; 
alien 
SUBURBAN GARDENING. 275 
In many gardens, the usual plan is merely to dig the ground one 
spade’s depth. This, though generally done, is far less effective than 
trenching, which almost always is a more satisfactory method. Some 
portion, at least, of every garden should be trenched annually. 
The reasons for doing this are many. In the operation of 
trenching, the surface soil, which is more or less exhausted, and 
usually stored with oxygen, gets placed lower down, and under- 
goes a period of rest, at the same time that it will slowly part with 
its store of oxygen; the lower soil is brought to the surface, and being 
invariably enriched with a reserve of fertilising substances, these are 
rendered available for the support of a crop. By exposing soil to 
atmospheric influences it is acted upon in a variety of ways. It is 
sweetened, the particles of which it consists are separated, and so acted 
upon by oxidation and other processes that some portions which hitherto 
have lain dormant are rendered fit for ready absorption by the roots of 
plants, and their growth and development are thereby materially 
assisted. The mechanical effect of trenching is also of great value, for 
water is admitted more freely, and when the ground is properly drained, 
by nature or artificially, as every well-ordered garden should be, where- 
ever the water passes through there air will follow, and the importance 
of this to the development of healthy and productive crops cannot be over- 
estimated. Then again, crops grown on deeply-stirred soil are able to 
withstand the vicissitudes of our varying summers far more easily than 
on soils stirred only to a shallower depth ; in rainy ones the roots are less 
injured by wet, and in dry ones they are least affected by a protracted 
drought. 
There are various methods whereby land may be prepared for 
succeeding crops, but those known as trenching and bastard trenching 
are the only ones which the amateur need be familiar with. 
TRENCHING. 
For deep soils, trenching is the best method. Trenching isa term 
used to describe the digging of ground twenty to thirty inches deep. It is 
performed as under :—From one end of the plot to be dug take out a trench 
two feet wide and two spades deep, wheeling the soil to the other end 
of the plot. Next loosen the bottom of the trench with a fork in order to 
assist in deepening the soil available for the roots to ramify through. 
Mark off the ground into widths of two feet. Then commencing at the 
width nearest the already opened trench, fill into it the surface soil or 
“top spits ” of the two feet space next to it; then throw the bottom spits 
of trench No. 2 over the top spits placed at the bottom of trench No. 1, 
in such a way that when finished a ridge like this A shall be left. 
Having loosened the bottom of trench No. 2 with the fork, fill it up with 
soil from No. 3 in the same way as No. 1, and so proceed until the plot 
is finished. Manure should be dug in during this operation in greater or 
less quantities according as the ground is poor or rich. ; 
BASTARD TRENCHING. 
When the soil is shallow—that is, when not more than a single 
spade’s depth is of good quality—a method called bastard trenching 
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