SOILS— THEIR IMPROVEMENT. 



283 



be sufficiently explicit. In the " Cottage Gar- 

 dener," vol. i. p. 83, he thus writes : " To char 

 turfy soil, the best method is to cut it into sods of 

 about a spade's width, and 2 or 3 inches thick, 

 when the soil is not over-saturated with mois- 

 ture." Summer would, therefore, be the best 

 season, as the sods would be drier ; but sum- 

 mer brings with it its own multifarious duties : 

 charring in winter only requires more time, and 

 a greater amount of woody matter to mix with 

 the sods, and cause them to bum. " Burning 

 any kind of material, and allowing it to be con- 

 sumed, producing nothing but smoke and ashes, 

 is a real waste of valuable property, which could 

 be turned to valuable account for the improve- 

 ment of the soil. To char sods or surface-soil 

 of any kind, proceed by placing a small quantity 

 of combustible stuff — such as dry weeds, shav- 

 ings, hedge-trimmings, furze, heath, brushwood, 

 or bushes, or any kind of dry vegetable refuse 

 the place produces near at hand ; then com- 

 mence packing the sods, no matter how or what 

 thickness, as any thickness may be charred by 

 placing amongst them, as the heap or kiln is 

 proceeded with, some one of the fore-mentioned 

 materials, or old tan or sawdust, just to keep 

 the materials ignited. It is no matter how large 

 or small the kiln may bq. formed, for this may 

 be regulated by the convenience of the material 

 at hand, and the quantity of charred materials 

 required; — only, when the kiln is formed, it 

 should be slightly covered or cased with flneish 

 earth, to prevent the fire from flaring, and to 

 maintain a steady smouldering, charring, or 

 roasting. Much smoke will escape for a time, 

 and when the smoke begins to subside, it is 

 a sign that the materials are charred enough : 

 the fire should then be smothered out by 

 casing up the outside of the kiln quite close to 

 the earth ; no large quantity of fuel is required; 

 if too much is employed, it is more likely to 

 consume the sods away into mere smoke and 

 ashes." Charred soil thus produced has been 

 found exceedingly beneficial to many crops ; and 

 although, at first sight, the idea of consuming all 

 the organisable matter in the soil subjected to 

 this ordeal seems like reducing it to sterility, 

 yet certain chemical changes are produced which 

 vastly more than make up for this supposed 

 loss. We prefer winter for carrying out such 

 operations, as there is less interruption caused 

 to the general routine, and also because we 

 have a hundred or two of cartloads of use- 

 less mateiial to get rid of at all events, such as 

 the pruning of trees, the rotten branches blown 

 down by the autumnal gales, and immense quan- 

 tities of the thinnings and prunings of banks of 

 evergreens, and the general vegetable rubbish 

 collected over many acres of pleasure-ground. 



It follows, therefore, that winter is the most 

 convenient time for this operation. We need 

 hardly remark that the material charred or 

 roasted should be kept dry till wanted for use, 

 and this is easily effected by forming the mass 

 into a conical form, covering it with a foot of 

 garden earth, and then thatching the whole 

 with straw. 



Charring or roasting the soil for the destruc- 

 tion of insects is easily effected : after the mass 



has been for a day or so in operation, about 3 

 or 4 inches of the surface upon which crops 

 have grown that have been much injured by 

 insects, along the bottoms of wall fruit-trees, 

 under espaliers, and that under gooseberry 

 bushes and standard fruit-trees, about as far as 

 the branches extend, is carefully scraped off 

 and carried to the charring kiln and thrown 

 upon the mass of ignited matter, mixing with it 

 any combustible material, so that a slow and 

 steady combustion may be maintained. The 

 object of this is to destroy the larvae of the 

 insects, which take shelter in the soil during 

 winter, as well as to effect that chemical change 

 on the soil itself that the action of fire is known 

 to produce. 



Preparing the ground for the next season's crop. 

 — In all well-regulated culinary gardens, certain 

 systems are acted upon, without which all would 

 become confusion and disorder. One of these is 

 the preparation of the soil, during the previous 

 autumn or winter, so that, when the season of 

 sowing and planting arrives in spring, all is ready 

 for the operation. The expert cultivator has a 

 place for everything, and a thing for every place; 

 and these are so proportioned and arranged that 

 each, as it were, prepares for its successor. In 

 reference to such preparation of the ground, we 

 have the following excellent .digest, given by a 

 first-rate practical cultivator in the calendar de- 

 partment of the " Gard. Chron.," 1850, p. 808, 

 which is in such perfect accordance with our 

 own views that we shall transcribe it here : 

 " Before the general manuring and trenching of 

 vacant ground, it is necessary to decide on the 

 rotation of crops which are to be cultivated upon 

 it during the ensuing summer, that these opera- 

 tions may be ordered with reference thereto. 

 This arrangement should be made, not for one 

 year only, but for a series or cycle of years. One 

 of the first principles to be attended to is, that 

 no annual crop be grown for two successive 

 years in the same plot of ground. Another va- 

 riation should be made, by taking care that those 

 crops which immediately succeed each other are 

 not such as are liable to be preyed upon by the 

 same kind of insects, as their increase is encou- 

 raged to a fearful extent by thus putting into their 

 way the species of food which they are most fond 

 of. It is important that both the manuring and 

 the depth of the trenching be regulated by the 

 requirements of the crops ; and their rotation 

 should be so arranged that the ground be not 

 trenched to the same depth for two successive 

 seasons, but so that different portions of the soil 

 be brought to the surface in turns. The peren- 

 nial or permanent crops will, of course, form a 

 class of themselves, as they do not require a 

 change of situation for many years; but when 

 this is necessary with any portion of them, the 

 ground from which they are removed will fall 

 into the ordinary rotation in the way of a regular 

 exchange." Confining ourselves, for the present, 

 to the ordinary or annual crops : " By cultivat- 

 ing the celery and cardoon in the Scotch or 

 wide-bed system, a large ridge of soil is thrown 

 up between the trenches, the surface of which 

 is excellently adapted for the cultivation of 

 dwarf pease, beans, spinach, turnips, and similar 



