Instructions in Gardening for Ladies

CHAPTER I.. Stirring the Soil.

STIRRING THE SOIL.

Digging.--Every one knows that the first operation of the gardener, whether a new garden is to be made, or merely an old one re-planted, is to dig the ground; though but comparatively few persons are aware why this is so essentially necessary to be done. When a piece of rough ground is to be taken into cultivation, and a garden made where there was none before, the use of digging is obvious enough; as the ground requires to be levelled, and divided by walks, and thrown up into beds, to give it the shape and appearance of a garden, which could not be done without stirring the soil: but why the beds in an old garden should be always dug or forked over, before they are re-planted, is quite another question, and one that it requires some consideration to answer.

When any soil, except sand or loose gravel, remains unstirred for any length of time, it becomes hard, and its particles adhere so firmly together as not to be separated without manual force. It is quite clear that when soil is in this state, it is unfit for the reception of seeds; as the tender roots of the young plants will not be able to penetrate it through without great difficulty, and neither air nor water can reach them in sufficient quantities to make them thrive. When a seed is put into the ground, it is the warmth and moisture by which it is surrounded that make it vegetate. It first swells, and the skin with which it is covered cracks and peels off; then two shoots issue from the vital knot, (a point easily discoverable in large seeds,) one of which descends and is called the root, while the other ascends to form the leaves, stem, flowers, and fruit.

This is what is meant by the germination of the seed, and this may be effected by the aid of heat and moisture alone, as is done with mustard and cress, when raised on wet flannel in a saucer. But plants raised in this manner cannot be of long duration; as, though they will live for a short time on the albumen contained in the seed, on which they feed, as the chicken does on the nourishment contained in the egg, this is soon exhausted, and the plant will die if not supplied with fresh food, which it can only obtain by means of the root. Thus, the root is necessary, not only to form a base to support the plant and to keep it upright, but to supply it with food; and nature has given it a tendency to bury itself in the ground, not only to enable the plant to take a firm hold of the soil, but to preserve the root in a fitting state for absorbing food, which it can only do when it is kept warm, moist, and secluded from the light.

The manner in which the root is fitted for the purposes for which it was designed, affords an admirable illustration of the care and wisdom displayed by the Great Creator in all his works. In nature nothing is superfluous, and yet everything has been provided for. It has been already observed, that the two principal uses of the root are to give the plant a firm hold of the ground, and to supply it with food. For the first purpose the root either spreads so widely through the surface soil as to form a sufficient base for the height of the plant, or it descends a sufficient depth into the earth to steady the part above ground; and in either case the growth of the plant is wisely and wonderfully proportioned to the strength of the support which the root affords it. For the second purpose, that of supplying the plant with nourishment, the root divides at the extremity of each shoot into numerous fibres or fibrils, each furnished at its extremity with a spongiole or spongy substance, which affords the only means the plant possesses of absorbing the moisture necessary for its support. It is thus quite clear, that every thing that tends to nourish and increase the growth of the root, must contribute to the health and vigour of the rest of the plant; and that no plant can thrive, the root of which is cramped in its growth, or weakened for want of nourishment. This being allowed, it is evident that the first step towards promoting the growth of any plant is to provide a fitting receptacle for the root; and this is done by pulverizing the ground in which the seed is to be sown so as to render it in a fit state for the roots to penetrate it easily. Thus they will neither be checked in their growth for want of room, nor be obliged to waste their strength in overcoming unnecessary obstacles; such as twining themselves round a stone, or trying to force their way through a hard clod of earth. The second point of affording the root abundance of nourishment may also be obtained by pulverizing the ground; as pulverization, by admitting the rain to percolate slowly through the soil, enables it to absorb and retain sufficient moisture to afford a proper and equable supply of food to the spongioles, without suffering the surplus water to remain so as to be in danger of rotting the main roots.

These then are the reasons why it may be laid down as a general rule, that all ground should be stirred before seeds are sown in it; but there are other reasons which operate only partially, and are yet almost as necessary to be attended to. When manure is applied, the ground is generally well dug, in order to mix the manure intimately with the soil; and when the soil appears worn out, or poisoned with excrementitious matter, from the same kind of plants being too long grown in it, it is trenched; that is, the upper or surface soil is taken off by spadefuls and laid on one side, and the bottom or sub-soil is taken out to a certain depth previously agreed on, and laid in another heap. The surface soil is then thrown into the bottom of the trench, and the sub-soil laid on the surface, and thus a completely new and fresh soil is offered to the plants. These partial uses of digging should, however, always be applied with great caution, as in some cases manure does better laid on the surface, so that its juices only may drain into the ground, than when it is intimately mixed with the soil; and there are cases when, from the sub-soil being of an inferior quality, trenching must be manifestly injurious. Reason and experience are, in these cases, as in most others, the best guides.

The uses of digging having been thus explained, it is now necessary to say something of its practice, and particularly of its applicability to ladies. It must be confessed that digging appears, at first sight, a very laborious employment, and one peculiarly unfitted to small and delicately formed hands and feet; but, by a little attention to the principles of mechanics and the laws of motion, the labour may be much simplified and rendered comparatively easy. The operation of digging, as performed by a gardener, consists in thrusting the iron part of the spade, which acts as a wedge, perpendicularly into the ground by the application of the foot, and then using the long handle as a lever, to raise up the loosened earth and turn it over. The quantity of earth thus raised is called a spitful, and the gardener, when he has turned it, chops it to break the clods, with the sharp edge of his spade, and levels it with the back. During the whole operation, the gardener holds the cross part of the handle of the spade in his right-hand, while he grasps the smooth round lower part of the handle in his left, to assist him in raising the earth and turning it, sliding his left hand backwards and forwards along the handle, as he may find it necessary.

This is the common mode of digging, and it certainly appears to require considerable strength in the foot to force the spade into the ground,--in the arms to raise it when loaded with the earth that is to be turned over,--and in the hands to grasp the handle. But it must be remembered that all operations that are effected rapidly by the exertion of great power, may be effected slowly by the exertion of very little power, if that comparatively feeble power be applied for a much greater length of time. For example, if a line be drawn by a child in the earth with a light cane, and the cane be drawn five or six times successively along the same line, it will be found that a furrow has been made in the soil with scarcely any exertion by the child, that the strongest man could not make by a single effort with all his force. In the same way a lady, with a small light spade may, by taking time, succeed in doing all the digging that can be required in a small garden, the soil of which, if it has been long in cultivation, can never be very hard or difficult to penetrate, and she will not only have the satisfaction of seeing the garden created, as it were, by the labour of her own hands, but she will find her health and spirits wonderfully improved by the exercise, and by the reviving smell of the fresh earth.

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