72 GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 



we found it entirely unfit for trees ; we subsoil plowed it 

 six or eight inches deep, turning up the clay subsoil, and 

 mixing it with the surface ; we also drained it, and spread 

 over the surface the clay that came out of the drains, and 

 in this condition we find it producing the finest trees, 

 especially apples, pears, and plums. The soil is more 

 substantial, and the surface water passes off freely. 



2. TRENCHING. 



Iii gardens, too limited in extent to admit of plows, or 

 where it is desired to make the soil thoroughly and per- 

 manently deep, trenching is the means. 



The spade is the implement used in this operation. A 

 trench, two feet wide, is opened on one side of the ground, 

 and the earth taken out of it is carried to the opposite side. 

 Another trench is opened, the surface spadeful being 

 thrown in the bottom of the first, and the next lower on the 

 top of that, and so on until it is opened the required depth, 

 which, for a good fruit garden, should be about two feet. 

 If the subsoil be poor and gravelly, it is better to loosen 

 it up thoroughly with a pick, and let it remain, than to 

 throw it out on the surface. When the whole plot is 

 trenched over in this way, the earth taken out of the first 

 trench will fill up the last one, and the work is done. If 

 the soil be poor, a layer of well-decomposed manure may 

 be added alternately with the layers of earth ; and if the 

 soil be too light and sandy, clay, ashes, etc., can be add- 

 ed ; and if too heavy, sand, lime, muck, peat, scrapings 

 of dead leaves from the woods, or any other material cal- 

 culated to render it porous and friable. If a garden is 

 thus trenched in the fall or winter, and then turned over 

 once in the spring, to effect a thorough mixture of all the 

 materials, it will be in suitable order for planting. This 

 is something like the way to prepare soil for a garden ; 

 and let no one say it is too troublesome or too expensive, 



