184 PRIZE GARDENING 



garden had received just what fertihzer was produced 

 on the premises, viz., the product of one cow, one 

 hundred hens and twenty ducks, and has yielded 

 seventy bushels of mangels, carrots and turnips and 

 three hundred heads of cabbage, besides all the peas, 

 beans, sweet corn and other vegetables except potatoes 

 used in a family of five. 



The soil is a shallow, sandy loam, containing a 

 large admixture of small, shaly stones, and resting on 

 a substratum of shale rock ; a light, porous, quick- 

 growing soil, at its best in a wet season, but lacking 

 those qualities and conditions favoring the conserva- 

 tion of moisture. Another extract shows the thorough- 

 ness with which this rather unpromising tract was 

 worked for results : 



The entire plot was cultivated practically every 

 other day except Sunday with double wheel hoes, set- 

 ting the hoes quite close together and going astride 

 the rows, cultivating both sides at the same time. The 

 hoes not only cut every weed below the surface, but 

 also break up the moisture capillarity, maintaining a 

 fine loose mulch about an inch deep over the entire 

 surface of the plot. Cultivation in this manner was 

 begun as soon as the plants became visible, and con- 

 tinued regularly throughout the season, or until the 

 cultivator could no longer go through the rows without 

 injury to the plants. When the foliage of plants 

 became so large as to interfere with cultivation, the 

 leaf guards were added, thus raising the foliage out of 

 the way of injury, and enabling cultivation to be con- 

 tinued much longer than otherwise could be done. 



Taking into consideration the unprecedented 

 drouth and the shallow, porous nature of the soil in my 

 garden, I have every reason to be satisfied with the 

 results obtained. That my garden was a success is 

 attested by the fact that I exhibited eighteen varieties 



