LESSONS FROM THE WINNERS 249 



Labor Cost is the most important item. It may be 

 said that the cost of a good garden is eternal vigilance. 

 It is not so much the total amount of labor required 

 as that it be employed at the proper time. One hour 

 a day throughout the season will, with the use of suit- 

 able tools, take care of a garden of less than half an 

 acre. The village gardens have been worked with the 

 most economical expenditure of labor. This is because 

 hand cultivators have been used to do most of the 

 work, and, secondly they have been kept freer of weeds 

 for several years. Many farm gardens are foul with 

 weeds, being utterly neglected during the latter part 

 of the season, and the hoe and hand work still play 

 too prominent a part in the cultivation. Gardens laid 

 out in long, narrow pieces to allow of horse cultivation 

 have been worked with the greatest economy of labor. 



In the matter of seed the difference is quite sur- 

 prising. In this item have been included cabbage, 

 tomato and other plants which have been bought for 

 transplanting. Most village gardeners have had to 

 purchase these, while hotbeds are more numerous upon 

 the farm in which these plants are raised. Then, too, 

 villagers buy more of the novelties and new, high- 

 priced varieties of vegetables and spend considerably 

 more for flowers, bulbs and plants. 



Manures and Fertilisers. — The expense for fer- 

 tilizers and manure is in favor of the farm, where 

 stable manure, upon which a nominal price is fixed, 

 is largely used. Besides this, one hundred and ninety- 

 five gardeners used no manure ^** fertilizer or failed to 

 make report of any. Stable manure leads all other 

 forms of plant food in popularity. In two hundred 

 and twelve reports it was used exclusively, forty-thr :e 

 used commercial fertilizer or chemicals and sixty-five 

 used both manure and fertilizers or chemicals. Fresh 

 manure is apt to contain many weed and grass seeds, 



