Farmer's Kitchen Garden 23 



rows at north side alone are to be cultivated by hand, using one 

 of the modern wheel-hoes, a work also greatly facilitated by the 

 length and small number of rows, as it is the turning that 

 requires valuable time and effort. 



For a number of years I have practised a plan differing from 

 the preceding, and I find it superior in many respects. The fruit 

 patch is entirely separate from the vegetable garden, and will 

 need no description here. The diagram on opposite page shows 

 the arrangement and general plan of garden. 



One of its chief advantages is the easy access it affords to 

 all the different kinds of vegetables, especially to the close- 

 planted, and most frequently visited ones, lettuce, onions, 

 radishes, carrots, beets, etc., and its only disadvantage the neces- 

 sity of turning with horse and cultivator in the field and not at 

 the fence near the highway. This is not a serious matter, how- 

 ever, as a strip eight feet wide is left next the path at the foot of 

 the narrow rows, and including it, without planting except with 

 a single row of squashes or other running vines at the end of the 

 long rows. This arrangement gives every opportunity for turn- 

 ing without damage to growing crops, and the empty space will 

 be occupied by running vines by the time that cultivation by 

 horse power has to cease. Nor is there any want of chance for 

 rotation, and the order of both the small stuff and the crops in 

 the larger section can be changed to suit the requirements of 

 the case from year to year. 



When, as it often happens with me, beans, or early cabbages, 

 peppers, egg-plants, etc., are planted in the upper part, in rows 

 two and a-half feet apart, with radishes between each two rows, 

 the cultivator can here be run right through the whole length of 

 the garden after the radishes have all been gathered. At the end 

 of rows, facing the path, short numbered stakes may be driven 

 in the ground; and if these are not over eight inches high, the 

 double wheel-hoe can be run right over them without being inter- 

 fered with in doing its work properly. When sowing seed or 

 setting plants, the varieties and numbers are carefully noted 

 down, especially in testing new sorts. The opportunity which 

 this affords to compare the behavior of varieties, and to speak of 

 them intelligently, greatly enhances the pleasure of making and 

 taking care of a garden. 



Where there is no lack of land, it may be well to make the 

 garden of double size, so that each one-half (divided lengthwise) 

 may be renewed and rendered clean from time to time by seeding 

 to clover and mowing once or twice before it is cropped again 

 with vegetables. Or one-half may be planted to potatoes, corn, 

 or tomatoes, or other field crops, and the two halves used alter- 

 nately for garden purposes. The great advantage of a thorough 

 system of rotation can hardly be pointed out too often. 



