I shall explain this
treatment more fully further on.
In the choice of a garden plot you may be restricted to a stiff,
tenacious, heavy clay. Now you have a miser to deal with--a soil
that retains, but in many cases makes no proper use of, what it
receives. Skill and good management, however, can improve any
soil, and coax luxuriant crops from the most unpropitious.
We will speak first of the ideal soil already mentioned, and hope
that the acre contains an area of it of suitable dimensions for a
garden. What should be the first step in this case? Why, to get
more of it. A quarter of an acre can be made equal to half an
acre. You can about double the garden, without adding to it an
inch of surface, by increasing the depth of good soil. For
instance, ground has been cultivated to the depth of six or seven
inches. Try the experiment of stirring the soil and enriching it
one foot downward, or eighteen inches, or even two feet, and see
what vast differences will result. With every inch you go down,
making all friable and fertile, you add just so much more to root
pasturage. When you wish to raise a great deal, increase your
leverage. Roots are your levers; and when they rest against a deep
fertile soil they lift into the air and sunshine products that may
well delight the eyes and palate of the most fastidious.
Pages:
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64