256 THE BEGINNER'S GARDEN BOOK 



thrusts, I am always interested in the brown earth that 

 is giving up its secrets before me, enjoying its mellow 

 crumbliness, its odor, and the knowledge that the work is 

 good. 



So much for spading a garden of which the soil is satisfac- 

 tory. But we do more than this with a poor soil. There are 

 three conditions that one is likely to meet : extreme lightness, 

 which means a dry soil ; extreme heaviness, which means a 

 wet and late and cold soil ; and sourness, which means that 

 most plants will have a difficult time. The remedy in each 

 case is to work in something to improve the ground. 



For a very light soil, as for a very heavy soil, the remedy 

 is the same. This sounds like the story of the man who 

 warmed his fingers and cooled his porridge by blowing from 

 the same mouth ; but in each case the tale is true. A good 

 dressing of manure will make a light soil hold more water, 

 as we know by our winter experiments. At the same time 

 the light and loose particles of manure will keep the clay soil 

 from sogginess by providing drainage and letting in the air. 

 There is one more thing that we can do to the heavy soil, 

 and that is to spade in a good dressing of coarse sand or 

 sifted coal ashes. These separate the fine particles of the 

 clay, and make the soil drier and warmer. 



To apply manure to the garden seems very simple. We 

 simply spread it in a layer as thick as we can afford (from 

 two to four inches is a good dressing) and spade it in. But 

 there are two things to remember. In the first place, the 

 manure should be spaded completely under. If you can do 

 it in no other way, lay the manure in the bottom of each 

 trench before the next is made. In the second place, it 

 should be of the right kind. It should be of horse manure, 

 or of horse and cow manure mixed; less than half of 

 its volume should be bedding ; the bedding should be straw or 



