314 AROUND THE YEAR IN THE GARDEN 



If you have any patch of land that is cold and backward 

 in the spring, remaining too wet to be worked when you 

 would like to be getting ready to plant, by all means drain 

 it now. A few dollars' worth of drain tile and a couple of 

 days' work by an ordinary laborer under your supervision 

 will vastly improve a considerable sized garden patch, and 

 you may have the satisfaction of knowing that such soil 

 is usually the best after it is properly drained. 



The tiles should be put down as deep as possible, at least 

 two feet, preferably three, and if possible four. The lines 

 of tile should be about twenty-five feet apart for a three- 

 foot depth, and may be forty feet apart for a four-foot 

 depth. The extra foot in the depth of the trenches pays well. 



In laying out the lines for the ditches locate the highest 

 and the lowest points of the piece to be drained, and see 

 that the tile, slopes slightly but without any exceptions, in 

 the right direction. After the tile has been put in and before 

 the ditch has been filled with the soil it will be well to test 

 the system in two or three places with pailfuls of water. 



Fall Trenching 



In gardens small enough to be worked by hand thorough 

 ' ' trenching ' ' will pay well. Instead of spading up the garden 

 in the ordinary way throw out a furrow or ditch one spade 

 deep across the plot. Then go over the same strip again, 

 spading up and thoroughly breaking the lower soil, but 

 leaving it where it was. Throw the next strip of top-soil on 

 this, and in the same way thoroughly pulverize the strip of 

 soil beneath it; and so continue to the other side of the piece. 

 If you can give the surface a good dressing of manure before 

 trenching by all means do so. You will then have your 

 garden in the finest possible shape for next spring's planting 

 the manure well below the surface and largely converted 

 into available forms of plant food, and the surface soil ready 

 to work up fine as silk after the winter's disintegrating 

 action on the soil particles. By the same token late fall 

 plowing is desirable, except on slopes, where the soil may 

 wash during heavy rains. 



