528 
JOURXAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ June 28, 1888. 
in a market garden. Some thousands of Tomato plants were grow¬ 
ing in frames. They were about 1 foot in height and grown 3 inches 
apart. They were to be planted out in a day or two, but I 
question very much if they will ever prove a success, as being 
grown so close they could not be lifted with any soil to the roots. 
It would take them a long time to become established or make 
any progress, and I would undertake to secure more fruit during 
the season from a dozen well prepared plants than could be had 
from fifty such as those. Indeed our plants would be producing 
ripe fruit before these had formed any. I pay more attention 
to growing a few plants well than hosts badly. As a rule open air 
Tomatoes are planted in too much manure. Cultivators think that 
by using plenty of manure they are sure to secure plenty of huge 
fruit, bnt unfortunately this is seldom the result, as the plants 
make an enormous quantity of shoots and form very few fruit. 
Tomato plants are always most fruitful when of medium strength, 
and as their disposition is to make wood rather freely they avill 
make it of medium strength in what some w'ould regard as a poor 
soil. I would rather grow them in a very poor soil than in a very 
rich one, as w'hen in the former they fruit most freely, and it is 
always an easy matter to give liquid manure and rich top-dressings 
±0 assist the crop. 
In cold and backward districts they will not ripen well unless 
planted at the bottom of a wall, fence or house, and trained up to 
face the sun ; but in many other parts of the country they may be 
grown as standards or bushes. In the latter case they should be 
planted from 2 feet to 3 feet apart, and be staked and tied up 
from the first. It will never answer to allow them to scramble 
about on the ^ound for a time, and the growths should be trained 
from the beginning. The one-stem system is the only one likely 
to succeed with standard plants. Every side growth should be 
pinched out before it has attained a length of 2 inches. There is 
no danger of the main stem running up too far. It is only when 
it is surrounded with superfluous side growths that it gets out of 
proportion and fails to produce clusters of flowers and fruit at 
every joint. Plants trained against walls may be allowed to form 
two or three main stems, but not more, and the side shoots must 
be kept closely pinched off each. Do not on any account neglect 
this from the first ; it is a mistake which no after attention will 
remedy.— A Kitchex GAiinEXER. 
DIGGING AND STIRRING THE SOIL. 
C Continued from J)age 4S2.') 
Turxixg over soil with a spade is different from stirring or 
fo the same depth with a fork. In digging with the spade 
the soil is turned upside down in rectangular masses, and however 
rough it may be left it is much more solid, therefore less exposed 
to the action of frost, consequently less pulverised and aerated 
than soil dug with a fork, which breaks it up far more than a spade 
does. The soil derives most of its fertility from the atmosphere, 
consequently the ram and air entering solve stubborn material and 
evolve by the decomposition of substances therein the elements 
that support plants. The disintegration and divisibility of the soil 
is best effected by the fork. It leaves the soil lighter, and is not 
so soon resolved again into the solid form. Better still, the fork effects 
a more even tilth, and the crops are more regular through the more 
even permeation of the soil by the roots, the food of which they 
^e in quest being more generally diffused and assimilated therein. 
The work, too, is inore readily effected by a fork than spade. 
Where the ground is foul with couch or Bindweed, or other de¬ 
scription of weed requiring extraction, it is more surely effected 
with a fork than a spade, the latter being a direct means of multi¬ 
plication of the soil. So convinced must all be on trial of the great 
advantages of a four-tined steel fork over a .'pade for general dig¬ 
ging, that the lighter and better cultural implement has or will 
supeisede the more laborious and less efficacious spade. 
Respecting the time of digging, it is unquestionably best done 
when the ground is dry. It is difficult to turn up some soils after 
spring or sumnaer crops for the rotatory ones, in some instances 
almost impracticable, with a spade, from the ground being, as the 
w'orkmen say, “ dry and hard.” This, however, apart from the in¬ 
creased labour entailed, is the very best time to break up the soil. 
