318 ANNUAL KEPORT. 



planted ia their appropriate season. Peas, onions, beets, radishes and lettuce are 

 rarely injured by spring frosts, and for the earliest crop should be planted as soon 

 as the ground is in condition to work well. Onions for the main crop will also do 

 better if sowed early, and a few early potatoes should be planted at the same time, 

 but we expect the farmer to raise his main crop of potatoes in some other field. It 

 is useless to plant the seeds of beans, sweet corn, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, etc , 

 in the open ground before the first week in May, or until the ground becomes 

 somewhat warm and dry. A great many kinds of vegetables may be brought to 

 maturity earlier if started in hot beds «r cold frames, and transplanted into the open 

 ground afterward. 



The time alotted me will not admit a description of the making and management 

 of hot beds and cold frames. Beets, carrots, parsnips and salsify or vegetable oyster 

 usually do the best to be got in early in May. All root crops are the best in rows 

 sixteen to twenty -four inches apart. Everything that comes up too thickly must 

 be thinned to give the plants room for perfect development. It is better to have 

 all vegetables in rows too close to admit of the use of a horse in their cultivation 

 planted upon one side of the garden, and it is not essential that the rows of these 

 should run the whole length, but they may be divided off into plots with narrow 

 walks between each variety; neither is it essential that the rows of anything run 

 the entire length of the garden if they are planted to such varieties as will admit of 

 cultivating at the same time, and require the same distance between the rows. 

 Cabbage and cauliflower may usually be transplanted for the early crop as soon as 

 the plants can be gotten ready. It is useless to transplant tomatoes, egg plant and 

 peppers before the latter part of May. Celery is not usually planted before the first 

 of July. Of lettuce, radishes, snap beans and sweet corn it is best to make several 

 plantings at intervals of two or three weeks, to keep up a succession until frost 

 comes. 



A garden line should be used in planting everything, and great pains taken that 

 rows may be equally distant apart and perfectly straight. It might not produce a 

 better quality or greater quantity of vegetables for taking these pains, but if our 

 newly planted garden looks well, we will feel a greater interest in it than we would 

 in a slouchily arranged truck patch, and as one thing after another begins to come 

 up in clean straight rows, we will begin to feel proud of our accomplishment, and 

 the whole family, even to the 'hired man, will become interested and willing to 

 lend us a helping hand to keep it a thing of beauty. They will probably call it 

 "our garden," and try very hard to make it the best one in the neighborhood, and 

 perhaps it will stimulate our neighbors who see it to go and do likewise. This 

 paper is very far from complete, but owing to its great length I must bring it to a 

 close. To secure a better knowledge of the varieties of fruits and vegetables and 

 methods of cultivation, I can only recommend my hearers to join the State Horti- 

 cultural Society, and become active members. The complete "farmer's garden" is 

 a "comfort and joy" to its owner. It is a prize that is not beyond the reach of every 

 farmer in the State. It cannot be brought about at once. It may require years to 

 do it. By doing a little at a time, adding one improvement after another, every 

 farmer may create around him scenes whose beauty alone would amply reward him 

 for all his labor. A garden thus formed by degrees is much more satisfactory than 

 one produced at once by a great outlay of labor and money, because the pleasure of 



