February . 
59 
broken that rain and air can get to the roots 
of plants — and yet so light and without a hard 
sort of floor that rain can soak away readily when it 
has wet the earth well through. 
To do this you see a fine deep digging is 
wanted, and though it requires a strong man 
to dig deeply all at once, you may manage nicely 
to do all the work yourselves if you are only 
satisfied to take two or three spadefuls deep. 
You will find it best I think to fix your line 
straight along the ground as you may see the 
gardeners do when trenching — and then if you 
take out along the whole line a spade’s width of 
soil and wheel it in your wheel-barrow to the 
place you mean to dig to, you will get one clear 
line to begin with. 
Taking out the soil another, or even another 
spade deep, and carrying it off in the same way 
as before, you make preparations for digging deep 
accordingly. Having got so far you should begin 
taking up spadefuls of earth and turning them 
flown so evenly into your trench that the third at 
last, if you go so low, comes to lie the topmost. 
And when you get to the place whence you took 
the soil that you first turned out, that soil goes in 
and makes the bed all level. Of course a clever 
