290 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



follow early lettuce and radishes, cucumbers or sweet corn ilu; 

 early peas, and turnips can be sown among the melon and cu- 

 cumber vines. 



As an example of a succession of crops on the same land in 

 a single year, I one season planted an acre in early peas, and as 

 soon as they were ripe prepared the land and planted it in 

 pickles, and at the last working of the pickles I sowed a pound 

 of turnip-seed. I had very heavy crops of all these, the turnips 

 measuring five hundred bushels. When two or three crops are 

 to be grown on the land there must be no delay in removing 

 one and planting another. 



If the land is to be manured again, the manure should be 

 hauled beforehand and heaped at the most convenient point, and 

 there must be help enough to do the work as rapidly as possible. 

 I have often had a crop standing on an acre of land in the 

 morning, and before night it was removed, the land plowed, 

 manured, roiled, harrowed, dragged, and planted in another crop. 



The cultivation of the garden can not be too thorough. The 

 late Mr. Root, of Rockford, Illinois, was one of the most suc- 

 cessful gardeners and seed growers I ever knew, and his rule 

 was to keep a horse at work all the time, that the land could 

 be stirred on each four acres. Thorough cultivation not only 

 increases the yield, but also improves the quality of the vege- 

 tables, for those grown on a rich, well worked soil are more 

 crisp and tender, and of better flavor than such as are of slow, 

 stunted growth. 



Planting. I shall give some hints as to planting and cul- 

 tivation, with the description of the vegetables, but some gen- 

 eral directions for planting seem necessary also. 



We have some varieties of vegetables so hardy that they 

 will endure a hard freeze without injury, and these should be 

 planted as soon as the land can be worked in the spring, and if 

 it is plowed and rounded up in narrow lands the preceding 

 fall, as directed elsewhere, it will often be ready to plant two 

 weeks earlier than if left flat to be plowed in the spring. In 

 my latitude we can occasionally plant the last week in February 

 and usually during the first ten days of March. The hardy 



