December 21, 1882. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 5G3 
21st 
Tn 
Boyal Society at 4.30 P.M. Liimean Society at 8 P.M. 
22nd 
F 
Quelcett Club at 8 p.m. 
23rd 
S 
24th 
SUN 
4tii Sunday in Advent. 
25th 
M 
Christmas-day. 
26th 
TU 
Bank Holiday. 
27th 
W 
and worm channels, such as most clays are at the end of sum¬ 
mer, are comparatively waterproof, and instead of becoming 
putty-like mud, as they would if dug, remain comparatively 
dry. Then when thrown up, possibly in large clods, late 
in winter or early in spring, rain does not convert them 
into mud, for between the clods the rain escapes, and every 
wind dries the pieces till they are like the masses of lime that 
come from limekilns, and so easily reduced to powder whenever 
fairly moistened. When this occurs the lumps may be very 
finely pulverised by the fork, and a seed bed secured surpassing 
that produced by the winter’s frost ; while, instead of a solid 
body beneath, there is a friable fertile soil. 
DIGGING AND MANURING. 
AN anyone say whether the late very wet 
weather has made any converts among those 
who believe that the correct time to do all the 
digging possible is in autumn or early winter ? 
Many must have found that too early digging 
is a mistake, especially where the soil is tena- 
i cious clay. Yet nearly every writer recommends 
turning vacant ground to the “ ameliorating action 
of the weather." The phrase sounds well, but, un¬ 
fortunately, the influence of the weather is not always 
ameliorating, but quite the opposite. The writer’s conviction 
is that autumn and early winter digging is a great mistake, a 
cause of poor crops, and a monetary loss in many soils and 
districts. This is so exactly the reverse of what is generally 
held, that the position taken up will require to be vigorously 
supported and defended if converts are to be made. 
It may be as well to commence at the beginning and ask 
and answer the question why we dig. The simplest answer to 
this question is, That without digging we could not grow crops. 
Digging breaks, and so pulverises the soil as to allow of plant 
roots extending and collecting their food from the soil. More¬ 
over, in digging plant food is added and dug in, when the roots 
of the plants will find it. Now those who advocate autumn 
and early-winter digging do so because they hold that when 
it is done thus early the winter’s frosts further tend to pul¬ 
verise and break up the particles, thus making a still better 
root-medium. Well, I simply deny that such occurs. Do not 
misunderstand me. Decidedly the surface of soil that is ex¬ 
posed is broken up, but there is still a surface left to the action 
of the frost though ground is left undug. Moreover, those 
who turn up their soil in early autumn never have more than 
one surface exposed ; those who wait till late winter and early 
spring have an opportunity of exposing two. But early dig¬ 
ging does not result in a finely pulverised soil in spring, for— 
especially after such seasons as we have passed through— 
the rains of winter solidify the soil much more than any frost 
opens it. Frosts, indeed, only open and produce a surface 
tilth very suitable for sowing seeds in or for young plants, 
but so far as the body of the soil is concerned they have 
less effect than may be supposed. 
Heavy clay soils after much rain, when dug in autumn, are 
often nothing more than a sea of mud ill early spring, which 
only solidifies when drying winds come, and remain so long 
wet that it is often far into spring before it can be either re¬ 
dug, forked, or otherwise mechanically pulverised. Soil that 
is left untouched, on the other hand, but is solid save for cracks 
As often as not we are told that b} 7 the pulverising action of 
frosts and thaws plant food is liberated and made ready for 
the succeeding crop. To this we may reply, Is only dry ground 
acted on by frosts and thaws ? The answer, probably, will be 
that roughly dug ground presents a greater surface. But we 
ask, Does frost only act on the surface ? Then we may be 
told that the frost will penetrate deeper than if the soil were 
undug. The reply to this is that by leaving the soil untouched 
till late in the season the undug surface has all the advantage 
of the November and December frosts without being so 
liable to become waterlogged wuth the autumn rains, which 
wash the pulverised surface of dry soil level, so making the 
differences of surface extent not so great after all, but de¬ 
cidedly blocking the way for an easy passage of the rain 
downwards. Everyone knows what happens then. A dry 
soil by reason of its porosity sucks up much water. When 
solid it does not to anything like the same extent; and, more¬ 
over, an undug soil is full of worm channels and cracks by 
which the water escapes. If anyone doubts these facts let him, 
spade in hand, say in January, turn up after rain a piece of 
ground dug in October and a piece undug. But if we leave 
the digging till say January, February, or even March, we 
are enabled to expose first the undug and then the dug surface 
to the weather, and not only secure a better pulverised soil, 
but, so far as “ weathering ’’ will help the liberation of plant 
food, the spring digging surely secures the greater advantage. 
There is another point, and it is this : when soil is so pre¬ 
pared that the surface water, instead of passing off by cracks, 
&c., is forced through the soil, and in its descent will carry off 
the nitrates so plenteously produced in autumn. The “ libera¬ 
tion of plant food by weathering ” is a parrot cry that means 
nothing at all by the majority who use it. It may be worth 
while to inquire what it is that weathering liberates. Not 
nitrogen, even on the most fertile soils, and hardly anything at 
all on soils that depend on manuring solely or nearly so. But 
even on soils of the most fertile description, all that can be 
liberated is just such matters as are not of very particular 
value, for the simple reason that they are likely not to be very 
deficient, and they are of such a nature as remain in the soil 
unless taken up by plant roots, and are not readily washed 
away ; but, as we said, early digging does not secure a greater 
weathering. It tends, however, to the loss of what is of most 
value in the soil and in the market. 
In manuring we add nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. 
The phosphoric acid and potash are fixed in the soil, not so the 
nitrogen. Whether as ammonia or only organic matter, nitro¬ 
genous matters after the soil becomes warm in summer are 
speedily converted into nitrates. So long as the land is occu¬ 
lt o. 130.—Yon ; V., Third Series. 
Ho. 1786.—' Yon. LZYIII.i Old Series. 
