THE KITCHEN GAEDEN. 



largest, wMcli strange to say tliey generally do. The great error is in sowing too 

 miieli seed at once. The amateur who merely looks to a family supply, should sow a 

 very small quantity at a time, and repeat it every week, or oftener as long as radishes 

 are wanted. Then they should be used the moment they are fit. When a large bed 

 is sown at once, three-fourths of them have to be thrown away ; in fact only two or 

 three dishes are secured in a proper state. This point, we repeat, deserves the utmost 

 attention. We frequently hear people say, " we have so many vegetables that we are 

 at a loss liow to dispose of them," when the truth is they have scarcely anything but 

 what should be thrown to the hogs. Finally, in the kitchen garden everything must 

 grow with rapidity and luxuriance. The seed must be good to vegetate quickly and 

 produce plants with a sound and vigorous constitution. Old and poor seeds, with a 

 half extinguished vitality, will produce such weakly and delicate plants that the most 

 generous treatment will fail to bring them to perfection. See then that your seeds are 

 large of their kinds, full and plump. Then the soil must be warm, and moist, and rich. 

 Rich it must be, or you may as well throw your seeds on the way-side. It must also 

 be kept clean and mellow, or friable. Weeding and hoeing are two operations that 

 require daily attention. Weeds, even if small, absorb the food and moisture that be- 

 long to the crops, and the absence of the hoe soon shows itself in a crusty surface 

 that interrupts the free process of growth. Kitchen garden plants are not like trees, 

 that can send their powerful woody roots in all directions in search of food ; their roots 

 are delicate and fibrous, great feeders, requiring abundant, exhaustless supplies. The 

 lettuce and cabbage tribe are especially food of good living and cannot do without. 

 No matter what sort of lettuce you may plant upon poor soil, depend upon it it will 

 lack that icy crispness and delicacy of flavor that constitutes its chief excellence. A 

 liquid manure tank is one of the necessities of the kitchen garden, and its contents 

 should be fi'eely and frequently applied. Any soluble manure may be used with rain 

 water. Guano, when other manures are scarce, may be advantageously employed. A 

 bag of fifty or one hundred pounds will be as good as several loads of manure, and it 

 is so portable that it may be conveyed one thousand miles at a trifling cost. It is so 

 easily applied too ; a handful thrown into a pail or tub of rain water and dissolved, 

 will make a capital stimulant for growing plants. 



It is not necessary, nor can we spare the space, to enter into all the minutiae of op- 

 perations. Our purpose at present is to direct attention to the principles that should 

 regulate the management of the kitchen garden, and to enforce the adoption of a 

 system, without which no cultivation can be pleasant, creditable, or profitable. We 

 must mention two or three fine things that are particularly worthy of attention. Our 

 colored plate for this month exhibits — 



1. The Early Oval Rose radish, the best for forcing and for an early crop that we 

 have ever seen. They should be eaten when about the size figured in the plate. They 

 attain maturity, or at least a proper size for use much quicker than the common Early 

 Frame or Long Scarlet, which answer very well in the open ground later in the season. 



2. The new Chinese Rose Winter radish, far superior in appearance as well as in 

 tenderness and delicacy to any other winter sort, and keeps well 



