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.
[CHAPTER XIV]
How to Plant
“OH, yes,” continued Billy “I’m going to tell you how the plants eat, and why they are so fond of plant-food soup, and why they like bones (of course, for soup! that is right); but I think you would prefer that story later on, and would rather talk now about—