A FEW WORDS ON THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 



443 



sandy districts, there are often valleys and 

 low places, quite near the kitchen garden, 

 where a good stock of clay lies, (perhaps 

 quite unsuspected,) ready for uses of this 

 kind. 



In the Journal of the Agricultural Society 

 of England, a case is quoted (vol ii., p. 67,) 

 where the soil was a luhite sand, varying in 

 depth from one to four feet ; it was so sterile 

 that no crops could ever be grown upon it 

 to profit. By giving it a top-dressing of 

 clay, at the rate of 150 cubic yards to the 

 acre, the whole surface of the farm so treat- 

 ed was improved to the depth of ten or 

 twelve inches, so as to give excellent crops. 

 Since a soil, once rendered more tena- 

 cious in this wa}', never loses this tenacity, 

 the improvement of the kitchen garden, 

 where economy is necessary, might be car- 

 ried on gradually, by taking one or two 

 compartments in hand every year; thus, in 

 a gradual manner, bringing the whole sur- 

 face to the desired condition. 



A great deal may also be done, as we 

 have just suggested, by a judicious system 

 of manuring very sandy soils. It is the 

 common practice to enrich these soils pre- 

 cisely like all others; that is, with the 

 lighter and more heating kinds of manures ; 

 stable dung, for example. Nothing could 

 be more injudicious. Every particle of 

 animal manure used in too light a soil ought, 

 for the kitchen garden, to be composted, for 

 some time previously, with eight or ten times 

 its bulk of strong loam or clay. In this way, 

 that change in the soil, so much to be de- 

 sired, is brought about; and the whole mass 

 of clay-compost, made in this way, is really 

 equal in value, for such sandy soils, to the 

 same bulk of common stable manure. 



Whatever the soil of a kitchen garden, 

 our experience has taught us that it should 

 be deep. It is impossible that the steady and 

 uniform moisture at the roots, indispensa- 



ble to the continuous growth of many crops, 

 during the summer months, can be main- 

 tained in a soil which is only 07ie spade deep. 

 Hence, we would trench or subsoil-plough 

 all kitchen gardens, (taking care, first, that 

 they are well drained,) whether sandy or 

 clayey in texture. We know that many 

 persons, judging from theory rather than 

 practice, cannot see the value of deepening 

 soils already too porous. But we have seen 

 its advantages strongly marked in more 

 than one instance, and therefore recommend 

 it with confidence. It is only necessary to 

 examine light soils, trenched and untrench- 

 ed, to be convinced of this. The roots in 

 the former penetrate and gather nourish- 

 ment from twice the cubic area that they do 

 in the former; and they are not half so 

 easily affected by the atmospheric changes 

 of temperature. 



Old gardens, that have been long culti- 

 vated, are greatly improved by trenching 

 and reversing the strata of soil. The inor- 

 ganic elements, or mineral food, of plants 

 often become so much exhausted, in long 

 cultivated kitchen gardens, that only infe- 

 rior crops can be raised, even with abun- 

 dant supplies of animal manures. By turn- 

 ing up the virgin loam of the subsoil, and 

 exposing it to the action of the atmosphere, 

 its gradual decomposition takes place, and 

 fresh supplies of lime, potash, etc., are af- 

 forded for the vigorous growth of plants. 



We have only room for a single hint 

 more, touching the kitchen garden. This 

 is, to recommend the annual use of salt, in 

 moderate quantities, sown broadcast over 

 the whole garden early in the spring, and 

 more especially on those quarters of it where 

 vegetables are to be planted which are most 

 liable to the attacks of insects that harbor in 

 the earth. We are satisfied that salt, 

 spread in this way, before vegetation has 

 commenced, or the earth is broken up for 



