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Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) by L. H. Bailey

L >> L. H. Bailey >> Manual of Gardening (Second Edition)




Sodding the lawn.

[Illustration: Fig. 77. Cutting sod for a lawn.]

Persons who desire to secure a lawn very quickly may sod the area rather
than seed it, although the most permanent results are usually secured by
seeding. Sodding, however, is expensive, and is to be used only about
the borders of the place, near buildings, or in areas in which the owner
can afford to expend considerable money. The best sod is that which is
secured from an old pasture, and for two or three reasons. In the first
place, it is the right kind of grass, the June-grass (in the North)
being the species that oftenest runs into pastures and crowds out other
plants. Again, it has been so closely eaten down, especially if it has
been pastured by sheep, that it has made a very dense and well-filled
sod, which can be rolled up in thin layers. In the third place, the soil
in old pastures is likely to be rich from the droppings of animals.

In taking sod, it is important that it be cut very thin. An inch and a
half thick is usually ample. It is ordinarily rolled up in strips a foot
wide and of any length that will allow the rolls to be handled by one or
two men. A foot-wide board is laid upon the turf, and the sod cut along
either edge of it. One person then stands upon the strip of sod and
rolls it towards himself, while another cuts it loose with a spade, as
shown in Fig. 77. When the sod is laid, it is unrolled on the land and
then firmly beaten down. Land that is to be sodded should be soft on
top, so that the sod can be well pounded into it. If the sod is not well
pounded down, it will settle unevenly and present a bad surface, and
will also dry out and perhaps not live through a dry spell. It is almost
impossible to pound down sod too firm. If the land is freshly plowed, it
is important that the borders that are sodded be an inch or two lower
than the adjacent land, because the land will settle in the course of a
few weeks. In a dry time, the sod may be covered from a half inch to an
inch with fine, mellow soil as a mulch. The grass should grow through
this soil without difficulty. Upon terraces and steep banks, the sod may
be held in place by driving wooden pegs through it.

A combination of sodding and seeding.

[Illustration: Fig. 78. Economical sodding, the spaces being seeded.]

An "economical sodding" is described in "American Garden" (Fig. 78): "To
obtain sufficient sod of suitable quality for covering terrace-slopes or
small blocks that for any reason cannot well be seeded is often a
difficult matter. In the accompanying illustration we show how a surface
of sod may be used to good advantage over a larger area than its real
measurement represents. This is done by laying the sods, cut in strips
from six to ten inches wide, in lines and cross-lines, and after
filling the spaces with good soil, sowing these spaces with grass-seed.
Should the catch of seed for any reason be poor, the sod of the strips
will tend to spread over the spaces between them, and failure to obtain
a good sward within a reasonable time is almost out of the question.
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
grass 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 grass. 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 decumbent 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: 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 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.

_Trenching and subsoiling._

[Illustration: 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.

[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.]

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.

[Illustration: 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 pass 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.

[Illustration: 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 passing 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 masses. 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: 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.

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

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 89. Spike-tooth and spring-tooth cultivators.]

[Illustration: Fig. 90. Good type of wheel-hoe.]

[Illustration: Fig. 91. A single-blade wheel-hoe.]

[Illustration: Fig. 92. Double wheel-hoe, useful in straddling the row.]

For still smaller areas, in which horses cannot be used and which are
still too large for tilling wholly by means of hoes and rakes, various
types of wheel-hoes may be used. These implements are now made in great
variety of patterns, to suit any taste and almost any kind of tillage.
For the best results, it is essential that the wheel should be large and
with a broad tire, that it may override obstacles. Figure 90 shows an
excellent type of wheel-hoe with five blades, and Fig. 91 shows one with
a single blade and that may be used in very narrow rows. Two-wheeled
hoes (Fig. 92) are often used, particularly when it is necessary to have
the implement very steady, and the wheels may straddle the rows of low
plants. Many of these wheel-hoes are provided with various shapes of
blades, so that the implement may be adjusted to many kinds of work.
Nearly all the weeding of beds of onions and like plants can be done by
means of these wheel-hoes, if the ground is well prepared in the
beginning; but it must be remembered that they are of comparatively
small use on very hard and cloddy and stony lands.

