28 OPERATIONS OF GARDENING. PART I. 



purpose as long ago as 1846. But, if my memory serves me, the 

 excessive hardness of its wood turned the. edge of a knife, when 

 the attempt was made to clip it, except when quite young. And 

 if left undipped it became a nuisance from the profusion of 

 seeds it shed upon the path. 



HOEING AND DIGGING. 



Constant hoeing or, the equivalent to it in this country, the 

 breaking up of the surface soil with the Kodalee, is of the 

 greatest advantage, as it is not only the most speedy and 

 effectual way of getting rid of weeds, but it opens and aerates 

 the earth after it has become caked and hardened in the sun 

 from the frequent watering to which it is subject. Moreover, it 

 contributes vastly to the neatness and appearance of the garden ; 

 for no flowering plants can look well in a border that is as hard 

 and compact as the common road. 



But for the vegetable garden something far more than hoeing 

 only is essential. The ground must be deeply dug ; and that 

 not merely just before the time it is to be used for cropping, but 

 immediately after the cold-season crops are over, in March or 

 April. The ground should then be dug, if two spits deep the 

 better, and turned over, and the vegetable refuse at the same 

 time be buried in. Immediately before the Kains all stable- 

 litter and other manure at command should be thrown upon the 

 ground, and lightly covered in by digging. The rains will convey 

 the goodness of it into the soil below. A plentiful crop of weeds 

 and grass will most likely soon spring up. The weeds, after 

 about a month or so's time, should be dug in, and the grass-roots 

 carefully picked out and removed. This will require 'to be 

 repeated once or twice again before the Cold season, by which 

 time the ground will be in the very best condition possible for 

 the annual crops. 



IRRIGATION. 



There is, perhaps, scarcely a situation in India adapted for 

 a garden which does not, during several months of the year at 

 least, require irrigation. In the North- Western Provinces in 

 particular, if a regular system of watering be not unremittingly 

 kept up during the hot months, nearly the whole of the plants, 



