Chapter XIII: Billy Tests the Soil

“DO you suppose, Professor—I mean Billy—do you imagine we can keep the garden a secret?”

The early Spring day was so lovely that the children were sitting in the summer house.

“I guess the folks will suspect something,” answered Billy, “when they see us digging and spading, but they won’t for a moment think of all we’re planning to do.”

“They can’t help seeing things grow,” Billy went on, “but how little they’ll expect you to come in some day with radishes and lettuce from your own garden.”

“You’re just like Feather Flop!” exclaimed Mary Frances.

“Well, I like that!”

“I mean,” Mary Frances caught her breath, “I mean you think only of the vegetables, and forget that I will bring in a beautiful bouquet of flowers for the table.”

“Oh, to be sure,” nodded Billy, “but you won’t have either unless we begin the next lesson. The first thing after making out the list, so our professor told us, is to understand about the soil. He said that after knowing what to plant, we must learn how to plant. So let us go have a look at the soil near the play house.”

In front of the play house, Billy caught up a handful of earth.

“Listen, Mary Frances,” he said, earnestly, “let us examine this closely. To test the soil is the most important point in gardening, as you will readily see after you have heard—

GARDEN LESSON No. 3

TESTING THE SOIL

There are very few places where the soil is “just
right” for plants.

In order to find out what kind of soil is in your
garden, you may make a little test by squeezing some
tight in your hand.

Almost any soil, if very damp, will “hold together;”
that is, if a handful is squeezed, it will stay in the
shape of the hand, so do not make the test until two or
three days after a rain, when it will be quite dry.

CLAYEY SOIL

If, in a couple of days after a rain, the soil is
sticky, something like putty, and a squeezed handful
holds together, and shows the marks of your fingers, it
is clayey soil.

Now, if the soil in your garden is clayey, it will
never, never do for plant babies. No indeed!

You see, it holds so close together that the little
roots cannot push it apart, and cannot grow. So to
clayey soil you must add something which will lighten
it up; like sand, or even coal ashes, or stable manure
which contains a large quantity of straw.

Deep digging and forking help a lot, too, in breaking
up the tight hold which clay grains have upon each
other. Sometimes that in itself will make the clay
sufficiently light.

SANDY SOIL

Little plant babies are so delicate that a very sandy
bed would not do for them either, for a rain might wash
away the soil from their roots.

All plants are very particular, and grow best if their
bed is “just right.”

So, if in a couple of days after a rain, a squeezed
handful of your garden soil will not hold together at
all, and sifts through your fingers, heavier material
must be added.

A little clay worked into the sand and run over with a
roller helps; but there is something even better—it is
stable manure.

HUMUS

Stable manure[C] not only helps hold sandy soil
together and lightens clayey soils, but it contains a
very great deal of plant food in the form of humus, and
without humus all the other plant food in the soil is
of very little value to the plant.

WHAT HUMUS IS

I know you are going to ask me what humus is; but first
I want to ask you to think what the soil is. Yes, dirt,
that is right; but dirt came from where?

For the most part from broken and crumbled-up rock, for
this earth was once nearly all of rock.

But dirt or soil is not only rotten and broken and
crumbled-up rock, as you will see in one minute.

Do you remember how the leaves fell off the tree last
Autumn, and how the grass died down? What became of the
leaves and grass?

They died, yes, and turned into leaf mold, which is one
form of humus.

You have guessed right, Mary Frances. Humus is decayed
vegetable matter.

WHAT HUMUS DOES

Humus mixed with water makes humus soup, which is the
very best kind of plant food, and the plant babies love
it. They drink it through their roots, you know.

Not only does humus help with the matter of food, but
it holds moisture in the soil, and in some almost magic
way makes other plant food into a form which the plant
can use.

Of course, you wish to give your plants the best kind
of food, and of course you will want humus.

But suppose you cannot readily get stable manure, or
leaf mold from the woods, why then, you can make humus.
Every day the very things you need to make humus may be
going to waste.

TO MAKE A COMPOST HEAP

Save all the vegetable tops, leaves, grass, etc. Pile
them up and let them decay. When decayed, they are
humus.

Another way to make a compost heap is to dig grass sods
about eight inches square, and make them into a pile
about two feet high, with layers of earth and manure
between, and let stand in the weather to decay. Turn
over when decayed. When wanted for use, cut some down,
knock apart and spread.

You have heard of sowing rye or oats, and “ploughing
the crop under” to enrich the soil; this makes humus
out of the green rye or oats and their roots.

The plant baby and big plants, too, need many different
kinds of food, but the most important is humus.

FOOTNOTE:

[C] Manure should be well rotted, otherwise plants cannot make use of it, for they must have food that has been “broken down,” so that the plant roots can take up what they need.

Manure that is rotted has been piled up and left out in the weather with a board or two for cover to shed water. The pile has been turned over once a month, and dampened when dry.