24 THE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN 
bring it to the surface. In very many such cases bastard 
trenching, in which the second or under spit is broken, but is 
not thrown up, improves the ground considerably, and it may 
happen that a subsoil of a most unpromising appearance and 
texture proves of the greatest value when mixed with the sur- 
face soil, and exposed for a time to the atmosphere. A mix- 
ture of soils generally results in the production of a staple more 
fertile than either were separately ; but caution must of course 
be exercised, whenever the subsoil is not obviously suitable. 
In the case of a deep yellow loam or nut-brown olay showing 
a tendency to mellow into loam, there can be no question for 
doubt, and the spirited cultivator will ensure that some of the 
second spit shall see the daylight. 
. G arden Tools and Implements may be multiplied ad infi- 
nitum by anyone who happens to be so unfortunate as to have 
a taste for such things. _ Our garden museum contains exam- 
ples of ingenious contrivances for accomplishing all possible, 
and some impossible, garden operations, from the spudding out 
of a dock or daisy to the gathering of a single leaf from the 
topmost branch of the tallest tree. We have carefully ob- 
served the fate of the many strange inventions it is our good 
or ill luck to make acquaintance with from time to time, and 
we find that as a rule they go to the museum, and are clean 
forgotten, while the work of the garden goes on satisfactorily 
with the aid of the old-fashioned and vulgar implements. 
You will probably want a couple of spades, a couple of steel 
digging forks, three-tined and four-tined ; a few common- 
place rakes and hoes, a line and reel, long-handled and short- 
handled clipping shears ; a hedge-slasher, a pickaxe, a heavy 
bill, a straight edge and plumb-line, a long and short ladder, 
and a few of the most commonplace carpenter’s tools. The 
common Dutch hoe and the draw shave-hoe are indispensable, 
the latter being a most effectual weeding implement, its action 
being to cut a thin slice off the ground, which removes weeds 
by a close cut over their roots. As you go on you will dis- 
cover what tools are wanted, and your handy man will be loud 
enough in his reminders. Our concern is chiefly to warn you 
against wasting your money in “ gimcrack ” things that are 
made for fid-fad purposes, or that your workmen will never 
take to, though their ingenuity and usefulness may be obvious. 
We have lately seen an experiment in wheelbarrows illustra- 
tive of the last remark. A gentleman who makes his hands 
dusty by working in the garden bought a grand iron wheel- 
