The Soil and its Treatment. 11 



Mr. A. D. HALL, Director of the Rothamsted Experiment 

 Station, in his book, The Soil, says that the surfaces of the 

 particles in one cubic foot of ordinary light loam may be taken 

 as equal in area to one acre ! When the full significance of 

 this statement is grasped it will be easy to realize the enor- 

 mous difference in the chances for free vigorous growth 

 between a plant in thoroughly cultivated soil and one in a soil 

 which is shallow, cobbly, and ill-worked. 



Bastard Trenching. The most satisfactory method of deeply 

 cultivating large areas of soil for gardening is by " bastard 

 trenching," which consists of breaking up the soil two " spits " 

 deep, but keeping the bottom spit still at the bottom and the 

 top spit at the top. There are some soils where the top 

 and bottom spits could be reversed with good results, but 

 such are seldom met with, and for all practical purposes 

 can be disregarded. 



The top soil contains plant foods in an available form, but 

 the underneath spit has probably never before been exposed to 

 the light of day or been subjected to the sweetening and fer- 

 tilizing influences of the weather ; to bring such inert and 

 barren stuff to the top would be to ruin the garden for many 

 a year to come. In the course of time deep working, with the 

 addition of manure, will aerate and sweeten the lower soil and 

 improve the texture, and then it may very gradually be 

 brought up. 



The method usually adopted in bastard trenching is illus- 

 trated on the next page, the explanation being as follows : 

 Divide the plot into two by a line down the middle, then at 

 (A) take out the top spit a yard wide, and lay it down at (E). 

 Now break up the bottom spit at (A), cover it with manure, 

 and then cover this with the top spit of the next yard. 

 Repeat this operation to the end of the first section, filling 

 up the last trench (B) with a yard of top soil from the same 

 end of the second section (c). Work back along this section 

 until (D) is reached, where the soil (E) is used to fill the final 

 trench (D). 



This work should preferably be done in the autumn or early 

 winter, and the surface left rough, so that frost and atmos- 



