THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 123 



Foundland, would have borne us into Alaskan waters. Here at 

 Victoria fruit trees had dropped their blossoms, and apples, pears, 

 plums and other fruits were developing. No spot of earth was green- 

 er nor one blander and more summer like in atmosphere. Keep- 

 ing no diary, as nearly as we can fix the date from memory, we left 

 Victoria the last of April, and reaching our Allegany County home 

 on the sixth of May, found our family and neighbors just begin- 

 ning work in their gardens. While our own little plat was a fort- 

 night ahead, even this was fully three weeks behind what we had 

 found the gardens of Victoria to be ten days before. The calcula- 

 tion is therefore a safe one, that the average March of Victoria 

 is the May of Allegany, and that the springs of Southern Alaska 

 average as early as those of Western New York. 



On the 13th day of April, within a week after the departure of 

 the snows, the soil of our garden being soft and porous, its surface 

 having been wanned by the sun, we began garden making by put- 

 ting in peas, onions, lettuce, beets, etc. Though all around and 

 about, the earth was frozen to the depth of from two to four feet 

 upon that portion fitted under our system not a particle of frost 

 was discernable. Having begun garden making on the 13th of 

 April, a week later visiting New York and casting our eye out of 

 the car window going and coming, in no spot did we see the com- 

 mencement of seeding. In fact, we were assured by Alfred Hen- 

 derson, son of Mr. Peter Henderson, seedsman, of New York City, 

 that work in the open grounds of New Jersej* had not begun, and 

 that in shaded spots all over the northern portions of that State, 

 frost remained in the ground. 



Such, nevertheless, was the condition of the soil in our garden 

 at the period of first seeding, that germination immediately fol- 

 lowed, and our peas, sowed on the 13th, were out of the ground on 

 the morning of April 28th ; onions were sprouted, and other seed- 



