200 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



other of them being in bad odor with the other. Next, a 

 seed-bed full of cabbages significant to the imagination of 

 cold-slaw, sonrcrout, etc. A good row of peas, and a few 

 hills of running beans are added. The alleys are ruffled 

 with bush beans ; a few early potatoes, some corn for roast- 

 ing-ears, with a slender bed for beets, complete the stock 

 of esculents. But sage, and summer savory, and thyme, and 

 rue, and sweet marjoram, tansy, boneset and wormwood 

 are attended to ; a part for stuffing ducks and chickens 

 and the others for curing those who have been too much 

 stuffed with them. The garden yields in due time its first 

 fruits ; the potatoes come and go, the corn is early plucked, 

 lettuce shoots up its seed-stalk, peas render their tribute 

 and grow sere, beans rattle in the pod, and before August 

 her work is done and her garden forsaken except a small 

 retinue of flowers, which are nursed to the last. Weeds 

 now make up for lost time, and in a few weeks a weedy 

 forest hides every trace of cultivation. This is not a fancy 

 sketch ; we have been far from drawing a picture from the 

 worst specimens ; it is a fair average case. 



Our business is, not to quarrel with the farmer, but to 

 suggest a better plan for his garden. We saw the plan 

 stated some years ago ; where, we have forgotten, but think 

 well of it. It is simply this : let the garden be an oblong 

 say three times as long as it is broad and cultivate it with 

 the plow. Instead of having beds, let all seeds be planted 

 in rows running the whole length of the garden. For 

 example, begin with one row of beets or more if wanted ; 

 next a row or rows of carrots, parsnips, cabbages, potatoes, 

 corn, and all about three feet apart. The same system 

 should be followed for small fruits currants, gooseberries, 

 strawberries, raspberries, etc. and it will have this advan 

 tage over common gardens, that the bushes will have sun 

 and air on all sides, and be more fruitful and more healthy 

 for it. The whole garden, thus arranged, can be kept in 

 order with very little labor. A single-horse plow will dress 



