64 Home Vegetable Gardening 



well to read some good book on the subject, such as 

 Draining for Profit and Draining for Health, by 

 Waring. 



But drain — if your land requires it. It will in- 

 crease the productiveness of your garden at least 50 

 to 100 per cent. — and such an increase, as you can 

 readily see, will pay a very handsome annual divi- 

 dend on the cost of draining. Moreover, the drain- 

 ing system, if properly put in, will practically never 

 need renewal. 



On land that has a stiff or clay sub-soil, it will 

 pay well to break this up — thus making it more 

 possible for the water to soak down through the 

 surface soil rapidly — by using the sub-soil plow. 

 (See Chapter V.) 



The third way to improve clay soils is by using 

 coarse vegetable manures, large quantities of stable 

 manures, ashes, chips, sawdust, sand, or any similar 

 materials, which will tend to break up and lighten 

 the soil mechanically. Lime and land plaster are 

 also valuable, as they cause chemical changes which 

 tend to break up clayey soils. 



The fourth thing to do in treating a garden of 

 heavy soil is to plow, ridging up as much as possible, 

 in the fall, thus leaving the soil exposed to the pul- 

 verizing influences of weather and frost. Usually 

 it will not need replowing in the spring. If not 

 plowed until the spring, care should be taken not to 



