PREPARATION OF THE SOIL FOR A GARDEN. 17 



Where the garden can be made large enough to be 

 worked by the plow, the ordinary farm implements, such as 

 a small plow, a cultivator and a harrow, are all that are 

 necessary. They need no description or instructions as to 

 their use, any farm laborer being able to use them. 



PREPARATION OF THE SOIL FOR A GARDEN. 



If the site selected for the garden is a piece of grass land, 

 it should, some time between the first of September and the 

 end of November, be plowed, and if manure can be had, it 

 should be spread on the land previous to commencing to 

 plow. The plowing should be shallow, cutting the sod in 

 thin slices and turning it over flat, and then harrowing it 

 either with the back of the harrow or with one having very 

 blunt teeth, so as to fill up the hollows between the fur- 

 rows, and to reduce it to as level a state as possible with- 

 out pulling the sod out of its overturned position. Early 

 in the spring it should be crossed-piowed and subsoiled, 

 by either using a subsoil plow or running an ordinary plow 

 through the open furrow made by the first plow. This 

 renders the soil friable to a greater depth than it otherwise 

 would be. But care must be had not to bring the subsoil 

 to the surface, as it is always inferior to the surface soil, 

 and generally takes a great length of time, and a large 

 amount of cultivation and manuring, to make it fertile. All 

 that is required is to break it up and get it into such a 

 state as that tap-rooted plants can easily penetrate it. 



If, instead of this second plowing, it is worked by hand, 

 then a trench eighteen inches wide and one spade deep 

 should be taken out and laid to one side; the subsoil should 

 then be spaded with a spading fork. A layer of manure 

 may then be laid upon this broken -up subsoil, and the top 



