WINTER MEETING. 171 



TBE KITCHEN GARDEN. 



BY MBS. WM. H. BASS, COLUMBIA. 



God first planted a garden and said it was good, and thus glorified it witli His 

 approbation for all the ages. It has ever afforded man the purest of human pleas- 

 ures and been both elevating and ennobling in its influence and teaching. In hav- 

 ing assigned to me the subject of "A Kitchen Garden," I am happy in that it had 

 so good an origin, and that it is so nearly and appropriately identified with woman 

 the whole country over. I have indeed derived great pleasure from my associa- 

 tion with it, and am here to both advocate and urge upon my sisters a close atten- 

 tion to its pleasures and usefulness. 



The kitchen garden, I understand, means that spot of ground where woman, 

 if she will, may rule supreme, and by her supremacy, her patience and frugality, 

 afford comforts and delicacies for her family, and in a measure lift the community 

 from the dead level of bread and meat, or the time-honored and much-abused 

 "pork and beans," to something higher and more soul-satisfying in the vast realm 

 of nature in the garden. I take it to mean something above and beyond the "truck 

 patch," in which the lords of creation on odd days may plow in a few rows of corn 

 or beans or potatoes, there to remain at the mercy of stray hours of adventitious 

 work, or to leave them to their own sweet will to come to nothingness, and the 

 most unthrifty and untidy spot on the farm, overgrown with weeds and brambles, 

 a harbor for vermin and a menace to health. 



The Kitchen Garden should be a model of neatness. It should be laid off in 

 beds and borders, the paths should be kept scrupulously clean of weeds and in 

 good order. There should be a strict adherance to the idea of utility, both in 

 laying it out, in planting and in conducting it. Care should be taken and judg- 

 ment exercised in planting, so that sunshine might be afforded to the crops need- 

 ing it, and shade to those not wanting the sun ; and then, too, some beds that are 

 often visited might be so placed as to be handily gotten to and at. Some plants 

 need moisture, others a dry soil, and both can be accommodated if one plans 

 aright. 



It is customary to devote the Kitchen Garden to fruits, vegetables and flow- 

 ers ; but unless one has a wide space, I do not think it wise, except for small fruits, 

 the berries and the like ; and these should be so distributed as to be both useful 

 and ornamental. Thus hedges of blackberries, raspberries and gooseberries might 

 be made to hide unsightly views and to break the force of north and west winds, 

 without shutting out the sunlight. There are many flowers that never seem so 

 couch at home as among their cousins, the vegetables. I refer to the hardy bulbs, 

 most of the annuals, and such old favorites as the cabbage rose, the cornflower, 

 hollyhocks, the ragged pinks and many others which bloom but once in the sea- 

 son, but whose beauty anc^ charming loveliness take us back to our grandmother's 

 garden, so dear to the memory of us all, that it almost seems like being recreant to 

 a sacred trust to refuse them admittance or neglect to care for them. 



Then there are the useful herbs which, though not perhaps called for every 

 day, or of every-day use. are yet useful in their place when called for, and call for 

 a little space in every well-regulated garden. Of these I may mention sage, pars- 

 ley, tansy, calamus, and a numbar of others which here and there have their pre- 

 ferences. 



