282 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



CHAPTER XII. 



GARDENING AND TRUCK RARMING. 



THE old-fashioned garden which, unfortunately, is not yet 

 a thing of the past will be recognized with a slight de- 

 scription. It is usually paled in, and contains from one- 

 eighth to one-fourth acre. There is a wide border around it 

 which can not be plowed, and here dock, wild parsnips, and other 

 weeds struggle for the mastery, and continually encroach upon 

 the cultivated portions. It contains, also, a row of currant 

 bushes, raspberries, blackberries, and a few quince bushes and 

 grape-vines. The little space left for cultivation is planted in the 

 spring, and after maturing a single crop is neglected for the rest 

 of the season, and before the summer is ended it becomes a wil- 

 derness of weeds, and produces seed enough to sow a quarter 

 section of land. It is quite a common sight in September to see 

 the farmer in a garden of this description with a scythe and 

 dung fork trying to find his potato patch. 



Very often after the garden is plowed in the spring, the 

 entire care of it devolves on the farmer's wife who is, perhaps, 

 already overburdened and what of good it affords, is the re- 

 sult of her warfare with the weeds. The garden can be made 

 the pleasantest and most profitable spot on the farm, and will 

 furnish labor suited to the boys not old enough to do regular 

 field work, and to the grandfather whose day of hard field labor 

 has passed. A fourth acre of rich land in garden, kept clean 

 and thoroughly cultivated, and the land constantly occupied with 

 a succession of crops through the season, will produce a very 

 large amount of family supplies, and I think it a safe estimate 

 that what would cost one hundred dollars in the market can be 

 grown on it. 



