236 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Experience has been handed in from every quarter. The professional have tried 

 it for recreation, the invalid for health, the poor for sustenance, and the scientific 

 to satisfy curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Even the humorous Charles Dudley 

 Warner and his toad have done their part, that our knowledge of garden manage- 

 ment may be increased. 



I have not referred to the writings of this humorous gentleman just to make 

 you smile. I believe he has taught us a lesson that most writers have entirely 

 overlooked. He pictures so vividly the fun of the diflferent operations, such as 

 getting ^up in advance of the sun to sprinkle ashes over hills of cucumber stumps, 

 gnawed almost to the ground by the festive flea-beetle and so called squash-bug, 

 and enumerates sundry other comforts of the home where the garden is. He shows 

 you how it is quicker to plani your garden on soddy, ill-prepared land, than to stop 

 to work the clods out when your seeds ought already to be germinated. Then he 

 paints, so truly, the mid-summer condition, where poor, weak plants are doing 

 thpir best to get out between the sod, and despite all your eiforts and back-aches in 

 a scalding sun, you can't keep down the burdocks and fire-weeda that delight in sod 

 and grow strangely productive. 



In short, he goes far toward exploding the commonly accepted theory that 

 every one should have a garden, and leads to the conclusion that a vegetable patch 

 is not, necessarily, a thing of beauty or a joy for ever. So the lesson I would learn, 

 Mr. Warner is to hesitate before urging every one to have a garden. 1 am con- 

 vinced that some of us have not the time to properly prepare one, or to maintain 

 continual ^contemplation of the numerous ills that blast our cauliflower and our 

 hopes, if we are not ever on the alert to prevent, rather than cure, their effects. 

 If one concludes to have a garden, it pays to have a good one — not a large one, 

 but a good one. A small piece of land well drained, well fertilized, thoroughly and 

 deeply worked, and covered at all times jwith some growing crop, is the ideal. 

 This necessitates always having on hand some plants ;of the proper kind and size, 

 or perhaps some seeds, to take the place of each variety as it is removed. It is bet- 

 ter to rotate crops on a small area, by succeeding early crops with late ones, than 

 to cultivate a larger space, and devote each portion to but one variety for the 

 season. 



Just so many sorts should be selected as can be properly cared for. The num- 

 ber of well-known and commonly cultivated vegetables is large, and it is seldom 

 we see a garden that contains anything like a complete list of even the most useful 

 sorts. The list of kinds grown should each year be increased. It is not best to 

 try too many new sorts all at once, without a very definite idea of their culture or 

 their uses ; but each new vegetable tried should be made a study until it can be 

 successfully grown and used. In this way a great many vegetables that we have 

 formerly appreciated but little are brought into favor and become almost indispen- 

 sable. 



Attention to the varieties of each kind of vegetable is also important. For- 

 merly much less attention was paid to originating strains which possess certain 

 fixed qualities than is the case today. With some growers, even a cucumber was a 

 cucumber, and a tomato was a tomato, regardless of the qualities possessed. Now, 

 however, the trade demands that the seedsman select his varieties according to a 

 fixed type, so the buyer may procure seed with reasonable certainty of securing 

 the qualities desired. Seed catalogues should be studied and compared, not for 

 the purpose of grasping every novelty that appears, but that those sorts generally 

 recognized as standards may be selected for general planting. 



