52 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
October 23- 
it accessible to the roots of plants when driven by liot 
weather to seek food lower down than they had previously 
depended on for it; besides, a luxuriant crop requires 
an adequate space to supply its wants, and unless the 
season be favourable for the well-doing of such crops, 
which it rarely is, those periods of dry weather which 
we usually have in greater or less extent, will tell how 
much of their welfare is due to their culture; certainly 
there are other matters to be considered as well as the 
trenching and preparing of the subsoil, but these sub¬ 
jects we intend to treat off hereafter. 
We now come to the treatment of soils of an opposite 
character —hot dry sands or hungry gravels. These last, 
unfortunately, are the most sterile or ungrateful of all 
garden soils, yet they have their good properties. Tender 
vegetables, as well as other plants, stand the winter 
better on such soils, and it sometimes happens that, in a 
cold wet spring, seeds would perish in the stiff, heavy 
soils that luxuriate and grow in this, and lettuce, endive, 
spinach, cauliflower plants, &c., which stand, and 
partially grow through the winter, do better on a dry, 
poor soil, than on a rich, heavy one. But, on the other 
hand, the blue look that cabbages assume in dry weather, 
the withered up pea, the lettuce running to seed, and other 
vegetables stunted and unhealthy, bespeak, in language 
unmistakeable, the want of fertility in the soil. Now the 
usual way to overcome this is by liberal and oft-repeated 
applications of manure; but this method, though doubt¬ 
less good, is, we think, not the only one calculated to 
reform the evil. Eollowing the same principle we have 
laid down for altering the character of stiff soils, but 
reversing the means, or rather the materials employed, 
we want, in this case to arrest a part of that ruinous 
percolation by which the juices, or best parts of the dung 
employed, is carried down below the reach of vegetation. 
Now it is only reasonable to suppose that some sub¬ 
stance, antagonistic to the one in question, must be the 
most useful for that purpose, so that our readers will 
easily guess that we refer to clay, marl, or some other 
unctious material; the mud from the bottom of ponds is 
very good, as well as several other substances, such as the 
cleaning of ditches, scrapings of roads, &c., &c.; but 
the most useful is that unctious clay or marl, which is 
found in great quantities in some places. This, if applied 
in liberal quantities, improves both the surface and sub¬ 
soil, but it is to the latter that we mostly address our¬ 
selves; we therefore say, wherever a large quantity of this 
exists in the neighbourhood of a garden partaking of the 
character denoted above, let it be procured and trenched 
in with an unsparing hand—the result will soon manifest 
itself. Even stiff, unproductive-looking clay may be 
used with a beneficial effect; it is useless to object that 
such poverty-stricken materials can be of no use. We 
have seen clay of a very tenacious kind laid on very 
thickly to a piece of peat moss, ploughed in, and excellent 
crops follow. In fact, any soil of an extreme kind may 
be so modified, by a due admixture with that of another 
of opposite qualities, as to become more productive as 
well as altered in its character. We do not mean that a 
complete radical change will take place; many circum¬ 
stances, over which we have not absolute control, will 
operate in preventing a piece of stiff' loamy ground in a 
low situation from becoming the same as the light sandy 
one which exists elsewhere, whilst no ordinary applica¬ 
tion of retentive matter will convert the latter into the 
stiff' soil of the district, commonly called good “ Wheat 
lands; ”—the porous substance below will always suck the 
extra moisture from it, added to which, we believe nature 
has a tendency, though a slow one, to restore such 
things to their former position, and we have no doubt 
that the stiff retentive clay, dug in amongst sand, will, 
after a series of years, be swallowed up by the all-pre¬ 
vailing mass, and all traces of its existence be lost sight 
of. As an instance of that kind, though of a contrary 
description, we once saw a kitchen-garden made in 
rather a damp place, and the spirited proprietor, anxious 
to make it a good one, had very good fresh soil from a 
dry hill carted on to the depth of several feet in some 
places, but some years after we saw the ground opened, 
and part of what had once been fine maiden loam, 
or soil, was a soured mass, heavy, retentive, and fast ap¬ 
proaching to those unfertile clays of which we have been 
speaking. Now we guess our readers will be saying 
this might have been prevented by judicious draining; 
and whether this was attempted or not we cannot say, 
we only give the case as an example of what we have 
been advancing. 
In concluding this article on trenching, we by no 
means limit the operation to those soils which have a 
barren or impervious substratum; the deep mellow loam, 
so congenial to the growth of most things, is much im¬ 
proved by being tilled two spits deep, now and then, but 
in their case little or no auxilliary matter will be wanted 
at the bottom, unless it be manure to entice the roots of 
carrots, beet, &c. But, as these things, as well as aspara¬ 
gus and many others, require a special treatment, they 
will be noticed in their proper place, here we only 
speak of trenching in general, and have hitherto advised 
the top and bottom spits to retain tbeir respective 
places again, except such a little admixture as takes 
place to a certain extent in spite of the most careful 
management, but this little will be beneficial rather than 
otherwise. When, however, the depth of staple soil is 
such as to contain a second spit, little, if any, inferior to 
the first, in that case it may, to a much greater extent, be 
brought to the top, and more especially so if it has to lie 
some time before it be cropped, when the sweetening in¬ 
fluence of the atmosphere will prepare it for receiving 
whatever is planted upon it. Fortunate is the gardener 
who is possessed of such a soil; the capricious changes 
of the season will have but little impression on his 
crops compared with those soils of the two extreme 
kinds we have before mentioned. Yet it will want 
the same amount of tilling, and the oftener it is 
trenched the better it will be, always provided it be not 
done in a very wet state ; and if it is intended to remain 
some time without a crop, let the surface be left as rough 
as possible. The method we adopt is as follows: the 
ground is divided into trenches of about two feet or more 
each, and the top spit of the first trench, and about half 
the width of the second, is removed to the end where the 
finish is to be made; this extra half allows more room 
for operation; then the mortar rubbish, or other mate¬ 
rial to be used, is placed on the excavated part and 
dug in, beginning at one end by taking a few spadesfull 
out, so as to have a sort of furrow in which to bury 
the materials (if there be any) intended to amend the 
subsoil. Observe, this trench is only two feet wide, 
although three feet had been stripped of its external 
soil. The bottom being done, the remaining half of 
the top of the second division is thrown over the digged- ' 
up part of the first, laying it in as rough a manner as 
possible, and not throwing any sbovelings amongst it; 
the second bottom is then treated similarly, and the whole 
of the top of the third is thrown over this, there being now 
room for it, taking care always to dig the top part as deep 
as possible, as no shoveling is allowed, it is hardly 
necessary to remark, that dung, or any other manure, 
may be mixed with the top soil if advisable; but this 
will be regulated by the nature of the future crop, and 
other considerations. 
Asparagus. —The ripened condition of the haulm of 
this vegetable, as indicated by the yellow tinge it 
assumes, points out the proper time to cut it, which had 
better be done on a dry day, and the seed-bearing ones 
being picked out, the remainder may be set away some¬ 
where, as they are useful for coverings in winter. We 
prefer keeping all seedy ones away, whether seed is 
