394 Vegetable-Gardening Tools and Implements 



the labor at other times. Persons often make the mis- 

 take of tilling their clay lands until they become too fine. 

 Then a rain packs and cements them, and the trouble be- 

 gins all over again. The addition of humus enables one to 

 make a clay soil mealy. 



Gradually, as the texture improves, lighter tools may 

 be used to maintain the surface mulch, — for the tillage of 

 maintenance really has no other primary office than to 

 keep the surface loose. When finally the wire-tooth weeder 

 can be used, the gardener may know that his surface soil is 

 in perfect condition. To most general farmers the weeder 

 is a useless tool, but market-gardeners prize it, — ^which 

 illustrates the differences in tillage between the common 

 farm and the market-garden. 



A one-horse harrow is usually known as a cultivator. But 

 there are two types of cultivators, — those that only stir the 

 soil and repair the surface mulch, as the spike-tooth cul- 

 tivators; and those .that move the soil or -even invert it, 

 as the shovel-tooth cultivators. Perhaps shovel-tooth culti- 

 vators are too common and 

 spike-toothed cultivators too 

 rare. 



Eollers have two uses: (a) to 

 break clods and level the 

 ground; (b) to provide mois- 



Levellng device attached ture for SCcds Or Uewly SCt 



to a cultivator frame. , , -n n • , i t i 



plants, itollmg establishes cap- 

 illary connection with the under soil, and brings the 

 particles into contact with the seeds. It destroys the sur- 

 face mulch. The water rises and passes off into the air : 

 in its passage, it moistens the seeds, As §oon ^s th? seed- 



