EXPERIMENTAL GARDENING I93 



This garden account received a regular award of 

 ten dollars. 



A Plucky Bay State Woman, Abbie E. C. 

 Lathrop, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, not being 

 strong and well enough to swing a hoe, did much of 

 the weeding in her garden of one thousand seven hun- 

 dred square feet with an old butcher knife, and the 

 weeds were well conquered, greatly to the benefit of the 

 gardener's health. She says: "The work of planting, 

 tending and gathering was done entirely by myself, 

 demonstrating that a woman, though not strong, may 

 tend a garden, if she will but take the work leisurely. 

 It is more healthful than bicycling. The keeping of 

 accounts proved very interesting." The account was 

 one of the best of those not winning a prize. 



A Successful Garden was cultivated on the site 

 of an abandoned brickyard by Jere Bradley of Berk- 

 shire county, Massachusetts, twenty-second regular 

 prize winner. Soil was sandy loam with heavy clay 

 subsoil ; area about one-twelfth acre. The work was 

 all done mornings, evenings and holidays, the owner 

 being employed in a grain store. The system was to 

 cultivate with wheel hoe in the spring, then mulch 

 heavily, the result being a garden free from weeds. 

 Hand wheel garden tools were used. Chicken netting 

 was used instead of pea brush. Cabbage and lettuce 

 were grown in a hotbed, melons were planted between 

 rows of peas. Cultivation ceased July 4 and the 

 ground was mulched. 



The management shows skill in keeping a constant 

 succession of market crops, giving something to sell 

 almost every day to November i. Drouth was fought 

 successfully by frequently stirring the soil with garden 

 implements. 



Frost Every Month proved a serious drawback in 

 the case of A. C. Butcher, Whitman county, Washing- 



