The Canadian Horticulturist. 



129 



CULTIVATION OF THE GARDEN. 



VERY man or woman who has in his possession a piece 

 of land, should plant a garden. The work is healthful, 

 very interesting and usually very profitable. One reason 

 why gardens are not more profitable is that the great 

 majority of people do not know when to plant, and this is 

 information that is difficult to give, from the fact that our 

 ™ country is large — very large — bigger than the United States 

 — (that is what we like to tell our neighbors), and what suits one section of the 

 country does not suit another. For example, the people in the Hamilton valley 

 can safely plant seed from two to three weeks before we can ; and again, we 

 can usually plant with safety before people but a few miles north of us. No 

 date can be fixed, and no rule can be laid down, and it is only by experience 

 that we can intelligently go to work — and this seems to be what is seldom done. 

 It is true that the seed catalogues give much valuable information, but as they 

 are intended for general circulation over the whole of this big country, the value 

 of their information is greatly lessened. I have thought that our local papers 

 could help forward this information ; they could save their subscribers much 

 loss and disappointment ; but even here it will not always do. For example, our 

 own Sentinel Review circulation is much too wide to be a safe guide in this 

 respect. I think we are not making much progress in this matter ; there seems 

 to be as many tender seeds sown too soon, and hardy seeds sown too late, as 

 there was twenty-five years ago. I am asked as often in the middle of May if 

 " it is time to sow onion seed," and told that my " balsam seed was no good," 

 and the " pansy and verbena plants set out on the first of June, did not do well," 

 showing that in this respect we are not making progress. And it seems 

 to me that we as a Society should endeavor to help our fellows by each one 

 helping his neighbor, telling him when to sow seed or plant. 



As soon as the young plants appear cultivation must commence at once 

 Some cultivators sow with their flower seeds a few radish seed, which quickly 

 come up and show the rows, and cultivation can be commenced before seeds 

 for the crop have come up. A few days ago I saw in a horticultural journal 

 that claims to be fifty years old, this plan spoken of as an original idea ; when 

 such standard authors as Henderson, Quin, and Carpenter, recommended the plan 

 twenty-five years ago. I wish I could impress on every person the importance 

 of early cultivation ; it is much easier and far more profitable to hoe the ground 

 over three times than once. I am always sorry when I see a man, or worse, a 

 boy, or worse yet, a woman, struggling with a hoe to destroy weeds that are 

 from three to six inches high, and at the same time trying to bolster up a weak, 

 sickly vegetable or flower plant that has been ruined by the shade of the weeds. 

 If the ground is raked over or hoed over when the weeds first show their seed 

 leaf, the rest of the work is comparatively easy — try it. 



