DIG 



198 



DIG 



that if one corner is much lower than required to reduce ice or snow from the 

 another, carry on the lower part some- solid to the fluid state. A pound of 

 what first, in a kind of easy sweep or snow newly fallen requires an equal 

 slanting direction, as far as necessary, weight of water, heated to 172°, to melt 

 Likewise, in finishing any pieces of dig- it, and then the dissolved mixture is only 

 ging, gradually round upon the lower of the temperature of 32^. Ice requires 

 side so as to finish at the highest corner; the water to he a few degrees \^ armer, 

 and having digged to the end, or that to produce the same result. When ice 

 part of any piece of ground where you or snow is allowed to remain on the 

 intend to finish, then use tiie earth dig- surface, the quantity of heat necessary 

 ged out of the first trench to make good to reduce it to a fluid state is obtained 

 the last opening equal with the other chiefly from the atmosphere; but when 

 ground. In plain digging dunged buried so that the atmospheric heat can- 

 ground, if the dung is quite rotten, you not act directly upon it, the thawing 

 may dig clean through, giving each spit must be very slowly effected, by the 

 a clean turn to bury the dung in the | abstraction of heat from the soil by 

 bottom of the trench ; but if you cannot which the frozen mass is surrounded, 

 readily dg this, trim the dung a spade's I Instances have occurred of frozen soil 

 width at a time into the furrow or open not being completely thawed at mid- 

 trench, and so dig the ground upon it, summer; when so, the air, which fills 

 which is rather the most effectual tiie interstices of the soil, will be con- 

 method, whether rotten or long fresh ; tinually undergoing condensation as it 

 dung. comes in contact with the cold portions; 



" In the course of digging all weeds i and, accordingly, the latter will be in a 

 that are perennial should be carefully ! very saturated condition even after they 

 picked out, particularly couch-grass and have become thawed. — Card. Chron. 



bear-bind ; for the least bit of either 

 will grow. But annual weeds, ground- 

 sel, and the like, should be turned down 

 to the bottom of the trench, where they 

 v/ill rot. 



" A man will dig by plain digging of 

 light free-working clean ground, eight, 

 ten, or twelve rods a day, from six to six, 

 though in some of the light clean ground 

 about London, I have known a man turn 

 up fifteen or twenty rods a day, from 

 five to seven ; on the other hand, in stiff 

 stubborn soils, a man may work hard 

 for six or eight rods in a day of twelve 

 hours; and that digging by trenches, or 

 trenching, if only one spade deep with- 

 out the crumbs or shovelling at bottom, 

 a man will dig almost as much as by 

 plain digging; or two spades' depth, 

 from four to six rods a day may be good 

 work, though in harsh working ground 

 digging three or four rods per day may 

 be hard work." Most garden soils dig 

 best the day after a fall of rain; and if 

 the soil has in its composition a larger 

 proportion than usual of clay, the opera- 

 tion will be faciliated by dipping occa- 

 sionally the spade into water. Most 

 gardeners object to digging while snow 

 18 upon the ground, and, as Dr. Lindley 

 justly observes, the objection is not 

 mere prejudice, for experience proves 

 the bad result of the practice. The evil 

 is owing to the great quantity of heat 



Very few people ever consider in de- 

 tail the expenditure of labour required 

 from the gardener when digging. It is 

 a labour above all others calling into 

 exercise the muscles of the human 

 frame, and how great is the amount of 

 this exercise may be estimated from the 

 following facts: — 



In digging a square perch of ground 

 in spits of the usual dimensions (seven 

 inches by eight inches) the spade has to 

 be thrust in 700 times; and as each 

 spadeful of earth, if the spade pene- 

 trates nine inches, as it ought to do, 

 will weigh on the average full seventeen 

 pounds, 11,900 pounds of earth have to 

 be lifted, and the customary pay for 

 doing this is two-pence half-penny. As 

 there are 100 perches or rods in an acre, 

 in digging the latter measure of ground 

 the garden labourer has to cut out 1 12,- 

 000 spadesful of earth, weighing in the 

 aggregate 17,000 cwt., or 8.50 tons, 

 and during the work he moves over a 

 distance of fourteen miles. As the 

 spade weighs between eight and nine 

 pounds, he has to lift, in fact, during the 

 work, half as much more weight than 

 that above specified, or 1,278 tons. An 

 able-bodied labourer can dig ten square 

 perches a day. A four-pronged fork, 

 with the prongs twelve inches long, and 

 the whole together forming a head eight 

 inches wide, is a more efficient tool for 



