STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 133 



The report of G. W. Tindall, of Upper Alton, of Committee on 

 Vegetable Gardening, was read by the Secretary: 



VEGETABLE GARDENIJ^IG. 



^fr. President and Members of the Illinois State Horticultural 

 Society : 



The year's work is nearly completed, the crops are harvested, 

 and both the soil which yields so bountifully, and the farmer 

 or gardener who has so long l)een keeping up a constant warfare to 

 produce and secure his crops, may now have a season of rest. While 

 enjoving this peaceful repose, the calculation and preparation for 

 next year's warfare should be going on. Now is the time to decide 

 what should be grown next summer and where you are to grow it. 

 The garden is the most important appendage to many of the sub- 

 stantial comforts and some of the most refined luxuries of human 

 sustenance. Its cultivation furnishes a source of health, pleasure, 

 and economy, whicli may be enjoyed by every industrious owner of 

 a few rods of ground, who can devote a little time between his hours 

 of l)usiness or labor to this delightful employment. If this occu- 

 pation and the extent of his enclosure will not allow him to indulge 

 his taste for fruit and flowers, he may take much pleasure and derive 

 great profit from the management of the vegetable garden alone. 

 Of all occupations the growing of small fruit, flowers and vegetables 

 is the one which best combines repose and activity. It is not idle- 

 ness, it is not stagnation, and yet it is perfect quietude. Like all 

 other branches of business, in the growing of small fruits and vege- 

 tables there are many disappointments and drawbacks. Hut oven 

 in the most unfavurable seasons there is far more to reward and en- 

 courage than to dishearten or discourage. There are but few. if 

 any, days in the year without something to afford tranquil pleasure 

 to them who diligently cultivate the soil. 



To gardeners or farmers living convenient to any city, or near 

 any of the great lines of thoroughfares leading into large cities, 

 where high prices may be obtained for all early vegetables, the 

 potato crop commends itself as one which may be profitably grown. 

 When the ground is suitaljle, or proper manures are ap))lied to make 

 it so, with thorough cultivation good crops may be calculated upon 

 with a great deal of certainty, and if grown so as to come into 

 market early, they furnish pocket money when it is agreealde to 

 have. The past season I planted several new varieties of potatoes to 

 determine the yield and earliness of them compared with the well- 

 knowu variety, Pearly Oliio; all making a strouger growtli of vines 

 than the Ohio, but no imi)rovement on this variety as regards earli- 

 ness. The varieties ])laiited were Early Ohio, Early Gem, Early 

 Eclectic, Early Harvest. Early Sunrise, and Lee's Early Favorite. 



