° 2 
. — : F 
| ae % ye a” + : a * 
* * = $ ba 
5 ‘STIRRING THE SOIL, 16 
a 
for the root; and this is done by pulverizing the ground in which the 
ef? 
» ~  geed is to be sown, so as to rende 1 a fit state for the roots to pen- 
etrate it easily. Thus they will neither be checked in their growth 
for want of room, be obliged to waste their strength in over- 
coming unnecessary obstacles; such as twining themselves round a 
stone, or to force their way through a hard clod of earth. The 
second point of affording the root abundance of nourishment may 
be obtained by pulverizing the ground; as pulverization, by ad- 
itting the rain to percolate slowly through the soil, affords a proper 
and equitable supply of food to the spongioles, without suffering the 
surplus water to remain so long around the roots, as to be in danger 
of rotti : . * 
These then are the reasons why it may be laid down as a general 
rule, that all ground shou d _ efore seeds are sown in it; 
but there are other reasons which operate only partially, and are yet 
almost as necessary to be attended to. When manure is applied, the 
ground is generally well dug, in order to mix the manure intimately 
with the soil: and when the soil appears worn out, or poisoned with 
excrementitious matter, from the same kind of plants being too long 
grown in it, it is trenched; that is, the upper or surface soil is taken 
off by spadefuls and laid on one side, and the bottom or sub-soil is 
taken out to a certain depth previously agreed on, and laid in another 
heap. The surface soil is then thrown into the bottom of the trench, 
and the sub-soil laid on the surface, and thus a completely new and 
fresh soil is offered to the plants. These partial uses of digging 
should, however, always be applied with great caution, as in some 
cases manure does better laid on the surface, so that its juices only 
may drain into the ground, than when it is intimately mixed with 
the soil; and there are cases when, from the sub-soil being of an in- 
ferior ualiffe trenching must be manifestly injurious. Reason and 
experience are, in these cases, as in most others, the best guides. * 
The uses of digging having been thus explained, it is now neces _ 
“sary to say something of its practice, and particularly of its applica- 
bility tolladies. It must be confessed that digging appears at first 
sight a very laborious employment, and one peculiarly unfitted to 
small and delicately formed hands and feet; but, by a little attention 
to the principles of mechanics and the laws of motion, the labour 
may be much simplified and rendered comparatively easy. ‘The op- 
eration of digging, as performed by a gardener, consists in thrusting 
