1 86 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



the same ])ractice will apply also to successful fl^rming, for it is an excess 

 of water in the soil that more often destroys the hopes of the farmer 

 than drought. Drought scares the farmer, but water destroys his hopes. 

 This remarkably dry season has done more to satisfy me of the truth of 

 this proposition than all other years of my life put together; and if you 

 ^vill allow me to diverge for a moment, I will state why. 



The spring opened, in Livingston County, after a dry fall and winter, 

 with but little rain, enabling the farmer to get in his crops in good con- 

 dition. From the eighth of April until September we had but three 

 light showers, neither of them moistening the soil to a greater depth 

 than three inches; but, nevertheless, upon our deep foil plowing, we had 

 a good crop of corn and a good crop of beets. The land retained its 

 friability in a most unusual manner, and, if my obsei^vation is not at 

 fault, is owing to the fact that the soil being, from its dryness in the 

 spring, open and porous, has remained so during the season from the 

 absence of beating rains falling faster than the soil can filter them. It 

 is water running over or standing upon the surface that renders the soil 

 compact and impermeable to atmospheric influences. If thoroughly 

 drained, either naturally or artificially, this could not take place. But to 

 return to my subject. 



Imagine the site for the garden selected as near the house as possible. 

 We will take a parallelogram ten rods wide by sixteen rods long. This 

 will make just an acre. We will divide it into three equal portions, each 

 five and a third rods by ten rods. A roadway should enter from one 

 side, at the center of the middle plat (or half the length of the garden), 

 parting at two and a quarter rods from point of entrance, and surround- 

 ing a circular plat in the center, letting the outer edge of the roadways 

 just touch the inner line of either of the other plats. The point of 

 emergence will then be exactly opposite the entrance, and the circle 

 enclosed by the roadway will be sixty-seven feet in diameter (the road- 

 way being ten feet wide). This circular central plat is to be dedicated 

 to the ladies of the household for a floral department, and may be laid 

 out in a variety of forms to accord with their tastes. • 



The four corners, cut oft' by the roadway and between it and each 

 of the other oblong plats, are to be used for hot-beds, asparagus, rhubarb, 

 currants, and gooseberries. Now we have two-thirds of the acre for the 

 vegetable garden, divided into plats of one-third of an acre each. As 

 they are in two " lands," each five and a third by ten rods, they are easily 

 plowed. The plowing may be done by commencing in the middle and 

 backfurrowing, leaving the single last furrow outside, not next the fence 

 or barrier, for I would leave a strip and plant a row of blackberries, 

 raspberries, or dwarf fruit trees there, and the furrow into which all the 

 lumps and trash might be raked would be next them. 



But soine might object to plowing in a garden, and with considerable 

 reason too. In these cases let them divide the oblong plats into squares 

 by walks, and they will have four squares, containing nearly one-sixth 

 of an acre each; and the borders of the walks may be planted with cur- 

 rants and gooseberries, and the portions previously set apart for them 



