42 TheGarden. 



nured and skillfully cultivated, will furnish vegetables and fruits 

 sufficient for the use of a small fomily. If you can consist- 

 ently appropriate an acre or more for the purpose of a garden, 

 do not be content with less. You will find a ready market for 

 its surplus products, and at high prices, too, unless you happen 

 to be situated at a great distance from any city or large town. 



The form of a garden, like its situation and size, must depend 

 upon circumstances.' For convenience in laying out and culti- 

 vation, a square or a parallelogram is a good shape. If the 

 form be a parallelogram, it is better that it should extend from 

 east to west than from north to south. 



III.— LAYING OUT. 



The fruit and kitchen garden are to be looked upon from an 

 economical rather than an esthetic point of view, and their 

 internal arrangement should be simple, and, so far as circum- 

 stances will permit, regular and geometrical. In laying out a 

 flower-garden or a lawn, however, no matter how small it may 

 be, there is room for the exercise of taste and the creation of 

 beauty ; and we will reserve our directions on that point for 

 the chapters devoted specially to those topics, confining our- 

 selves here to the fruit and kitchen departments. 



Whether within the same inclosure or not, the flower-garden 

 will naturally be placed nearest the house. Passing through 

 that, we enter the kitchen department, beyond which is the 

 fruit-garden. It is better, however, in some cases to reverse 

 the order of the last two, placing the fruit department next 

 the flower-garden. In small gardens, too, these departments 

 necessarily intermingle to some extent; but this should be 

 avoided so far as is possible, as the trees are very detrimental 

 to other crops — shading the ground, injuring tender plants by 

 the drippings from their branches, and exhausting the soil by 

 means of the heavy drafts made upon it by their roots. Dwarf 

 pears may be admitted into the vegetable department with 

 comparative impunity, provided the soil is sufficiently ma- 

 nured to withstand the double demand thus made upon it. 



