"But won't he spoil the garden?" Mab wanted to know.

"He's just starting to make it," Uncle Pennywait answered. "Didn't Daddy
Blake tell you that the ground must be plowed or chopped up, and then
finely pulverized or smoothed, so the seeds would grow better?"

"Oh, yet, so he did," Hal said.

"Well, this is the first start of making a garden," went on Uncle
Pennywait. "The ground must be plowed or spaded. Spading is all right for
a small garden, but when you have a large one, or a farm, you must use a
plow."

Mr. Blake owned a large yard back of his house, and next door, on the
other side from where the new Porter family lived, was a large vacant
lot. The children's father had hired this lot to use as part of his
garden.

Hal and Mab watched the man plowing. He held the two curved handles of the
plow, and it was the sharp steel "share" of this that they had seen
shining in the sun as it cut through the brown soil. A plow cuts through
the soil as the horses pull it after them, and it is so shaped that the
upper part of the earth is turned over, bringing up to the top, where the
sun can shine on it, the underneath part. The undersoil is richer and
better for seeds to start growing in than the upper part, where the rain
may wash away the plant-food things that are needed to make a good garden.

"But Daddy said the ground had to be SMOOTH to make a garden," said Mab.
"The plowing man is making it all ROUGH."