There is always a great deal for the watcher to do in the nature of comment on the soil.  This is especially true if it is a new garden or has never been cultivated before by the present owner.  The idea is to keep the owner from becoming too sanguine over the prospects.

“That soil looks pretty clayey,” is a good thing to say. (It is hard to say, clearly, too.  You had better practise it before trying it out on the gardener).

“I don’t think that you’ll have much luck with potatoes in that kind of earth,” is another helpful approach.  It is even better to go at it the other way, finding out first what the owner expects to plant.  It may be that he isn’t going to plant any potatoes, and then there you are, stuck with a perfectly dandy prediction which has no bearing on the case.  It is time enough to pull it after he has told you that he expects to plant peas, beans, beets, corn.  Then you can interrupt him and say:  “Corn?” incredulously.  “You don’t expect to get any corn in that soil do you?  Don’t you know that corn requires a large percentage of bi-carbonate of soda in the soil, and I don’t think, from the looks, that there is an ounce of soda bi-carb. in your whole plot.  Even if the corn does come up, it will be so tough you can’t eat it.”

Then you can laugh, and call out to a neighbor, or even to the man’s wife:  “Hey, what do you know?  Steve here thinks he’s going to get some corn up in this soil!”

The watcher will find plenty to do when the time comes to pick the stones out of the freshly turned-over earth.  It is his work to get upon a high place where he can survey the whole garden and detect the more obvious rocks.

“Here is a big fella over here, Steve,” he may say.  Or:  “Just run your rake a little over in that corner.  I’ll bet you’ll find a nest of them there.”

“Plymouth Rock” is a funny thing to call any particularly offensive boulder, and is sure to get a laugh, especially if you kid the digger good-naturedly about being a Pilgrim and landing on it.  He may even give it to you to keep.

Just as a matter of convenience for the worker, watchers have sometimes gone to the trouble of keeping count of the number of stones thrown out.  This is done by shouting out the count after each stone has been tossed.  It makes a sort of game of the thing, and in this spirit the digger may be urged on to make a record.

“That’s forty-eight, old man!  Come on now, make her fifty.  Attaboy, forty-nine!  Only one more to go.  We-want-fifty-we-want-fifty-we-want fifty.”

And not only stones will be found, but queer objects which have got themselves buried in the ground during the winter-months and have become metamorphosed, so they are half way between one thing and another.  As the digger holds one of these objets dirt gingerly between his thumb and forefinger the watcher has plenty of opportunity to shout out: 

“You’d better save that.  It may come in handy some day.  What is it, Eddie?  Your old beard?”