MARKET GARDENING AND FARMERS' GARDENS. 64.3 



refu-ie vegetables, tops, etc. Peruvian guauo ;iud bone flour are 

 the best fertilizers ; but the farmer can make manure cheaper 

 than to buy it, and we refer him to Chapter III. Henderson 

 relates the following : " It is a grave blunder to attempt to grow 

 vegetable crops without the use of manures of the various kinds 

 in about the proportions I have named. I never yet saw soil 

 of any kind that had borne a crop of vegetables that would pro- 

 duce as good a crop the next season without the use of manure, 

 no matter how rich the soil may be thought to be. An Illustra- 

 tion of this came under my observation last season. One of my 

 neighbors, a market gardener of twenty years' experience, and 

 whose grounds have always been a model of productiveness, 

 had it in prospect to run a sixty-feet street tArough his grounds. 

 Thinking his lands sufficiently rich to carry through a crop of 

 cabbages without manure, he thought it useless to waste money 

 by using guano on that portion on which the street was to run, 

 but on each side sowed guano at the rate of twelve hundred 

 pounds per acre, and planted the whole with early cabbages. The 

 effect was the most marked 1 ever saw ; that portion on which 

 guano had been used selling off readily at twelve dollars per 

 hundred, or about fourteen hunJiod dollars per acre, the other 

 hardly averaged three dollars per hundred. The street occu- 

 pied fully an acre of ground, so that my triend actually lost 

 over $1,000 in crop by withholding $60 for manure." Another 

 fact stated by the same gardener is, that head crops, as cabbage, 

 lettuce, etc., should be followed by root crops, and vice versa. 



If our Southern friends will commence careful cultivation 

 and heavy manuring, with a view to bringing large early 

 crops into our Northern markets, they will find it abun- 

 dantly profitable. The crops to which their attention should 

 be thus devoted are beets, cauliflowers, radishes, cucum- 

 bers, peas, beans, sweet corn, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, early 

 39 



