Occupations > Abercrombie's improved practical gardener; with a monthly calendar for the flower garden

INTRODUCTION.
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tion, or exposure of soils to the atmosphere,
greatly improves them, as is experienced by its
use in compost heaps, aud in winter and summer
ridging and trenching. — Ridging is applicable
either to dug or trenched ground, and when
finished, the surface, instead of being an even
one, lies in ridges or close parallel elevations,
the sections of which form nearly equilateral
triangles, connected at their bases; thus double
the spacq of surface is exposed to the influence
of the atmosphere and weather than in even
surfaces. — Trenching is applicable to all soils,
and is performed with two views: first, for mix¬
ing and pulverizing the soil, and secondly, for
changing its surface. Gardeners and cultivators
are frequently heard to complain of their ground
being as it were worn out and will not produce
certain kinds of vegetables, not that it is poor,
or its' nature unfit for them, but that it has
become tired of these crops, from their being
grown upon it for several successive years, not¬
withstanding that manures had been regularly
applied..
The best method with which I am acquainted
for the conservation of the fertility of the soil
is this: to take three crops off the first surface,
and then trench the ground three spits deep,
which operation is performed by first opening
a trench two or three feet wide, carrying the
soil so taken out to the end, where it is intended
to finish the plot; then another strip the same
width is to be begun, and one spit of the top
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