Your Soil and Your Garden 
The basis of garden success is the 
soil. Usually we have to work with 
what we have, but even if it is not 
good soil to begin with, much can be 
done to improve it. 2 
The ideal soil has four definite quali- 
ties: 
(1) Itis easy to work with (crumbles 
easily). 2 % 
(2) <I contains plenty of humus 
(partially rotted vegetable matter). 
(3) It has sufficient quantities of 
available plant. food. 
(4) It is well drained, — 
If yours is not the ideal soil. here are 
some of the things you can do: 
Too Heavy Soil — 
Heavy soil which will bake hard and 
not drain properly can be made 
friable (crumbly, loose) by working 
in one of the new chemical soil con- 
ditioners, peat moss or vermiculite, 
or old ashes, fine cinders, humus. fine 
gravel or fine limestone screenings. 
This will make the soil workable as 
well as letting excess water escape. 
admitting air into the soil, and per- 
mitting the roots to grow freely. 
If Soil Needs Conditioning 
If your soil needs improving, it can 
be greatly benefitted by application 
of one of the new soil conditioners or 
of well-rotted stable manure. leaf 
mold, grass clipping. compost and 
other forms of decomposed plant ma- 
terial. Use up to 1 bushel per square 
foot. 
When breaking new soil. if there are 
weeds or sod on the ground, apply 
lime and fertilizer to hasten decom- 
position, then turn under. These ma- 
terials should be worked into the soil. 
They help to hold moisture, aid in 
drainage, prevent rapid changes in 
soil temperature, and are a source of 
food for soil bacteria and_ other 
micro-organisms which work in the 
soil to liberate nutrients for plants. 
Apply these materials before spading 
or plowing. When you put fertilizer 
into the newly spaded soil, it must 
be thoroughly worked in, so as to get 
it well distributed. 
Soil Types 
A rich soil is one that is high in plant 
foods. A soil that has had large 
amounts of manure, compost or fer- 
tilizer added to it for some years is 
gererally quite rich. A rich soil will 
grow plants rapidly and produces the 
best quality. The appearance of a soil 
does not indicate richness. It is the 
amount of chemical plant food that 
makes a soil rich, and that can only 
be found out by soil tests. 
A mellow soil is one that has an open 
texture and is easily worked. Mellow 
soils are generally loams that have 
been cultivated for some time and 
that have a good supply of humus. 
A quick soil is one that is well 
drained and warms up rapidly in the 
spring. It can be worked early and is 
especially useful for the earliest 
crops. 
Loamy—soils are ones that have a 
mixture of sand and clay in them. A 
loamy soil has more body and com- 
pactness than sands, but are more 
open and less compact than clays. 
They are an in-between soil. They 
are easily worked and may become 
quite mellow if humus is added. 
Spading and Plowing 
The spade and the spading-fork are 
tools used to dig the soil in prepara- 
tion for sowing and planting. The 
chief objects are to bury weeds and 
manures; to fine and aerate the soil 
and increase its porosity; to bring 
plant foods from lower levels nearer 
to the surface and to provide deep, 
loose friable soil. If there is any slope 
to your garden, start at the lower 
end, as the natural tendency is for 
soil to work down grade. 
There’s a trick to spading for best 
results. Drive the spade or spading 
fork straight down. Dig a trench and 
lay the soil from the trench, aside at 
the end. Now spade with the blade 
not parallel to the trench, but at right 
angles to it. Lift it up and turn the 
spade over so that the top-soil, humus 
and plant food which you have 
ae 
Properly prepared soil will reward you with a bountiful garden all season. 
added are dropped underneath and 
into the trench you have spaded previ- 
ously. When the last row is dug, carry 
the soil removed from the first row to 
fill in the last trench. If the good soil 
is deep, spade to a depth of 8 to 12 
inches. If the top soil is shallow, 
avoid digging up the subsoil. Pul- 
verize the soil, breaking up the clods 
with an iron rake and remove stones 
or trash. Just before planting any 
area of the garden, work that part 
finely and smooth off with a rake 
before laying out the rows. 
If you must plow, be sure the soil is 
right. Many good plots have been 
ruined by plowmen who insist on 
working when the soil was too wet. 
Before you decide on machine work, 
consider this: by working only an 
hour a day for five days, a man of 
average strength can dig a_ good- 
sized garden and leave the soil in bet- 
ter condition than the ordinary trac- 
tor job, worked with farm equipment 
usually too heavy for gardeneuse. 
The correct way to spade. 
