SPADEWORK 
4i 
the amateur), all soil taken out of the first 
trench should be wheeled away to the other 
end of the plot or bed. When starting on the 
second trench, you will then have the empty 
trench to fill as you dig the second. Then is 
the time to incorporate your rubble, ashes, 
soot, horse-manure, or wood-ashes with the 
soil to lighten it ; always trying to keep the 
top soil near the top, and not burying it at 
the bottom of the trench, for it is the top 
layer of soil that is the most worked and the 
best. The bottom of a clay trench should 
always be well broken up, and it would do no 
harm to bury in it broken pottery or glass, if 
broken up small enough, to assist drainage. 
All the trenches are dug in like manner, each 
being filled in turn from the next one. When 
the last one is reached, the heap wheeled from 
the first is then ready to fill it. 
To burn clay requires a carefully made fire, 
made on the plan of a smother-fire of weeds, 
so as to burn gradually and slowly. The clay 
will then pulverize, and will be most useful 
for lightening heavy soil. 
Gravel and sandy soils may be treated much 
alike. They both need vegetable matter, or 
humus — something to counteract the porous 
nature of the soil, and to retain the moisture. 
