200 HOME AND GAKDEN 



through it both up and down, and keep it sweet and 

 wholesome. If there is anything Uke soil at the top, 

 or even a few-inches-deep top layer stained with 

 " humus " (decayed vegetable matter), trench three spit 

 deep, and keep this top spit in the second layer. 

 Simple technical terms like this one " spit " are a 

 stumbling-block to many. A " spit " in gardening is a 

 spade's depth of any kind of soil, representing a depth 

 of about eight inches. Here, in a typical Aldershot 

 soil, I am not content with a depth of three spit, but 

 go three feet, as described in the chapter on " Plants 

 for Poor Soils," p. 192. 



But official dwellers in and about the camp have 

 one grand advantage which I have not, in a vast 

 supply of stable manure. And though it has neither 

 the cooling quality of cow manure nor the richness of 

 pig, yet anything of a nourishing nature in so poor a 

 soil is of extreme value, especially as it also puts into 

 the ground the precious chemical constituents of the 

 decayed straw. And an abundant supply of stable 

 refuse has another use, hardly less important. For 

 supposing the ground to be deeply dug, and a good 

 dressing of manure worked in, and flowering things 

 planted, nothing, in. a light soil and a climate with an 

 over-abundance of blazing sun, such as the camp 

 enjoys, can be more valuable than the possibility of 

 applying a generous " mulch." To mulch is to cover 

 the ground with some porous material that will keep 

 the surface cool and open (" open " means not caked 



