DIGGING, TRENCHING, ETC. 
161 
is no doubt they derive much advantage from 
judicious assistance of tliis kind. The loosen- 
ing of the soil in this way is one of tlie best of 
all specifics against the injuries resulting from 
drought. 
Trenching. — This operation may be called 
an amplification of digging, and consists of 
turning up the soil to the depth of two or 
three I'eet, instead of one, which is about the 
depth of proper digging when well executed. 
Its objects, also, are the same as those of 
digging. The manner of setting about it 
depends, as in digging, upon the space to be 
operated on. If this is small, or only of 
moderate size, the trench is to be opened at 
one end, and the soil thus taken out removed 
to the other end, for the purpose of filling up 
when the work is finished. But if the space 
is large, it may be divided into two, four, six, 
or more, strips of equal size, ranging either 
lengthwise or crosswise, as may be most con- 
venient ; and an opening being made across 
one of these portions, the soil is to be Avheeled 
to the end of that portion where the work will 
finish. Thus, supposing there to be six por- 
tions ranging north and south : an opening is 
made, say at the south end of the first portion ; 
this soil must be removed to the south end of 
the sixth portion, and the trenching will pro- 
ceed from the south to the north end of the 
first part, then from north to south in the 
second part, from south to north again in the 
third part, and so on to the end. In this way, 
a large piece of soil may be trenched without 
involving any material degree of labour in 
opening the trench at the commencement. 
It is absolutely essential, if the operation of 
trenching is to benefit the soil, that the top 
portion of earth — that is, the fertile surface 
soil, whether six inches or two feet in thick- 
ness — should be kept at the top, and not 
buried beneath any portion of crude soil from 
below ; and this must be attended to, notwith- 
standing that the depth of the trenching ought 
in all garden soils to extend from two-and-a- 
half to three feet. Many persons suppose 
trenching to mean simply the turning over, 
from bottom to top, the whole of the soil two 
or three feet deep ; but in such case, if the 
land be sandy and the soil shallow, a bed of 
sheer sand would be brought to the top, and 
the fertile soil buried. So if chalky, the top 
would be made to consist wholly of chalk, and 
if clayey, wholly of clay ; and even in the 
best of land, if the soil from the very bottom 
is brought at once to the top, it will not be fit 
to support vigorous healthy crops. The pro- 
per way is to turn up the soil as deep, but no 
deeper, than the soil is of good quality. A 
portion below this is then to be broken up and 
loosened, in some cases turned over likewise, 
still being kept below the good soil ; and a 
50. 
small portion of this may, at each time of 
trenching, be well mixed with the upper soil, 
by Avhich the bulk of the latter will be gra- 
dually augmented, so that ultimately, if this 
practice is followed up, the depth of good 
healthy fertile surlace-soil may be made equal 
to the entire depth to which it is found neces- 
sary to extend the trenching. It may perhaps 
render these remarks more inteUigible, to 
introduce the following diagram, which illus- 
trates the mode of trenching in slips, and also 
the practice of keeping the surface-soil at or 
near the top. The diagram may be supposed 
to represent a plot of ground eiglity feet wide, 
and any convenient length ; this is divided 
into four strips of twenty feet wide each, indi- 
cated by a h, c d, e J', and fj h. Then across 
the first slip at a, a trench (?«) is to be marked 
m 
a 
'^ 
e 
'J 
71, 
o 
V 
h 
d 
f 
h 
off, two or three feet wide. The top (good) 
soil is to be taken from this trench and wheeled 
and deposited near g, just at the edge wliere 
the last cross trench will come. When the 
top earth is taken from vi, another trench (n) 
is to be marked out, and the surface-soil from 
this also removed to g, and placed witli that 
from 7n. Then take out the bottom earth 
from 7ii to the intended depth of trenching, 
and wheel that also to g, but keep it distinct 
from the other or top earth. The bottom of 
the trench vi is now to be broken up nine or 
ten inches deep, by means of a digging-fork, 
and allowed to remain where it is. The bot- 
tom earth of n is then removed to the same 
depth as that of ?/^, and cast on to the broken 
up base of the trench m, and then the bottom 
of n is broken up with the fork. The top 
earth from a third trench (o) is then cast 
across 7i to fill up the trench m, which is then 
full, having been made up from the lower part 
of 71 and the upper part of o. Next, the lower 
part of is cast into n, and the bottom of o is 
forked up and left as in m and n. The top 
soil from a fourth trench (;;) is then taken off 
to fill up ti, and the work proceeds in this way 
till the end (&) is reached, Avhen the soil from 
d is used in the same way, and the same course 
proceeds along the second slip to c ; then by 
e tof, and thence from k to g, where the soil 
M 
