CHAPTER IV
THE HANDLING OF THE LAND
Almost any land contains enough food for the growing of good crops, but
the food elements may be chemically unavailable, or there may be
insufficient water to dissolve them. It is too long a story to explain
at this place,--the philosophy of tillage and of enriching the
land,--and the reader who desires to make excursions into this
delightful subject should consult King on "The Soil," Roberts on "The
Fertility of the Land," and recent writings of many kinds. The reader
must accept my word for it that tilling the land renders it productive.
I must call my reader's attention to the fact that this book is on the
making of gardens,--on the planning and the doing of the work from the
year's end to end,--not on the appreciation of a completed garden. I
want the reader to know that a garden is not worth having unless he
makes it with his own hands or helps to make it. He must work himself
into it. He must know the pleasure of preparing the land, of contending
with bugs and all other difficulties, for it is only thereby that he
comes into appreciation of the real value of a garden.
I am saying this to prepare the reader for the work that I lay out in
this chapter. I want him to know the real joy that there is in the
simple processes of breaking the earth and fitting it for the seed. The
more pains he takes with these processes, naturally the keener will be
his enjoyment of them. No one can have any other satisfaction than that
of mere manual exercise if he does not know the reasons for what he does
with his soil. I am sure that my keenest delight in a garden comes in
the one month of the opening season and the other month of the closing
season. These are the months when I work hardest and when I am nearest
the soil. To feel the thrust of the spade, to smell the sweet earth, to
prepare for the young plants and then to prepare for the closing year,
to handle the tools with discrimination, to guard against frost, to be
close with the rain and wind, to see the young things start into life
and then to see them go down into winter,--these are some of the best of
the joys of gardening. In this spirit we should take up the work of
handling the land.
The draining of the land.
[Illustration: Fig 79. Ditching tools.]
The first step in the preparation of land, after it has been thoroughly
cleared and subdued of forest or previous vegetation, is to attend to
the drainage. All land that is springy, low, and "sour," or that holds
the water in puddles for a day or two following heavy rains, should be
thoroughly underdrained. Draining also improves the physical condition
of the soil even when the land does not need the removal of superfluous
water. In hard lands, it lowers the water-table, or tends to loosen and
aerate the soil to a greater depth, and thereby enables it to hold more
water without injury to plants. Drainage is particularly useful in dry
but hard garden lands, because these lands are often in sod or
permanently planted, and the soil cannot be broken up by deep tillage.
Tile drainage is permanent subsoiling.
Hard-baked cylindrical tiles make the best and most permanent drains.
The ditches usually should not be less than two and one-half feet deep,
and three or three and one-half feet is often better. In most garden
areas, drains may be laid with profit as often as every thirty feet.
Give all drains a good and continuous fall. For single drains and for
laterals not over four hundred or five hundred feet long, a two and
one-half inch tile is sufficient, unless much water must be carried from
swales or springs. In stony countries, flat stones may be used in place
of tiles, and persons who are skillful in laying them make drains as
good and permanent as those constructed of tiles. The tiles or stones
are covered with sods, straw, or paper, and the earth is then filled in.
This temporary cover keeps the loose dirt out of the tiles, and by the
time it is rotted the earth has settled into place.
In small places, ditching must ordinarily be done wholly with hand
tools. A common spade and pick are the implements usually employed,
although a spade with a long handle and narrow blade, as shown in Fig.
79, is very useful for excavating the bottom of the ditch.
[Illustration: Fig. 80. How to use a spade.]
In most cases, much time and muscle are wasted in the use of the pick.
If the digging is properly done, a spade can be used to cut the soil,
even in fairly hard clay land, with no great difficulty. The essential
point in the easy use of the spade is to manage so that one edge of the
spade always cuts a free or exposed surface. The illustration (Fig. 80)
will explain the method. When the operator endeavors to cut the soil in
the method shown at A, he is obliged to break both edges at every
thrust of the tool; but when he cuts the slice diagonally, first
throwing his spade to the right and then to the left, as shown at B, he
cuts only one side and is able to make progress without the expenditure
of useless effort. These remarks will apply to any spading of the land.
In large areas, horses may be used to facilitate the work of ditching.
There are ditching plows and machines, which, however, need not be
discussed here; but three or four furrows may be thrown out in either
direction with a strong plow, and a subsoil plow be run behind to break
up the hard-pan, and this may reduce the labor of digging as much as
one-half. When the excavating is completed, the bottom of the ditch is
evened up by means of a line or level, and the bed for the tiles is
prepared by the use of a goose-neck scoop, shown in Fig. 79. It is very
important that the outlets of drains be kept free of weeds and litter.
If the outlet is built up with mason work, to hold the end of the tile
intact, very much will be added to the permanency of the drain.
[Illustration: VII. Bedding with palms. If a bricked-up pit is made
about the porch, pot palms may be plunged in it in spring and pot
conifers in winter; and fall bulbs in tin cans (so that the receptacles
will not split with frost) may be plunged among the evergreens.]
Trenching and subsoiling.
Although underdraining is the most important means of increasing the
depth of the soil, it is not always practicable to lay drains through
garden lands. In such cases, recourse is had to very deep preparation of
the land, either every year or every two or three years.
[Illustration: 81. Trenching with a spade.]
In small garden areas, this deep preparation will ordinarily be done by
trenching with a spade. This operation of trenching consists in breaking
up the earth two spades deep. Figure 81 explains the operation. The
section at the left shows a single spading, the earth being thrown over
to the right, leaving the subsoil exposed the whole width of the bed.
The section at the right shows a similar operation, so far as the
surface spading is concerned, but the subsoil has also been cut as fast
as it has been exposed. This under soil is not thrown out on the
surface, and usually it is not inverted; but a spadeful is lifted and
then allowed to drop so that it is thoroughly broken and pulverized in
the manipulation.
In all lands that have a hard and high subsoil, it is usually essential
to practice trenching if the best results are to be secured; this is
especially true when deep-rooted plants, as beets, parsnips, and other
root-crops, are to be grown; it prepares the soil to hold moisture; and
it allows the water of heavy rainfall to pass to greater depths rather
than to be held as puddles and in mud on the surface.
[Illustration: Fig. 82. Home-made subsoil plow.]
[Illustration: Fig. 83. Forms of subsoil plows.]
In places that can be entered with a team, deep and heavy plowing to the
depth of seven to ten inches may be desirable on hard lands, especially
if such lands cannot be plowed very often; and the depth of the
pulverization is often extended by means of the subsoil plow. This
subsoil plow does not turn a furrow, but a second team draws the
implement behind the ordinary plow, and the bottom of the furrow is
loosened and broken. Figure 82 shows a home-made subsoil plow, and Fig.
83 two types of commercial tools. It must be remembered that it is the
hardest lands that need subsoiling and that, therefore, the subsoil plow
should be exceedingly strong.
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