Manual of Gardening Part 9

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 90. Good type of wheel-hoe.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 91. A single-blade wheel-hoe.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.s from the superinc.u.mbent 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 pa.s.sing 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 ill.u.s.trations, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 93. To ill.u.s.trate 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 94. To ill.u.s.trate 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 96. A stack of gardening weapons, comprising some of Tarryer's weeding spuds and thimbles.]

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 s.p.a.ces. 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.

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-gra.s.s 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-d.a.m.nation").

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 k.n.o.bs 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 k.n.o.b to reflect upon something that has been said to her in the garden, and we shall perceive that a k.n.o.b by some other name would smell far sweeter. Moreover, trees grow large enough at the b.u.t.t to furnish all the k.n.o.bs 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....

"In a broadcast prayer of this public nature, absolute specifications would not be polite. Black walnut and b.u.t.ternut are fragrant as well as beautiful timber. Cherry is stiff, heavy, durable, and, like maple, takes a slippery polish. For fine, light handles, that the palm will stick to, b.u.t.t cuts of poplar or cottonwood cannot be excelled, yet straight-grained ash will bear more careless usage.

"The handles of Mrs. Tarryer's hoes are never perfectly straight. All the bayonet cla.s.s bend downward in use half an inch or more; all the thrust-hoe handles bend up in a regular curve (like a fiddle-bow turned over) two or three inches. Unless they are hung right, these hoes are very awkward things. When perfectly fit for one, they may not fit another; that is, a tall, keen-sighted person cannot use the hoe that is just fit for a very short one.... Curves in the handles throw centers of gravity where they belong. Good timber generally warps in a handle about right, only implement makers and babes in weeding may not know when it is made fast right side up in the hoe.

"There are plenty of thrust-hoes in market, such as they are. Some have malleable iron sockets and bows--heavier to the buyer and cheaper to the dealer--instead of wrought-iron and steel, such as is required for true worth."

Scarifiers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 98. A scarifier.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 99. Home-made scarifier.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 100. Home-made scarifier or sc.r.a.per.]

For many purposes, tools that sc.r.a.pe or scarify the surface are preferable to hoes that dig up the ground. Weeds may be kept down by cutting them off, as in walks and often in flower-beds, rather than by rooting them out. Figure 98 shows such a tool, and a home-made implement answering the same purpose is ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 99. This latter tool is easily made from strong band-iron. Another type is suggested in Fig.

100, representing a slicing-hoe made by fastening a sheet of good metal to the tines of a broken fork. The kind chiefly in the market is shown in Fig. 101.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 101. The common scarifier.]

Hand-weeders.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 102. Good hand-weeders.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 103. A hand-weeder.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 104. A finger-weeder.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 105. A small hand-weeder.]

For small beds of flowers or vegetables, hand-weeders of various patterns are essential to easy and efficient work. One of the best patterns, with long and short handles, is shown in Fig. 102. Another style, that may be made at home of hoop-iron, is drawn in Fig. 103. A finger-weeder is ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 104. In Fig. 105 a common form is shown. Many patterns of hand-weeders are in the market, and other forms will suggest themselves to the operator.

Trowels and their kind.

Small hand-tools for digging, as trowels, dibbers, and spuds, may be had of dealers. In buying a trowel it is economy to pay an extra price and secure a steel blade with a strong shank that runs through the entire length of the handle. One of these tools will last several years and may be used in hard ground, but the cheap trowels are generally hardly worth the buying. A solid wrought-iron trowel all in one piece is also manufactured, and is the most durable pattern. A steel trowel may be secured to a long handle; or the blade of a broken trowel may be utilized in the same way (Fig. 106). A very good trowel may also be made from a discarded blade of a mowing machine (Fig. 107), and it answers the purpose of a hand-weeder.