272 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GARDENING. 



atmosphere to fine down the soil into mould, and 

 confine the spade chiefly to inversion. 



Inversion. — This is essential to the distributing 

 and covering of manure, the picking out of the roots 

 of perennial weeds or other rubbish, the bur5T.ng of 

 the comparatively effete surface soil, and the ex- 

 posure of a fresh stratum of earth to the ameliorating 

 and enriching effects of the atmosphere. 



Best Mode of Applying and Burying 

 Manure. — Professional cultivators mostly spread 

 this on the surface and dig it in, thus inserting it in 

 the bottom of the trench or furrow. Perhaps, on 

 the whole, there is no better way of applying and 

 equally distributing the manure. It is not, how- 

 ever, the only way, which is fortunate, for ladies 

 could hardly be ad^dsed to do their own digging 

 under such insanitary conditions. The surfacing 

 with manui-e before digging also adds considerably 

 to the labour. The manure has to be pierced 

 through, no matter how rank it may be, before the 

 ground is reached. It i'= also apt to fall on the earth 

 in the act of being turned, and so protrude through 

 the sm-face of the freshlj^-dug soil, much to its 

 disfigurement, and also to the inconvenience of 

 cropping. All these evils may be obviated, and the 

 work of digging rendered quite cleanly, and far 

 more easy, by applying the manui-e to the bottom 

 of each trench or furrow as the work proceeds. By 

 placing a little, also on the face or slope of the 

 newly-dug surface, the manure will be just as well, 

 or even better, distributed, and all the drawbacks of 

 surface-dressing the undug surface with manure be 

 prevented. 



The Best Time to Apply the Manure to 

 Land. — This is a matter of still more importance 

 than the mode or place to apply it. As a general 

 rule, there is no doubt that the autumnal manuring 

 is best for horticultural purposes. Garden crops 

 cannot use rank manure ; and applied early, it will 

 have time to be broken down into useful and avail- 

 able plant-food before the roots of plants need it. 



The Depth to Dig.— There is a very general 

 consensus of opinion in favour of a foot, that is, a 

 good spit in depth. Some however, go deeper, or 

 by means of extra thrusting gain three inches or so 

 more depth. Others double-dig, that is, take a 

 part or the whole of a second spadeful ; this requires 

 n wider opening or furrow, and really differs little 

 from trenching excepting in name. Shallow or fleet 

 digging is also very common. Not only is nomi- 

 nally deep digging scamped down to a depth of nine 

 or six inches, but differing degrees of shallow dig- 



ging, termed pointing, are also advisably adopted : 

 for example, ground deeply dug in the autumn is- 

 pointed — that is, dug over from three to six inches 

 deep — before being cropped the next summer. This 

 sort of digging is light and easy, and requii'es 

 no treading of the spade with the foot, the mere 

 force and weight of the spade being sufficient. 



The Times to Dig. — Generally digging is 

 characterised as autumn, or winter, and summer 

 digging, though, as a matter of fact, the operation is 

 performed at any and every portion of the season 

 when necessary. The necessity for digging arises 

 the moment a crop is finished on any spot of 

 ground. Vacant ground loses productive or grow- 

 ing force every day that it remains rmdug, and as 

 crops now succeed each other in far more rapid suc- 

 cession than fonnerly, so of necessity do successive 

 diggings. Still, the two great divisions of digging 

 into winter and summer are retained, as they 

 indicate, as we have already seen, a distraction in 

 kind as much as one of season, the former being- 

 rough, the latter fine digging. 



Other Kinds of Digging. — These are what 

 are called bastard, or baulk digging, ridging, and 

 forking. 



The name pretty well explains the character of 

 baulk digging. About half of the ground remains 

 undug, and the dug portion is inverted on to the top 

 of the undug ground, lea^dng about one-half of the 

 groimd undisturbed, that is, baulked of its digging. 

 The work is done more rapidly, and a very large 

 area of surface is left to the ameliorating and 

 emiching influences of the atmosphere. If the 

 ojjeration could be performed early in the season, and 

 repeated again about the beginning of the year — 

 digging up the ground that was baulked on the 

 f onner occasion — this would prove one of the best 

 means of thoroughly cultivating the soil of the 

 garden in winter. As there are various ways of 

 baulk diggiug, and the easiest is as good as any 

 other — that is, the placing of each spadeful of moved 

 earth upside-down on the nearest unmoved spit 

 beside it — and as this does not involve the removal 

 or transference of any opening or furrow, this 

 baulk digging need not cost more than one-half of 

 that of the usual character. 



Ridging up the iand. — This system is often 

 preferred to rough digging. It may be performed 

 in a similar way to bastard or baulk digging, that 

 is, leaving the base of the ridge undisturbed, 

 and placing a spadeful from either side on it. In 

 that case the base of the ridge should be eighteen 

 inches or two feet broad, to receive and retain a full 



