242 "Wisconsin State Hobticultueal Societt. 



stronger working force, and the society placed upon a basi* 

 that will secure its perpetuity and increase its efficiency for good. 



L. W. Brigham, 



Secretarj/. 



GAKDENING FOR FARMERS. 



John S. Harris, La Crescent, Minnesota. 



The real luxuries of life are the products of the garden. In 

 vegetables, they are the early salads, asparagus, green peas, snap 

 beans, Lima beans, cauliflower, etc.; in fruits, strawberries, rasp- 

 berries, currants, blackberries and grapes. It requires but a 

 little land to raise an ample supply of each of these in their 

 season, for family use, the year round. The farmer has the 

 land to spare, and the leisure to plant and cultivate it. and many 

 people believe him to be a good liver. This is a mistake; at 

 least here in the west, the farmers, as a class, are very poor liv- 

 ers. Instead of consuming the largest amount of fruit and 

 vegetables, the truth is that those who dwell in villages and 

 cities use largely more of them than the same number of farm- 

 ers. The every-day living of our average farmer is bread, meat 

 and potatoes (and the meat means salt pork), with coffee at 

 breakfast, tea at supper, and dried apple pie, sometimes, for din- 

 ner, varied with an occasional boiled dinner of pork, cabbage, 

 turnips and potatoes, or pork and beans. One-half of them 

 have no garden, or at best only a patch set off in the corner of 

 some grain field, which is overrun with weeds. Some have a 

 place set apart for the purpose, but put off planting it until the 

 bulk of the farm crops are in, thereby making it too late to se- 

 cure any early vegetables of the kinds that require early plant- 

 ing, and thus the garden proves to be a failure. The peas . 

 mildew, the onions are only scullions, heat and drouth have 

 spoiled the cabbage, the frost nips the tomatoes, and the 

 calves are often turned in there to wean them. And 

 usually, where we find a comparatively good garden, it is 

 due to the skill and labor of an already overworked wife. 

 The reason usually given for being without one is that they 

 have no time to attend to it. With many, the true reason 