_The saving of moisture._

The garden must have a liberal supply of moisture. The first effort
toward securing this supply should be the saving of the rainfall water.

Proper preparation and tillage put the land in such condition that it
holds the water of rainfall. Land that is very hard and compact may shed
the rainfall, particularly if it is sloping and if the surface is bare
of vegetation. If the hard-pan is near the surface, the land cannot hold
much water, and any ordinary rainfall may fill it so full that it
overflows, or puddles stand on the surface. On land in good tilth, the
water of rainfall sinks away, and is not visible as free water.

As soon as the moisture begins to pass from the superincumbent
atmosphere, evaporation begins from the surface of the land. Any body
interposed between the land and the air checks this evaporation; this is
why there is moisture underneath a board. It is impracticable, however,
to floor over the garden with boards, but any covering will have similar
effect, but in different degree. A covering of sawdust or leaves or dry
ashes will prevent the loss of moisture. So will a covering of dry
earth. Now, inasmuch as the land is already covered with earth, it only
remains to loosen up a layer or stratum on top in order to secure
the mulch.

All this is only a roundabout way of saying that frequent shallow
surface tillage conserves moisture. The comparatively dry and loose
mulch breaks up the capillary connection between the surface soil and
the under soil, and while the mulch itself may be useless as a foraging
ground for roots, it more than pays its keep by its preventing of the
loss of moisture; and its own soluble plant-foods are washed down into
the lower soil by the rains.

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.]

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.

[Illustration: 94. To illustrate poor preparation of ground.]

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.

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Turkey is restoring the citizenship of its most famous 20th century poet Nazim Hikmet over 50 years after it branded him a traitor.

Hikmet, a communist who died in exile in Moscow in 1963, was imprisoned in Turkey for more than a decade. He was stripped of his Turkish nationality in 1951 because of his communist views, but despite a ban on his poetry which remained in place until 1965, has remained one of Turkey's best-loved poets. His work, much of which was written in prison, including his masterpiece Human Landscapes, has been translated into more than 50 languages.

"This is very good news," said Richard McKane, Hikmet's English translator. "The restoration of his Turkish citizenship is long overdue: the people of Turkey and his readers are owed that."

Immortalised by Pablo Neruda, with whom he shared the Soviet Union's International Peace Prize in 1950, with the lines "Thanks for what you were and for the fire / which your song left forever burning", Hikmet was also supported by Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, when given the editorship for a day of Turkish newspaper Radikal two years ago, used the example of Hikmet in his cover story to criticise the lack of freedom of expression in Turkey. In 2000, 500,000 Turks petitioned the government to restore Hikmet's citizenship rights and repatriate his remains.

Deputy prime minister Cemil Cicek told the Associated Press that it was time for the government to change its mind about Hikmet. "The crimes which forced the government to strip him of his citizenship at that time are no longer considered a crime," the BBC quoted him as saying.

Hikmet, whose remains are currently in Russia, had said that he wished to be buried in Turkey in his 1953 poem Testament, translated by Ruth Christie. "Friends if it's not my lot to see the day / of independence... / if I die before that day / - and it seems I will - / bury me in a village graveyard in Anatolia / and if it's fitting / and a plane tree grows at my head, / then there's no need for a gravestone or anything else."

Cicek said that Hikmet's family would now decide whether to ship his remains back to his homeland.

Hikmet introduced free verse to Turkey in the 1930s, with his themes ranging from war to love. Despite his imprisonment he retained a deep passion for Turkey. "I love my country", he wrote in one of his poems. "I swung in its lofty trees, I lay in its prisons. Nothing relieves my depression like the songs and tobacco of my country."

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