STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 31 



A'EGETABLE GARDEXIXG. 

 BY AXDREW WASHBURN. 



}/!)•. President and }r('mbers of the Illinois Horticultural Societt/: 



In compliance with your Secretary's request for an article upon 

 ^' Vegetable Gardening,*' I have written the following few items 

 from a gardener's " way of looking at it," at the same time thinking 

 that he who grows vegetables '' only for home use " may gather 

 from it something that may be helpful to him in providing for his 

 family some of the good, fresh vegetables that will add so much to 

 their health and comfort. 



To grow vegetables successfully requires very rich ground, and 

 the profits of the crop can usually be determined by the amount of 

 manure used and the previous careful preparation of the land. Par- 

 ticularly is this true of the early maturing vegetables, and land can 

 hardly be made too rich to grow early cabbage, cauliflower, onions 

 from setts for bunching, beets, etc., and the main reliance to fertil- 

 ize our land must be upon manure from the stables. This, when de- 

 composed and heavily applied, and thoroughly incorporated with the 

 «oil, gives the desired fertility to a great extent, and a good mechan- 

 ical condition to the land that well fits it for vegetable growth. 

 Added to this, I have found profit in using some good commercial 

 fertilizer to give the crops a quick and vigorous ''send-ofP." 



As the scope of an article of this kind must be necessarilv lim- 

 ited and can not cover the whole range of vegetables in all their 

 varieties, I shall speak more particular^ of early cabbage and its 

 culture as given by market-gardeners, for this is a crop second to no 

 other in importance in the market-garden : and if any gardener 

 would establish a reputation with his fellow " truckers '" as being a 

 gardener "as is a gardener" he perhaps can do it more easily by 

 making a success of growing early cabbage and celery than in any 

 other wiiv. 



Many who raise but few cabbages for family use often mani- 

 fest their surprise and seem to think that there must be some slight 

 ot hand ])erformance that enables gardeners to have cabbage in the 

 market before their plants even make a show of heading, though 

 they planted the earliest and most forward plants they could raise 

 or buy, and tended them, as they supposed, in the most approved 

 manner. 



Land, to be piantcil with cabbage, cauliflower, (»nion setts, beets, 

 etc., for the early market in summer, should be plowed in the fall. 

 and manured at the rate of not less than seventy-five to one liuii- 

 dred two-horse lojids ]»er acre of well rotted manure. In the spring 

 the same ground should have an application of some good commer- 

 cial fertilizer at the rate of one thousand pounds or more j)er acre. 

 I shall use a fertilizer that comes from our packing house, consist- 



