ple digging for loosening the soil in order to prepare it for a crop; 
pointing; burying manure; exposing the soil to the action of the 
weather; trenching; ridging; forming pits for planting trees and 
shrubs, or for filling with choice soil for sowing seeds; and taking 
up plants when they are to be removed. 
In simple digging, as well as in most of the other kinds, it is cus- 
tomary to divide the bed to be dug, by a garden-line, into two parts: 
a trench, or furrow as it is called, is then opened across one of these 
divisions or half of the bed, the earth out of whichis thrown up into 
aheap. The digging then commences by turning over a breadth of 
soil into the furrow, thus made, and so forming a new furrow to be 
filled up by the soil turned over from the breadth beyond it; and this 
is continued till the operator reaches the end of the first division, 
when the furrow is to be filled with the earth taken from the first fur- 
row of the second division; after which the digging proceeds regu- 
larly as before, till the operator reaches the last furrow, which is 
filled with the ridge of earth thrown up when the first furrow was 
made. As few ladies are strong enough to throw the earth from the 
heap where it was laid from the first furrow to fill the last, the best 
Way is to put it into a small wheel-barrow, which may be wheeled 
to the place required, and filled and emptied as often as may be found 
convenient; or the ground may be divided into narrower strips. It 
must also be observed, that as a spadeful of earth taken up obliquely 
will be found to loosen the soil to a proper depth, a second or 
even a third should be taken from the same place before the operator 
42 
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