THE HANDLING OF THE LAND - Continued
As often as the surface becomes compact, the mulch should be renewed or
repaired by the use of the rake or cultivator or harrow. Persons are
deceived by supposing that so long as the surface remains moist, the
land is in the best possible condition; a moist surface may mean that
water is rapidly passing off into the atmosphere. A dry surface may mean
that less evaporation is taking place, and there may be moister earth
beneath it; and moisture is needed below the surface rather than on top.
A finely raked bed is dry on top; but the footprints of the cat remain
moist, for the animal packed the soil wherever it stepped and a
capillary connection was established with the water reservoir beneath.
Gardeners advise firming the earth over newly planted seeds to hasten
germination. This is essential in dry times; but what we gain in
hastening germination we lose in the more rapid evaporation of moisture.
The lesson is that we should loosen the soil as soon as the seeds have
germinated, to reduce evaporation to the minimum. Large seeds, as beans
and peas, may be planted deep and have the earth firmed about them, and
then the rake may be applied to the surface to stop the rise of moisture
before it reaches the air.
Two illustrations, adapted from Roberts's "Fertility," show good and
poor preparation of the land. Figure 93 is a section of land twelve
inches deep. The under soil has been finely broken and pulverized and
then compacted. It is mellow but firm, and is an excellent water
reservoir. Three inches of the surface is a mulch of loose and dry
earth. Figure 94 shows an earth-mulch, but it is too shallow; and the
under soil is so open and cloddy that the water runs through it.
[Illustration: Fig. 93. To illustrate good preparation of ground.]
[Illustration: 94. To illustrate poor preparation of ground.]
When the land is once properly prepared, the soil-mulch is maintained by
surface-working tools. In field practice, these tools are harrows and
horse cultivators of various kinds; in home garden practice they are
wheel-hoes, rakes, and many patterns of hand hoes and scarifiers, with
finger-weeders and other small implements for work directly among
the plants.
A garden soil is not in good condition when it is hard and crusted on
top. The crust may be the cause of wasting water, it keeps out the air,
and in general it is an uncongenial physical condition; but its
evaporation of water is probably its chief defect. Instead of pouring
water on the land, therefore, we first attempt to keep the moisture in
the land. If, however, the soil becomes so dry in spite of you that the
plants do not thrive, then water the bed. Do not sprinkle it, but
water it. Wet it clear through at evening. Then in the morning, when
the earth begins to dry, loosen the surface again to keep the water from
getting away. Sprinkling the plants every day or two is one of the
surest ways of spoiling them. We may water the ground with a
garden-rake.
Hand tools for weeding and subsequent tillage and other hand work.
Any of the cultivators and wheel-hoes are as useful for the subsequent
tilling of the crop as for the initial preparation of the land, but
there are other tools also that greatly facilitate the keeping of the
plantation in order. Yet wholly aside from the value of a tool as an
implement of tillage and as a weapon for the pursuit of weeds, is its
merit merely as a shapely and interesting instrument. A man will take
infinite pains to choose a gun or a fishing-rod to his liking, and a
woman gives her best attention to the selecting of an umbrella; but a
hoe is only a hoe and a rake only a rake. If one puts his personal
choice into the securing of plants for a garden, so should he
discriminate in the choice of hand tools, to secure those that are
light, trim, well made, and precisely adapted to the work to be
accomplished. A case of neat garden tools ought to be a great joy to a
joyful gardener. So I am willing to enlarge on the subject of hoes and
their kind.
The hoe.
[Illustration: 95. Useful forms of hoe-blades.]
The common rectangular-bladed hoe is so thoroughly established in the
popular mind that it is very difficult to introduce new patterns, even
though they may be intrinsically superior. As a general-purpose tool, it
is no doubt true that a common hoe is better than any of its
modifications, but there are various patterns of hoe-blades that are
greatly superior for special uses, and which ought to appeal to any
quiet soul who loves a garden.
The great width of the common blade does not admit of its being used in
very narrow rows or very close to delicate plants, and it does not allow
of the deep stirring of the soil in narrow spaces. It is also difficult
to enter hard ground with such a broad face. Various pointed blades have
been introduced from time to time, and most of them have merit. Some
persons prefer two points to the hoe, as shown in Marvin's blades, in
Fig. 95. These interesting shapes represent the suggestions of
gardeners who will not be bound by what the market affords, but who have
blades cut and fitted for their own satisfaction.
[Illustration: Fig. 96. A stack of gardening weapons, comprising some of
Tarryer's weeding spuds and thimbles.]
Persons who followed the entertaining writings of one who called himself
Mr. A.B. Tarryer, in "American Garden," a few years back, will recall
the great variety of implements that he advised for the purpose of
extirpating his hereditary foes, the weeds. A variety of these blades
and tools is shown in Figs. 96 and 97. I shall let Mr. Tarryer tell his
story at some length in order to lead my reader painlessly into a new
field of gardening pleasures.
Mr. Tarryer contends that the wheel-hoe is much too clumsy an affair to
allow of the pursuit of an individual weed. While the operator is busy
adjusting his machine and manipulating it about the corners of the
garden, the quack-grass has escaped over the fence or has gone to seed
at the other end of the plantation. He devised an expeditious tool for
each little work to be performed on the garden,--for hard ground and
soft, for old weeds and young (one of his implements was denominated
"infant-damnation").
[Illustration: Fig. 97. Some of the details of the Tarryer tools.]
"Scores of times during the season," Mr. Tarryer writes, "the ten or
fifteen minutes one has to enjoy in the flower, fruit, and vegetable
garden--and that would suffice for the needful weeding with the hoes we
are celebrating--would be lost in harnessing horses or adjusting and
oiling squeaky wheel-hoes, even if everybody had them. The 'American
Garden' is not big enough, nor my patience long enough, to give more
than an inkling of the unspeakable merits of these weapons of society
and civilization. When Mrs. Tarryer was showing twelve or fifteen acres
of garden with never a weed to be seen, she valued her dozen or more of
these light implements at five or ten dollars daily; whether they were
in actual use or adorning the front hall, like a hunter's or angler's
furniture, made no difference. But where are these millennial tools made
and sold? Nowhere. They are as unknown as the Bible was in the dark
ages, and we must give a few hints towards manufacturing them.
"First, about the handles. The ordinary dealer or workman may say these
knobs can be formed on any handles by winding them with leather; but
just fancy a young maiden setting up her hoe meditatively and resting
her hands and chin upon an old leather knob to reflect upon something
that has been said to her in the garden, and we shall perceive that a
knob by some other name would smell far sweeter. Moreover, trees grow
large enough at the butt to furnish all the knobs we want--even for
broom-sticks--though sawyers, turners, dealers, and the public seem not
to be aware of it; yet it must be confessed we are so far gone in
depravity that there will be trouble in getting those handles....
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