IRISH GARDENING 



VOLUME XII 



No. 13. 



Editor— J. W. Besant 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE 

 ADVANCEMENT OF HORTICULTURE AND 

 ARBORICULTURE IN IRELAND 



JANUARY 

 1917 



Food Production. 



This is a subject of vital importance at the 

 present time, and intimately concerns every 

 gardener, whether amateur or professional. The 

 production of the greatest possible quantity of 

 food material should be the aim and object of 

 every person who has the smallest plot of ground 

 available. In times of peace and plenty the 

 owner of a very small garden, perhapv, only a 

 strip of a few yards behind his house, probably 

 gets more value out of flower culture considering 

 that vegetables are usually to be had at reason- 

 able prices in the greengrocer's ; but many causes 

 have operated in the last two years to make the 

 succulent cabbage and other vegetables scarce 

 and dear. Scarcity of labour has been one of 

 the chief causes, and it is not likely to be abated 

 for some time. During the ensuing year there- 

 fore we earnestly urge everyone to utilise to 

 the full every spare corner of ground in growing 

 vegetables for home consumption, and if a 

 surplus should result, then many a one with 

 absolutely no garden would doubtless be glad to 

 receive a portion, and thus a work of national 

 importance may be done by all who have a 

 garden. 



No harm whatever would be done to the 

 professional market gardener, since our large 

 cities contain thousands of inhabitants who yet 

 have no gardens, and it is obvious from the 

 prices charged and the frequent scarcity that 

 the supply is not equal to the demand. 



Gardeners, in a mucli greater degree than 

 farmers, have long ago learned the value of 

 intensive cultivation, and even Mr. Wibberley 

 might perhaps gain a few hints in a well-managed 



market garden from the rapidity with which one 

 crop follows another and in the value of deep 

 cultivation in maintaining the soil in a high state 

 of fertility. Private owners with large gardens 

 in charge of a capable gardener will have no 

 difficulty in maintaining large supplies, and on 

 them devolves a duty in assisting the Vegetable 

 Products Committee to supply our sailors with 

 sufficient vegetables while at sea. If this 

 ghastly war has no other result than that it 

 bestirs thousands of cottagers and suburban 

 dwellers to dig and plant their too often neglected 

 gardens, then it will have done a world of good. 

 There are doubtless many with but a vague idea 

 of how to set about cultivating and cropping a 

 plot of ground, and with a view to helping such 

 we have secured a writer who has considerable 

 experience in instructing beginners and who has 

 taken an important part in laying out some of 

 the most successful allotments in Ireland. 

 Month by month he will indicate the chief 

 operations necessary to get the mostout of small 

 gardens, while useful reminders of current work 

 each month will be contributed by writers in the 

 north and south respectively. It is our earnest 

 hope that during the year just commencing no 

 land at all capable of production will be found 

 anywhere m Ireland uncropped, and of those 

 who own or rent gardens, large or small, let it not 

 be said as it is in Scripture — '' I went by the field 

 of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man 

 void of understanding. And, 1 ^ ! it was all grown 

 over with thorns, and nettles had covered the 



face thereof I looked upon it, and 



received instruction." 