Ao matter how hard and dry it will yield to the fork, it may be in 
narrow breadths, and need a determined will, but it gets such a 
breaking up as to let in more sun, more air, and more nutriment is 
abstracted from the atmosphere in a day of summer than in a month 
of winter. ^ If anyone doubts this let a trial be made. So enrich¬ 
ing is digging the ground after spring or summer crops in preparing 
for autumn or winter ones, that some cultivators prefer to plant in 
the solid or firm unbroken soil lest the crops should grow too 
luxuriantly, and so become tender, unable to withstand the rigour 
of winter frosts. This is explained on the lines that the plants 
forming the crop root less slowly in the firm than in loose soil, and 
the growth is more sturdy and better solidified. Non-stirring may 
in measure preserve the fertility of the soil for future crops, but it 
is doubtful if not more is lost through the surface being in so firm 
and close condition as to derive little of the enriching influences of 
the atmosphere. Firm soils are, of course, well-known cultural aids- 
in the prevention of gross growths, alike from the mechanical con¬ 
dition of the soil and the resistance offered to the roots there is less 
food available, and what is gained one way is lost the other, so that- 
to make up the deficiency mulchings are given, which supply at 
given periods an increased supply of nourishment and promptly by 
its exposure to the full influence of the acting atmospheric air and' 
moisture, which has been so studiously prevented acting by the firm 
close condition of the soil. The hard surface so much clamoured 
about in respect of fruit culture is the most distressing to growth 
and disastrous to crops during drought. The soil literally bakes 
and cracks under powerful sun, being quite as free in evaporation- 
without the advantages of absorption of night dews, as where the- 
surface soil is loose and open to a depth not interfering -with the 
roots. Mulching, of course, prevents evaporation in a sense corre¬ 
sponding to a loose surface of ameliorated soil with the advantage- 
of affording enrichment, attracting the roots to the surface, and the^ 
value of mulchings equally with the soil’s surface depend on their 
lumpiness or porosity. Lumpy manure is better in every way for 
mulching through its freely admitting air and moisture than a close- 
heavy mass which excludes air and rain, becoming soapy and im¬ 
pervious. Therefore, whether the object is to encourage growth oi^ 
to sustain it, we must have a surface that will allow of the sun’s- 
warmth, the dew, rain, and air passing into it, which must of 
necessity be a loose one of ameliorated soil if benefit to the full is 
to be derived by the crops from the assimilated matter in the soil- 
through the prevention of evaporation. 
Stirring the Soil .—A practice used to obtain in gardens of 
stirring the soil with a fork in addition to the ordinary digging in 
of manure in autumn. In the case of heavy soil there was the- 
indispensable turning over of ground* that had been thrown up- 
roughly for the winter so as to bring it into an even surface prepara¬ 
tory for cropping. In some cases it was considered necessary to- 
turn over vacant ground whenever the opportunity offered, and 
rare indeed were crops put in without stirring the soil a few days 
before, especially if it had lain awhile so as to become at aU solid. 
It was done to sweeten— i.e., aerate the soil, and that it had a bene¬ 
ficial effect was amply proved by the crops that followed—the more 
the ground had been stirred the better the result. The stirrings 
certainly had the effect of mixing manures thorouglily with the- 
soil, cleansing it of w'eeds, disturbing predatory pests, and producing 
a good tilth. Those practices are now almost obsolete. Why ?' 
Is it because land pays better tilled to produce 3 to 4 quarters 
instead of 4 to 6 up to 8 quarters of corn per acre ? Can it be that 
cross-ploughing, dragging, cross-harrowing are needless operations ?' 
Ground should never be dug or stirred when it is soaked with 
rain or very wet, and ought never be worked when it is frozen or 
covered with snow. Whenever the soil is so wet as to clog it is- 
not in a fit state for digging or stirring. This more particularly 
applies to heavy or clayey soil, as that of a light nature or that- 
resting on a gravelly bottom may be worked at most times with- 
facility, yet digging and stirring is best performed on all in dry- 
weather, and never ought to be practised on any other than when 
somewhat dry or in good working order. Ground that needs; 
aeration is perhaps more favourably treated with a certain degree 
of moisture and tenacity existing. All the same working grouncf 
when wet converts it into puddle, and gives it a solidity unfavourable- 
alike to pulverisation and aeration. 
Stirring Soil about Growing Crops.—The object in this case is- 
primarily to destroy weeds—to retain the resources of the soil for th& 
benefit of the crop, as weeds equally derive their support from the; 
soil. Every weed that is allowed to grow up with the crop pro¬ 
portionately deteriorates its value. How much the value of grain 
crops are depreciated when seen as masses of yellow because of' 
Charlock or a blaze of scarlet through Poppy is seldom calculated,, 
and a growth of couch almost if not equally strong with the 
cereals takes correspondingly from the quality and quantity of the; 
resultant grain. Hoeing is a necessity of cleanliness, and it has the; 
advantage of not only preventing weeds interfering with the food 
supplies of the crop, but keeps them from growing with and 
choking the useful plants, which must be kept sturdy, and need all. 
available light and air. As soon, therefore, as the crops are suffi¬ 
ciently advanced the gi’ound should be stirred, run over with a hoe- 
whenever the ground is in a fit state, which it always is when it does- 
not clog. To work il; when wet is only to make it more firm or- 
close and impervious to rain and air. The only time, therefore, for- 
stirring with a hoe is when the soil works well. It is useful in 
spring, summer, autumn, and winter, whenever and wherever there 
are weeds to destroy and a surface that is becoming close to loosen 
