of Rural Art and Taste. 



175 



Market G-ardening. 



BY J. M. SMITH, GUEEN I?VV, WIS. 



No. a. 



AMID the liurry and bustle of planting, 

 you must not forget or neglect to care 

 for your strawberries. If you have not a bed 

 of them, put in a piece of ground at once with 

 the Wilson. If you wish to experiment, do 

 so, but make these your standard, until you 

 are sure of something better. If you have a 

 piece already in, the winter covering must be 

 taken off, and the beds thoroughly cleaned 

 out. Don't leave a thing except the plants. 

 After this is done, put on a coat of well rotted 

 manure, or what is still better, if you can get 

 it, ashes. If they are unleached, at the rate 

 of about 150 bushels per acre. If leached, 

 twice the amount. 



Your tomatoes for late crop, peppers and 

 melons, will be about the last things put in 

 for the first crop ; for you must remember that 

 you are not a successful gardener until you 

 can double crop nearly your whole ground 

 every season. And you must be bearing this 

 in mind, and be preparing for it all the spring. 

 But by the time, and probably before your 

 first crops are all in the ground, the seeds 

 first put in will require your care and cultiva- 

 tion. In the meantime, if you have a good 

 asparagus bed, your market wagon has had to 

 be put upon its daily trips. And now comes 

 a season of unceasing care and labor. Not a 

 day, nor an hour, should be lost. In the 

 highly manured condition of your soil, the 

 weeds come up literally by the million. They 

 must not only be destroyed, but the young 

 plants must be cultivated, to improve and 

 hurry them on for the early market. If it 

 rains, there are sure to be plants to transplant. 

 If it pours down, you will still find it neces- 

 sary to be on hand, and watch your beds and 

 see that the surplus waters of the falling flood 

 are immediately carried off, and that your 

 beds are made ready for work again at the 

 earliest moment. To be sparing of care or 

 labor now is ruinous, even if your work up to 



this time has been ever so well done. And 

 many times after a long day of twelve or 

 thirteen hours' labor, your market man comes 

 home with an order, or a letter comes with 

 an order for so much of this, or that, to go 

 upon the first train or the first boat in the 

 morning. Tired and weary as you are, you 

 must go back to the garden, and fill the 

 orders, or soon find your business sadly in- 

 jured. Do not think me drawing a fancy 

 sketch, for I remember well, one week, two 

 years since, when from four o'clock in the 

 morning till eleven at night, some if not all 

 of my sons were in motion. This was of 

 course only for a few days. But from the 

 first of May to the middle of August, you 

 will find long days the rule, not the exception. 

 From the middle of June to the 10th or 

 15th of August, comes the additional work of 

 getting in the second crops. The varieties of 

 the second are not so great as those of the 

 first one. The last of June or first of July, 

 the Early Horn carrots should be sown be- 

 tween the rows of your black seed onions. If 

 your ground is in the right condition, and the 

 weather favorable, they will come on, and by 

 the time they need the ground, the onions will 

 be ripe and they may be gathered, and the 

 whole ground given to the carrots. But 

 sometimes at this season of the year, the dry 

 weather and a burning sun together will kill 

 the young plants after they are up. Such was 

 my case last season, but after I found that the 

 carrots would be nearly or quite a failure, I 

 sowed the beds with turnip seed, and the re- 

 sult was, a fair crop of as pretty turnips for 

 table use as I ever saw. In June, the rad- 

 ishes, lettuce, etc., are getting out of the way 

 and making room for celery and late beets, 

 as well as rutabagas, though I think a better 

 way to raise these two last named crops, is to 

 sow the seeds in a bed and then transplant 

 them. Let me illustrate this. Last season, 

 I intended to raise cabbage after my early 

 potatoes, but before I had the ground all set 

 out, my cabbage plants gave out, and I con- 

 cluded to fill up the ground with rutabagas 

 and beets. It was nearly or quite the first of 

 August, and the weather was very dry, as well 



