Manual of Gardening Part 8

Also, if one needs sod and has no place from which to cut it except the lawn, by taking up blocks of sod, leaving strips and cross-strips, and treating the surface as described, the bare places are soon covered with green."

Sowing with sod.

Lawns may be sown with pieces of sods rather than with seeds. Sods may be cut up into bits an inch or two square, and these may be scattered broadcast over the area and rolled into the land. While it is preferable that the pieces should lie right side up, this is not necessary if they are cut thin, and sown when the weather is cool and moist. Sowing pieces of sod is good practice when it is difficult to secure a catch from seed.

If one were to maintain a permanent sod garden, at one side, for the selecting and growing of the very best sod (as he would grow a stock seed of corn or beans), this method should be the most rational of all procedures, at least until the time that we produce strains of lawn gra.s.s that come true from seeds.

Other ground covers.

Under trees, and in other shady places, it may be necessary to cover the ground with something else than gra.s.s. Good plants for such uses are periwinkle (_Vinca minor,_ an evergreen trailer, often called "running myrtle"), moneywort (_Lysimachia nummularia_), lily-of-the-valley, and various kinds of sedge or carex. In some dark or shady places, and under some kinds of trees, it is practically impossible to secure a good lawn, and one may be obliged to resort to dec.u.mbent bushes or other forms of planting.

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._

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig 79. Ditching tools.]

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 80. How to use a spade.]

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.

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 ill.u.s.tration (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.

_Trenching and subsoiling._

[Ill.u.s.tration: 81. Trenching with a spade.]

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.]

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 82. Home-made subsoil plow.]

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 pa.s.s to greater depths rather than to be held as puddles and in mud on the surface.

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 83. Forms of subsoil plows.]

_Preparation of the surface._

Every pains should be taken to prevent the surface of the land from becoming crusty or baked, for the hard surface establishes a capillary connection with the moist soil beneath, and is a means of pa.s.sing off the water into the atmosphere. Loose and mellow soil also has more free plant-food, and provides the most congenial conditions for the growth of plants. The tools that one may use in preparing the surface soil are now so many and so well adapted to the work that the gardener should find special satisfaction in handling them.

If the soil is a stiff clay, it is often advisable to plow it or dig it in the fall, allowing it to lie rough and loose all winter, so that the weathering may pulverize and slake it. If the clay is very tenacious, it may be necessary to throw leafmold or litter over the surface before the spading is done, to prevent the soil from running together or cementing before spring. With mellow and loamy lands, however, it is ordinarily best to leave the preparation of the surface until spring.

In the preparation of the surface, the ordinary hand tools, or spades and shovels, may be used. If, however, the soil is mellow, a fork is a better tool than a spade, from the fact that it does not slice the soil, but tends to break it up into smaller and more irregular ma.s.ses. The ordinary spading-fork, with strong flat tines, is a most serviceable tool; a spading-fork for soft ground may be made from an old manure fork by cutting down the tines, as shown in Fig. 84.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 84. Improvising a spading-fork.]

It is important that the soil should not be sticky when it is prepared, as it is likely to become hard and baked and the physical condition be greatly injured. However, land that is too wet for the reception of seeds may still be thrown up loose with a spade or fork and allowed to dry, and after two or three days the surface preparation may be completed with the hoe and the rake. In ordinary soils the hoe is the tool to follow the spading-fork or the spade, but for the final preparation of the surface a steel garden-rake is the ideal implement.

In areas, large enough to admit horse tools, the land can be fitted more economically by means of the various types of plows, harrows, and cultivators that are to be had of any dealer in agricultural implements.

Figure 85 shows various types of model surface plows. The one shown at the upper left-hand is considered by Roberts, in his "Fertility of the Land," to be the ideal general-purpose plow, as respects shape and method of construction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 85. Excellent types of surface plows.]

The type of machine to be used must be determined wholly by the character of the land and the purposes for which it is to be fitted.

Lands that are hard and cloddy may be reduced by the use of the disk or Acme harrows, shown in Fig. 86; but those that are friable and mellow may not need such heavy and vigorous tools. On these mellower lands, the spring-tooth harrow, types of which are shown in Fig. 87, may follow the plow. On very hard lands, these spring-tooth harrows may follow the disk and Acme types. The final preparation of the land is accomplished by light implements of the pattern shown in Fig. 88. These spike-tooth smoothing-harrows do for the field what the hand-rake does for the garden-bed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 86. Disk and Acme harrows, for the first working of hard or cloddy land.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 87. Spring-tooth harrows.]

If it is desired to put a very fine finish on the surface of the ground by means of horse tools, implements like the Breed or Wiard weeder may be used. These are constructed on the principle of a spring-tooth horse hay-rake, and are most excellent, not only for fitting loose land for ordinary seeding, but also for subsequent tillage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 88. Spike-tooth harrow.]

In areas that cannot be entered with a team, various one-horse implements may do the work that is accomplished by heavier tools in the field. The spring-tooth cultivator, shown at the right in Fig. 89, may do the kind of work that the spring-tooth harrows are expected to do on larger areas; and various adjustable spike-tooth cultivators, two of which are shown in Fig. 89, are useful for putting a finish on the land.

These tools are also available for the tilling of the surface when crops are growing. The spring-tooth cultivator is a most useful tool for cultivating raspberries and blackberries, and other strong-rooted crops.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 89. Spike-tooth and spring-tooth cultivators.]