CHAPTER IX 



CULTIVATION AND TILLAGE 



Apparatus required. 



Plot experiments, lioeing and mulching. Factory 

 thermometer with stem 6 in. long. Soil sampler (Fig. 42, 

 p. 88). This tool consists of a steel tube 2 in. in diameter 

 and 9 in. long, with a slit cut along its length and all 

 the edges sharpened. The tube is fixed on to a vertical 

 steel rod, bent at the end to a ring 2 in. in diameter, 

 through which a stout wooden handle passes. It is 

 readily made by a blacksmith. 



Farmers and gardeners throughout the spring, sum- 

 mer and autumn, are busy ploughing or digging, hoeing 

 or in other ways cultivating the soil. Unless all this is 

 well done the soil fails to produce much ; the sluggard's 

 garden has always been a by- word and a reproach. In 

 trying to understand why they do it we must remember 

 that plant roots need water, warmth and air ; if the soil 

 is too compact or if there is too much water the plant 

 suffers, as we have seen. 



One great object of cultivation is, therefore, to pre- 

 vent the soil being too compact and too wet. After the 

 harvest the farmer breaks up his ground with a plough and 

 then leaves it alone till seed time (Fig. 40). A gardener 

 does the same thing with a fork in his kitchen garden — 

 he cannot very well elsewhere, or the plant roots might 



