How to bring Land under Tilth 



tion by man will quickly bring it to a state of produc- 

 tiveness. Certainly the soils which are in England 

 supposed to be unfertile have really within them a large 

 store of plant food, and it only needs thorough and 

 intelligent cultivation to render this food available for 

 the plants. A good beginning is perhaps half the 

 battle. It must be presumed that the land we have 

 now to deal with was formerly under grass, probably 

 an old pasture which has not been broken within the 

 memory of any living man. If the grass is very high 

 it should be roughly cut over with the scythe, to facilitate 



'..&.. 



FIG. 83. A plan for digging ground. 



the work. The grass may be collected up and burnt, 

 or put into a heap to rot. In either case its ultimate 

 destiny should be the land from which it was taken. 

 ' It will now be necessary to divide the piece into suit- 

 able rectangular pieces. If in the vegetable garden this 

 will have been done to some extent by the paths. Fig. 

 83 shows a square plot of land divided into four equal 

 rectangular pieces. These are marked out clearly with 

 the aid of the line, and by cutting a nick along it. 

 On the first piece, a strip three feet wide is marked 

 off as shown at A, and the top spit of that piece is 

 129 i 



