Preparing the Ground. 



to you to be as skilful as your gardener, than it is to be as 

 skilful in the infinitely lower business of your groom, or 

 your dog-feeder? However, if this manual act be too 

 much to expect, let me exhort you to let your workmen be 

 thoroughly convinced that you understand all the matter well. 

 Let me exhort you to give simple and positive orders, and 

 never, no, never, to encourage, by your hesitation, even 

 your bailiff or gardener so much as to offer you advice. 



33. There is one part of this work which the owner 

 ought always to attend to in person ; namely, the laying of 

 tfie ground out into lifts. If the lifts be long, a line cannot 

 be stretched to the whole length at once. The sticking up 

 of sticks (or poles if the ground be in hills and dells) must 

 be resorted to. This, if set about in the right manner (of 

 Avhich I will speak when 1 come to planting) y is the easiest 

 thing in the world; and yet, if left to workmen, they, with 

 their feet and hands and tongues, will, especially if the 

 ground be of uneven surface, or very irregular form, trot 

 and poke and muddle and bawl about, from day-light to 

 dark, in doing that badly which a head and a pair of eyes 

 would cause to be done well in an hour. You should look 

 at your men, when they begin trenching, and pick out two 

 of the nimblest and handiest, to measure out and mark the 

 trenches for some distance on. You should interfere, and 

 show, or at least tell, those men how to measure, how to 

 move the line, and how to make the marks by the side of 

 it. This would give them a high opinion of your knowledge 

 of the matter ; and this would save you all the disagreeable 

 trouble of finding fault, and save you a great deal of money 

 into the bargain. But, above all things, avoid asking their 

 advice, and even telling them your intentions. If you do 

 this, even with the foreman, they will all soon become coun- 

 cillors. They will deliberate ten times a day; and those 



