CHAPTER V. 



THE GARDEN AND ITS FIiriTS. 



SECTION XXIX.-1'LEASU1!1- AND PUOFITS OF GAUDKMNT.-onKilX 

 AND HISTORY OF VEGETAHLKS. 



n-.'^ '-^ 'I" *^>"'«>i', ii'iJ one tliat i)rcvail8 to a considcrahle 

 jfr extent, to gni)i)o.so that all lalx.r bestowed upon a ^Mr- 

 den is so much " labor lost.'' Many fanners ].afis through 

 a lung life witiiout ever liaving anytiiing worthy of the 

 name of garden — a name which signifies: "1. A piece of 

 ground ai>])ropriated to the cultivation of herljs or plants, 

 ^»- liuits and llowers. 2. A rich, well-cultivated spot or tract 

 ^^3 of coimtry; a deliglitful spot." 



And coilo(jiiially, in tiie Northeastern States, a ganlen is 

 a spot not always delightful — where all the potatoes, licels, 

 turnips, calibages, onions, etc., grown for 'family use,* are 

 jilanted. It also includes a small jiatch of strawiterries, a 

 row of currants along the fence, and sometimes a few flowers. 

 Often, however, it is as destitute of the latter as it is of all 

 the other attributes of a "deliglitt'ul spot;"' yet the vegetable garden is ono 

 of the necessities of life that no farmer can afford to do without. As a gen- 

 eral rule, the garden of a farm should be in tlio form of a parallelogram, 

 running north and soutli, with orchard trees and thrultbery at the north cud 

 and a grass-plat at the soutii end, and everytliitig sliould bo jilantcd in long 

 rows. This admits f)f ])lowing the ground, with a ]>lace to turn at each end, 

 both in breaking up the soil early in tiie spring and in al"ter cultivation. It 

 is just as well to ha\ o a row of beets twenty rods long as to have twenty 

 rows of ono rod — iiuleed, much better, because you can do more in ono hour 

 in deepening the soil sufliciently for beets witli a stent horse than a man can 

 in a day with a siiado. Even in a spaded garden, the oUl fashion of rai>ing 

 beds and deepening alleys has come to us from Europe, particularly Ireland, 

 where there may be a necessity for the jiractico; there is none here. It bo- 

 longs to the same family of antiipiated notions as hilling up Indian corn. U 

 is a foolish notion. 



Altiiough a garden should bo rich, it must not bo made o.xcossivoljr «o 

 witli stable manure. We believe a continuance of any one kind'of munuro 

 to excess will render a soil unfit for cro]n in general. For an over-ri«!i gar- 

 den soil the best remedy is lime, and the best way to apply it is in the form 

 of "lime and salt mi.xture," which is made by dissolving salt in water until 



