186 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



air, plenty of stimulus. Perhaps nothing is better for them than 

 soap-suds every Monday from the wash. 



Mr. Steele. — -I use a common sieve for fine flower seeds in plant- 

 ing. I sift the earth, then strew the seeds, and sift fine soil over 

 them. 



TRENCHING. 



Mr. Carpenter.—I have never seen greater benefit from trench- 

 ing than during the drouth of this past season. 



Prof. Nash.— I do not think the benefit of trenching can easily 

 be over-stated. In Belgium the soil is sandy upon the surface 

 and clay below, and trenching and mixing it makes it very fertile. 

 The government exempts from taxation the man who trenches his 

 soil for twenty-five years. 



Mr. Carpenter. — I suppose an acre can be trenched two and a 

 half feet deep for $50. 



Prof. Nash. — It will cost |500 if the man who does the work 

 is to be paid for it. 



Mr. Pardee. — You can do it for less than $500 in the way I 

 have done it. I never carry the soil from one part of the garden 

 to another. I first throw up the earth twelve or fourteen inches 

 deep with a spading fork, and then fork up the earth as much 

 deeper to lighten it. Then I throw the earth from the next row 

 upon this, and fork up the earth below that, and so on. This 

 lightens the soil two feet deep. I have my garden trenched in 

 this way every spring. Doing it with the spade is a slow and 

 difficult work ; but the ground can be trenched very rapidly with 

 a long spading fork. And there is a vast difference between going 

 three feet deep and two feet wide in the expense. 



Prof. Nash stated that the question had arisen upon the farm 

 connected with the State Reform School in Massachusetts, whether 

 it would pay to trench land with the labor of the boys at two 

 cents per day. They came to the conclusion that the cost of 

 trenching three feet deep was $500 an acre, and that it was a 

 good operation at that, 



Mr. Carpenter. — Mr. Pardee's method is very good as far as it 

 goes, but it is very different from changing and manuring the 

 soil two feet deep, making it all loam for that depth, forking up 

 another foot. I can run a cane to the bottom of the trench of 

 land trenched eight or nine years ago. 



The further consideration of the subject of " Trenching" was 

 postponed until the next meeting. Adjourned. 



