2O2 Gardening 



root is touched. Fleshy roots like beets and carrots, 

 especially, may be injured in this way. 



Tools for cultivating. In cultivating the small garden, 

 short-handled weeders with claw-like teeth, midget and 

 longer-handled prong cultivators, hoes, and garden 

 rakes may be used. For the larger garden a wheel hoe 

 with various cultivator attachments is an excellent tool. 

 In still larger gardens horse-drawn or tractor cultivators 

 may be used. 



All these tools should be used so as to stir and break 

 up the surface of the soil. A depth of i inch is usually 

 enough to cultivate ; certainly one should seldom go 

 as deep as 2 inches. Such shallow tillage does little injury 

 to the roots of growing crops. It is important always to 

 cultivate at about the same level, for the feeding roots 

 of most crops reach near the surface and deep tillage 

 (to a depth of 3 inches or more) after shallow tillage may 

 destroy many roots and thereby check the growth of the 

 plants. 



The best tool for surface tillage is a garden rake. 

 No other hand tool can do the work as effectively unless 

 the soil becomes much compacted ; then the hoe or the 

 Norcross weeder is better. When the crops are growing 

 in rows that are too close together to permit the use of 

 an ordinary garden rake, a small steel rake, 4 or 6 inches 

 wide, with numerous short teeth, is most useful. If it is 

 fitted with a long handle, the work can be done rapidly 

 and without much stooping. Shallow surface cultivation 

 is of course very necessary in periods of dry weather, 

 in order most fully to check the loss of water from the 

 soil. 



