SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS. 369 



No garden ever reaches its zenith as an economizer which has 

 not in it a strawberry bed. It need not be a large one, but it will 

 save more fifteen cents, York shillings, dimes and nickels, than 

 any other known piece of earth of its size. The old parsnips, 

 too, such as our Holland Dutch ancestors grew and absorbed on 

 the shore of the Zuyder Zee, with turnips on the ground used for 

 early vegetables, are not to be left out. 



As for potatoes, we try to plant enough to last until the high 

 prices of the new crop have gone by ; then trust to others to 

 raise our supply for winter. 



Celery has grown to be a necessity, and we must raise it, or 

 pay so much for it that it cuts us short in something else. I 

 wish some one who knows just how would give us a season's 

 lessons in growing and handling it. 



At least one quarter of the plat should be kept for flowers. 

 There should be room for beds of nasturtions, verbenas, phlox, 

 tulips and pansies, and four-o'clocks, such as our grandmothers 

 used to cultivate, and the dahlias, eutoccas, gypsopilas, and all 

 the other things which flower lovers have invented and im- 

 ported, should have a place; especially, you cannot affiord to 

 leave out the tube-rose, a few years since such a rarity, now 

 as easily propagated and cultivated as a bed of onions. 



Such is the village garden when reasonably handled, and from 

 it a family of four or five can gather all the vegetables and 

 small fruits which it needs during the year. Do you ask 

 where the economy comes in? 



First, It takes up, absorbs and utilizes all the kitchen and 

 chamber slops of the household, which otherwise are a trouble 

 to dispose of, and which, if not properly cared for, are liable to 

 become a nuisance and breeders of disease, especially during the 

 summer months. If properly distributed the slops of an ordi- 

 nary sized family will furnish all the fertilizing needed for the 

 village garden. 



Second, The family which has in its own garden a continuous 

 succession of seasonable small fruits and vegetables, forms the 

 habit of eating them more freely than when it depends upon 

 the vegetable peddler for its supply, and so saves not only the 

 dollar or more which it would pay to him each week, but also 

 cuts down the bills at the butcher shop and the grocery store. 



Third, It saves the often over-worked house wife the bother 

 of the vegetable cart being late, or having sold out just the thing 

 she wanted for dinner. 



Fourth, It saves pantaloons and time, for the man who has a 

 good vegetable and flower garden becomes interested in it, and 

 instead of being obliged to sit around town and tell and hear of 

 his neighbor's faults and shortcomings, finds something to take 

 up the hours after his day's work in the shop or elsewhere is- 

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