FARMERS GARDENS. 337 



stices being filled up witli good cement, or with the dust made by breaking up 

 limestone rock. This will make a floor which water cannot penetrate nor 

 horse-shoe disturb. The cheapest and best bedding, at least near mills, for 

 such a floor, or for any other ii' kept dry, is saw-dust, which should be laid in 

 abundantly when dry, in the fall of the year. 



It may be added that a good fanner and a generous man, having arranged 

 his house for the comfort, health, and happiness of his family and the elevation, 

 of the tastes of his neighborhood, will not rest satisfied as long as the noble 

 horse, the useful cow, and the patient ox and mule are without comfortable 

 quarters, warm in winter, cool in summer, and all the year round abundantly 

 fed and kindly treated, extending these with a right good will to pigs and 

 poultry too. 



FAEMEllS' GARDENS, 



BY HON. SIMON BROWN, CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS. 



A GOOD vegetable garden is conceded by most farmers to be both convenient 

 and profitable, and yet comparatively fevv" farmers hare one. The reason usu- 

 ally given for the neglect is that they do not have time to attend to it. The 

 truth in the case is that the garden requires a little care daily, and demands 

 thought, patience, and system, in order to secure success and profit. Unhap- 

 pily these are just what most fiirmers dislike, preferring to tend the larger 

 crops, where less thought and more muscular power are required. They would 

 be glad of the rich products of the garden upon their tables, and the pleasure, 

 health, and profit they would yield to the family, but the habit of neglect in 

 this particular has become so deeply implanted that no common influence will 

 break it up. 



With the knowledge that half an acre, or even less, devoted to garden cul- 

 ture would annually produce more profit than four or five times as much land 

 in any of the other crops of the farm, thousands of our farmers still remain 

 without a kitchen garden even that is worthy of the name. It would seem 

 that pecuniary interests, and a regard for the health and comfort of the family, 

 would overcome the dislike to cultivate a garden ; but the aversion to systematic 

 care overrides all these considerations, and the garden remains only in antici- 

 pation, or in some out of the way place, consisting of a few rows of potatoes, 

 onions, and beets, and a sage root or two, with a swamp of weeds, whose only 

 redeeming feature is, at the end of the season, the presence of winter birds in 

 search of a daily meal of seeds. 



Without a garden the winter diet of the family must be mainly confined to 

 bread, meat, and potatoes. When warm weather returns, the system requires 

 less stimulating food, and demands cooling and juicy vegetables, fresh from the 

 soil ; yet many farmers have no garden — not even an apology for one. I knew 

 a case where the wife of a farmer worth ten thousand dollars went to a neigh- 

 bor's gaMen to beg a few fresh vegetables when company was expected. 

 Thousands of farmers' tables are rarely graced with early vegetables, such as 

 lettuce, radishes, early beans, potatoes, and peas, when they might be crowned 

 with all these luxuries peculiar to each season by a little labor and systematic 

 care. 



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