Excerpt from The Lawn and House Plants The first thing to be done in the garden is to spade up the beds as early in the season as the ground can be worked to advantage. This does not mean, however, as soon as the snow is gone, or the frost is out of the ground. You cannot work soil advantageously until the water from melting snows and early rains has drained out of it sufficiently to leave it somewhat mellow and friable. As long as it is wet, let it alone. But as soon as it can be spaded up without clinging to the spade like a mass of putty, dig up the beds. And let the sun and wind get at the earth you throw out of them. In a short time evaporation will take place, and you will find it an easy matter to pulverize the soil into mellowness by the use of the hoe and a sharp-toothed iron rake. Work it over and over until there are no clods in it. There is no danger of working it too much. The finer it is, the better plants you will be likely to grow in it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.