16 STIRRING THE SOIL. [CHAP. L 



for receiving plants, or for filling with choice 

 soil, and to remove plants. In the first case, a 

 hole of sufficient size to receive the plant is 

 dug, and the earth thrown up beside it, to be 

 filled in round the roots of the plant ; and in 

 the second case, the common garden earth is 

 thrown out of a pit a foot or eighteen inches 

 deep, and about the same in diameter, and its 

 place supplied by peat, or whatever other 

 kind of earth may be required. In removing a 

 young tree or shrub, the ground is generally 

 first dug out on one side, so as to form a small 

 trench, and then the spade is driven perpen- 

 dicularly into the ground, below the depth to 

 which the roots descend, and the whole mass is 

 raised like a spadeful of earth. Small plants 

 are raised by the spade at once, without making 

 any trench ; and large trees require all the skill 

 of a professed gardener. 



Forking. — A broad-pronged garden fork 

 may be defined as an implement consisting of 

 a number of small sharply-pointed spades, 

 united by a shoulder or hilt, to which is fixed 

 the handle ; and forking differs from digging, 

 principally in its being used merely to stir the 

 soil, and not to turn it over. In shrubberies, 

 and among perennial herbaceous plants, which 

 are not to be taken up and replanted, forking 

 is very useful ; as it loosens the hard dry sur- 

 face of the soil, and admits the warm air 

 and rain to the roots of the plants. This is 

 very necessary, not only to admit the particles 

 of air, which are required for the nourishment 

 of the plants, but also to admit warmth, as the 

 earth is a bad conductor of heat; and, where 



