IS PIGTOBIAL PBAGTIGAL VEGETABLE GBOWING. 



Cbapter 3 — fiou) to CtH m Soil, 



How to get double pay without doing double work is a problem 

 wliicli lias harassed many a working man. 



It has likewise exercised the minds of a great many people who 

 are not working men. 



It has never worried the gardener, because with him work always 

 comes first, and pay is a detail of entirely secondary importance. He 

 loves the work for its own sake. That is how it is that when you 

 think of any operation which brings a good deal of hard work in its 

 train you do not ask yourself whether you dare discuss such a subject 

 amongst horticulturists or not — you only bethink you of methods of 

 getting it to assume the aspect of a really stiff and solid proceeding, 

 as only then is it worthy of their attention. 



After many years' experience, I have come to the conclusion that 

 the visible signs and tokens of interest which gardeners display in 

 operations connected with the cultivation of the soil may be summed 

 up as follow : Plain digging — a sniff ; digging with fork versus 

 spade— a slight air of attention ; trenching — one ear and one eye 

 Avide open ; double trenching — both ears and eyes wide open ; double 

 trenching with fork versus spade — fierce and excited interest. If it 

 were possible to trench 20 feet deep, the meeting discussing the 

 operation would never break up, but would argue strenuously all 

 night. 



The various methods of preparing soil form a theme that never 

 grows old. Political questions, theological polemics, economic 

 theories, have their rise and fall as topics of interest, but tools and 

 the uses of tools remain perennially fresh. Gardeners talked about 

 them in the early days of the last century, when the man in the street 

 was finding fault with the steps that the Government were taking to 

 repel the projected visit of the turbulent Boney. They talked about 

 it when Sebastopol was being hammered. They examined it in all 

 its bearings while Roberts was marching to Cabul ; and still the 

 subject is being thrashed out as ardently as ever. 



All experienced horticulturists are, I think, agreed as to the 

 benefits of trenching ground ; the points of dispute, or perhaps I had 

 better say of discussion, are the best ways of doing it and the best 

 tools to do it with. By deepening the soil we let more air in than 

 was able to penetrate before, and we thereby sweeten it, and enable 

 the nitrifying organisms, without which plant food is of no value, to 

 extend their sphere of influence. Thus the saying, not uncommon in 

 some districts, that a good digging is equal to a coat of manure, is 

 strictly true. In a well-dug soil there are far more nitrifying 

 organisms than in a plou^ihed soil, and in a trenched soil there are 

 more than in a dug soil. Thus digging would be better than ])lougli- 

 ing, even if more manure were put into the ground under plough than 



