THE VEGETABLE GARDEN 225 



the land is cleared of refuse from preceding crops, it should be 

 heavily manured, and plowed in the fall. The amount of manure 

 to be applied will depend somewhat upon the fertility of the land, 

 but more largely upon the trueness of the farmer's conception of the 

 plant food requirements of garden crops. The best gardens are 

 possible only where plant is supplied much more liberally than 

 is considered ample for field crops. Forty tons of manure per acre 

 is a very moderate application for garden crops, and this amount 

 should be applied annually, even on soils already rich, if maximum 

 crops of vegetables are to be grown. 



The plowing under of manure in the fall hastens the drying 

 out of the soil in the spring, so that planting may begin earlier than 

 if the manuring and plowing were deferred until spring. This is 

 both because the soil actually dries out earlier, and also oecause no 

 time is lost in manuring or plowing after the soil has reached work- 

 able condition. It often happens that early in the spring when the 

 cool season crops should be planted, the soil remains in ideal condi- 

 tion for working only a brief period, and then becomes so thoroughly 

 wet by copious rains that further garden work is precluded for two 

 or three weeks. If the manuring and plowing have been done in 

 the fall, it is often possible to plant the early vegetables in the brief 

 period during which the soil is fit to work, while otherwise this entire 

 period might be expended in making preparations, and the actual 

 planting necessarily deferred until the next time the soil was dry. 

 Since the success of many of the early crops depends upon early 

 planting, the wisdom of fall preparation is apparent. 



If the land has been manured and plowed in the fall, and is 

 worked at the proper time in spring, very little labor is necessary 

 in the preparation of a seed-bed for the early planting. Soil con- 

 taining sufficient humus to grow vegetable crops advantageously, 

 can be fitted for planting without the use of hand tools, if the pre- 

 caution is taken to work it at the exact time it reaches the right 

 degree of dryness. It will then crumble readily, and a seed-bed can 

 be prepared by the use of a disk, harrow, and planker. The use of 

 these tools saves an enormous amount of labor, and is a vast improve* 

 ment over the old method of using a hoe and rake. 



The actual planting of the garden is a simple matter, provided 

 a definite plan has previously been made, so that no time is lo^t in 

 deciding which vegetable to plant first, where to plant it, or how 

 much to plant. In the home garden, only a small amount of seed 

 of each kind is planted, so that a seed drill cannot be used to advan- 

 tage, and the planting is therefore almost invariably done by hand. 

 For the small vegetables, sown in drills, the planting involves four 

 distinct operations: (1) making the drills, (2) dropping the seed, 

 (3) covering, and (4) firming. The most rapid way of making the 

 drills in a garden to be planted in long rows is to use a marker that 

 makes three or four drills each time it is drawn across the area to be 

 planted. With a medium weight marker, and the soil in proper 

 condition for planting, the marks will be of the proper 

 depth for planting seeds of any of the smaller vegetables usually 



