70 Home Vegetable Gardening 



have the man who is doing your work get a horse- 

 roller somewhere, and go over the piece with that. 

 The roller should be used also on very sandy and 

 light soils, after the first harrowing (or after the 

 plowing, if the land turns over mellow) to compact 

 it, as suggested on page 65. To follow the first 

 harrowing (or the roller) use a smoothing-harrow, 

 the Acme set shallow, or a "brush." 



FINING. 



This treatment will reduce to a minimum the labor 

 of finally preparing the seed- or plant-bed with the 

 iron rake (or, on large gardens, with the Meeker 

 harrow). After the finishing touches, the soil should 

 be left so even and smooth that you can with diffi- 

 culty bring yourself to step on it. Get it "like a 

 table" — and then you are ready to begin gardening. 



Whatever implements are used, do not forget the 

 great importance of making the soil thoroughly fine, 

 not only at the surface, but as far as possible below. 

 Even under the necessity of repetition. I want to em- 

 phasize this again by stating the four chief benefits, 

 of this thorough pulverization : First, it adds mate- 

 rially in making the plant foods in the soil available 

 for use; secondly, it induces the growing plants to 

 root deeply, and thus to a greater extent to escape 

 the drying influence of the sun ; tliirdly, it enables 

 the soil to absorb rain evenly, where it falls, whicK 



