PART V 



THE A^EGETABLE GARDEN 



CHAPTER I 



DuKiNu the last thirty years much has beeu done to popiUarise 

 and advance the culture of vegetables, and various influences and 

 agencies are now carrying on the good work, chief among these 

 being the cheap literature advocating horticulture, and the horti- 

 cultural and cottage-garden societies which exist in almost every 

 parish. Nothing but good can come from the imjietus which has 

 been given to vegetable cultm-e, I might say horticulture, generally. 

 The Site of the Vegetable garden should be open to the south, 

 but sheltered from the north and east, and if it has any inclination 

 it should be to the southward. A sandy loam, not too light, is 

 the best for gardens generally, for when cultivated and manured 

 such a soil will grow anything. I am aware, of course, that there 

 are hundreds of gardens where no choice exists, and the best has 

 to be made of an inferior site. There is no land so good that it 

 cannot be made better, and none so bad that it may not be 

 improved by steady persistent efibrt. I knew a kitchen garden 

 in the Midlands which was, some twenty-five years ago, taken 

 from the middle of a piece of heavy clay land, and though better 

 land could be had in the neighbourhood on the same estate, the 

 site could not be changed ; but, nothing daunted, the gardener set 

 to work to adopt every expedient which his experience could 

 suggest in the way of improvement. The garden was a large one, 

 and for years the work of regeneration Avent on — trenching and 

 burning, with the addition of anything and everything which Avould 

 decay and enrich or ligliten the cold heavy mass. I need not say 

 that draining 4 feet deep, the drains 18 feet apart, was the first 

 thing to be done. The set of drains when not carrying out water 



