SOILS AND THEIR TREATMENT 379 



filled and complete. Keep on repeating this trenching process 

 until the entire half of the plot is done. Then open a trench 

 of the same width and depth at that end of the other half D, 

 using the soil taken out to fill up the end trench of the first 

 half, and that portion is completed. Then the process has 

 to be repeated with the second half until that also is done. 



Trenching is laborious work, but always pays well for its 

 performance, therefore great care should always be taken 

 that the whole of the soil be worked deep and equally. If the 

 surface soil after trenching needs a manure dressing get it 

 on with a barrow, putting down planks on which to wheel. 

 Then spread the manure and well fork it in, and the plot will 

 then be in first-rate condition for cropping in the spring. In 



Complete trenching it is needful to throw out from the 

 first trench the entire depth of two feet of soil and of that 

 width. The bottom should then be deeply forked up and the 

 whole of the soil from the next trench of same width and 

 depth cast into it. That process naturally brings the lower 

 soil to the surface, but it may be practised with the best 

 results when the whole body of soil has become thoroughly 

 sweetened. 



Digging ground, whether with spade or fork, is a simpler 

 process, and is practised on all plots of soil not trenched and 

 between each kind of crop. Light steel spades or forks 

 enable this work to be done without rendering the labour 

 exhausting. But to move the soil as deep as possible, say 

 twelve inches, the tool blade or tines should be new and long. 

 Digging necessitates opening at one end of a piece of ground 

 a trench twelve inches wide and deep, and casting it out 

 ready to fill the trench left when the second half of the plot 

 is done, if the plot be so divided as suggested for trenching. 

 If the whole piece of ground be dug from one end to the 

 other, then the whole of the soil from the trench must be 

 wheeled in a barrow to the end where the digging is con- 

 cluded for filling the trench. The tools should be kept 

 upright, and with the foot sent down into the soil to their 

 full length so that the movement of the ground may be as 

 deep as possible. In digging, also, the soil should be kept 

 quite even and level, as that shows good work. 



Forking is moving the soil a few inches in depth as amidst 

 growing crops, where it has become too hard or is weedy, 

 or the weeds need burying, or amongst flower beds or 

 borders. This work, if done with care, so that crop roots 

 be not disturbed, does much good as well as renders the soil 

 porous, loose, and neat. 



