HOW TO DIG SLOFIXG GROUXD. 



21 



power and vitality, wlien he would deem it foolish to waste his 

 money 1 The everyday political economist believes in getting the 

 value of twelve pennies for every shilling that he spends : why, there- 

 fore, should he only get the value of ten pennies for every shilling's 

 worth of his bodily strength that he expends ? 



It is because I am a believer in the application of sound 

 economical principles to every atiair of workaday life that I believe 

 in the fork for trenching, but I am not going to c^uarrel with the 

 person who disagrees with me. 



Xo tool, perhaps, is the best on all classes of soil. You do not see 

 the labourer digging with a fork on the sand-dunes of Holland. You 

 do not even see him digging with a spade. He uses a shovel. The 

 moral is perhaps sufficiently obvious, that circumstances alter cases ; 

 that some soils want one tool, and some another, if they are to be 

 dealt with in the most practical and economical way. This is 

 certainly true in my experience. 



PICTOEIAL PRACTICE. — PLAIN HINTS IN 

 FEW WOHDS. 



FIG. 6.-H0W TO DIG SLOPING GROUND. 



F, a sharp slope : i, starting with a trench 

 running from top to bottom. — the riaht 

 way ; j\ starting with a trench along the 

 bottom — the wrons' wav. 



It is a somewhat peculiar fact that every man who has a stiff soil 

 to deal with always thinks that it is stiffe4^ than anyone else's ; much 

 on the same principle, I suppose, that each person considers that his 

 l^articular class of cold in the head is of a far more acute form than 

 other people's cold in the head. After experience with various 

 samples, I am disposed to think that the clays of Knockholt in Kent, 

 of Capel in Surrey, and of Crawley in Sussex, are capable of holding 

 their own with most. The men of Capel will tell you that the fork 

 will not shift their paste, but break up under the strain, and that 

 nothing short of the strongest spade made is of any use to them. 



Soil tillage is not completed with the operation of trenching. It 

 is thoroughly well begun, that is all. The soil should be left rough for 

 the winter, and at odd times, when material ufftrs, burnt stuff from 

 the garden tires, or. soot, or mortar rubbish, should be thrown on it. 

 Under this treatment the upper spit will break down beautifully in 

 spring with nothmg more than an easy forking. 



Supposing th:".t trenL'hing cannot be done in autumn, is spring 

 altogether too late ] It is never too late to trench. ' I have done it in 

 April, with the ground so wet that gullies had to be cut to get the 

 water out of the trenches, and failure deep and dire was prognosti- 



