LAYING OFF FOR VEGETABLES 87 



stock can see it and hence will not run against it ; it can be made of 

 any height desired, the canes growing as high as twelve to fifteen 

 feet; it may be taken down, rolled up and moved without injury 

 and at slight expense. In addition to their use as protective fences 

 these woven canes and wire serve as windbreaks, sunshades, etc., 

 as such may be desired for temporary service. 



The Horse-Power Garden. Although our foreign-born friends 

 who do most of the market garden work in California retain their 

 native predilection for hand labor and plan their gardens accord- 

 ingly, it is advisable that farm vegetable growers should arrange to 

 use as much horse power as possible. Both for this purpose and to 

 facilitate furrow irrigation or seepage ditch irrigating, if the slope 

 suits it, the garden should be somewhat brick-shaped, because of 

 trfe greater work which can be done with the same or fewer turn- 

 ings of the horse or team than on a square piece. At both ends 

 there should be a roadway left for turning the team. The shape 

 is equally adapted for flat or ridge cultivation. 



In the horse-power farm garden there should, of course, be 

 no permanent walks. If walks are desired, leave spaces length- 

 wise unplanted and uncultivated and smooth down the surface with 

 a roller. Such arrangements, however, waste land and waste moist- 

 ure, for the hard ground draws water laterally. It is better econ- 

 omy, therefore, to evenly cultivate the whole area. Lay out the 

 plantings in straight rows for ease of cultivation, and either plant 

 full rows of each vegetable or continue the rows with another kind 

 which requires the same distance. Proper distances for each vege- 

 table will be considered in subsequent chapters. It is convenient 

 to make the distances multiples of some unit. For instance two 

 feet between the rows is about the minimum distance for horse 

 cultivation. Some growers, therefore, plant at two, four, six, eight, 

 etc., feet distances: others start with three feet and proceed with 

 six, nine, twelve, etc. the latter for the largest running vines. 

 This makes rows of the small, upright growers a yard apart, which 

 is rather too great a distance ordinarily. 



It is often a great convenience to have permanent distance 

 stakes set close to the fences on the ends of the plot and placing 

 them the accepted unit apart. It is easy to regulate distances by 

 slipping the planting line over the two opposite stakes which give 

 the desired separation. If one has a good horse and a good eye, 

 he will, however, probably prefer to use a "marker" made with 

 thills and plow handles properly fastened to a cross-bar eight or 

 ten feet long and fitted with wooden teeth such distance apart as he 

 adopts as his unit of distance between the rows. Starting, then, 

 with a straight guide-line on the surface on one side, thre or four 

 parallel lines can be clearly marked at one driving over. Follow- 

 ing these marks with the garden drill, or with the hoe planting, very 

 straight lines of seeding can be done in a fraction of the time needed 

 to work with a line. But whether line or marker be used, it is 



