CROPS AND PROFITS 



should not exceed two or three times the short- 

 est diameter of the seed; this plainly involves 

 so light a covering for the lettuces, parsley, and 

 celery, that a judicious gardener will effect it 

 by simply sifting over them a sprinkling of 

 fine loam, which he will presently wet down 

 thoroughly (unless the sun is at high noon), 

 with his water-pot— medicined with a slight 

 pinch of guano. 



For a good garden, as I have said, a deep 

 rich soil is essential ; and to this end trenching 

 is desirable; but trenching will not always 

 secure it, for the palpable reason that subsoil 

 is not soil. I have met with certain, awkward 

 confirmatory experiences, — where a delicate 

 garden mould of some ten inches in depth, 

 which would have made fair show of the lesser 

 vegetables, has been, by the frenzy of trench- 

 ing, buried, under fourteen inches of villainous 

 gravelly hard-pan, brought up from below, in 

 which all seeds sickened, and all plants turned 

 pale. Whatever be the depth of tillage, it is 

 essential that the surface show a fine tilth of 

 friable, light, unctuous mould; the young 

 plants need it to gain strength for a foray be- 

 low. And yet I have seen inordinate sums ex- 

 pended, for the sake of burying a few inches 

 of such choice moulds, under a foot-thick cover- 



i8i 



