232 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



as my gardening has not been very extensive and not particularly 

 commercial. 



Each year when I begin my gardening my intentions are to 

 sell sufficient vegetables to cover the entire expense of the garden. 

 But I usually do quite a good deal more than that. As a rule, my 

 garden pays for the sugar used during the fruit season, and 

 furnishes the groceries through the summer months for my family 

 of six. Besides what I use and sell, I give away plants, and share 

 the vegetables with those neighbors who have no gardens. My 

 special efforts are for the extra early garden and for the very 

 late one. 



The usual time for putting in tomatoes is about the tenth 

 of May, or after all danger of frost is over. My experience is that 

 they can be started earlier than this. One spring I noticed a lot 

 of volunteer tomato plants and began to take special care of them. 

 I put out some hotbed plants at once, some the same size and some 

 twice the size of the volunteers. I worked the plants just alike, 

 but the hotbed plants were most all chilled to death. The few that 

 did stand the wind and chill were far behind the volunteer tomatoes, 

 which were not affected by frost and chill any more than the grass 

 and plants about them. From this I got an idea for the next 

 year's garden which enabled me to have the earliest garden and the 

 first tomatoes in my neighborhood. 



I fertilize my garden heavily, and plant the tomato seed just 

 where I want them to grow. If very cold, I turn a glass jar over 

 the seed until they begin to sprout. I leave the best plants in the 

 hills and transplant the others. These plants, which have not been 

 disturbed, yield their fruit a week or ten days earlier than the 

 transplanted ones. Tomatoes that are grown rapidly, or forced, 

 are much more perfect in shape and flavor. 



I have but little trouble with cauliflower, which I manage to 

 have for the market both very early and very late. The early 

 cauliflower must be planted very early, in order to mature properly 

 before the hot weather begins. Several times I have had cauli- 

 flower for sale as late as the latter part of October. To do this, 

 I put out the plants late in the spring, care for them just enough to 

 let them live, until about the middle of September, when we have 

 cool weather again. I then begin to cultivate it, and soon I have 

 plenty of beautiful white, crispy heads. 



My experience is that early and late gardens are the only ones 

 that are commercially profitable. Like the "early bird that catches 

 the worm," so is the gardner who first tempts the public with his 



