28 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 



soil to a depth of 2 feet, and it is commonly possible 

 to bastard-trench 3 or even 4 feet down ; and when this 

 enviable condition is reached there is nothing that the 

 grower should not be able to do in the production of 

 Sweet Peas. 



The digging itself will be as thorough in the upper and 

 lower spits as when only a single layer is being moved, but 

 the original positions of the strata will be retained. This 

 is the best form of soil working for general adoption, 

 since it invariably tends to the benefit of the crops, and 

 in no circumstances whatever can it do the slightest 

 harm. In some lands it will only be found feasible in 

 the first season of trenching to loosen 5 or 6 inches of the 

 second spit with a pickaxe, but if it is followed up, season 

 after season, the depth of friable mould will steadily in- 

 crease until the maximum of soil is reached, and at that 

 stage the grower may, if he so desire, have recourse to true 

 or full trenching ; for the lower portions will then have 

 become sweet, and there will be no danger in bringing them 

 up to form the surface soil. 



It has been stated that there is an ever-present element 

 of danger in true trenching, unless the grower is convinced 

 of his own knowledge that the subsoil is sweet, and this 

 fact must always be kept in mind. If a soil is trenched 

 and it is ascertained upon completion that the new surface 

 is so sour that sweetening is impossible in the time that 



