H> AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 



If thought desirable, additional temporary paths may be 

 made, as at K, K in the plan, and edged with annual herbs or 

 flowers for the season. These are to be disregarded in the 

 spring plowing, and may be renewed or not, at will ; or, if the 

 garden is dug and not plowed in the spring, they may be made 

 permanent. All vegetables sown or planted in the garden, 

 whether in rows or hills, should, if possible, be ranged north 

 and south ; the making of small beds in the main divisions 

 should be avoided, and the rows be as few and as long as the 

 arrangement of the garden, and the necessity for fully cropping 

 the ground will permit. This will save much otherwise wasted 

 labor, and allow more readily of advantageously second crop- 

 ping those portions from which early peas, &c., &c., may have 

 been removed ; and with a farther view to this, crops that will 

 mature early should be arranged together, so that as large a 

 space as possible for recropping may lie in one spot, instead of 

 having many mere fragments ; also, all crops that are intended 

 to stand out over winter should be arranged in one section side 

 by side. 



All permanent paths should be edged either with box kept 

 in order by an annual trimming with the dressing- shears, or 

 with a narrow strip of sod, carefully prevented from spreading 

 by the use of the grass-edger, and kept cut short with the 

 grass-hook, or any hardy perennial plant of dwarf growth that 

 will bear the necessary trimming without injury may be used 

 for this purpose. If box is planted, though its smell is quite 

 unpleasant to some persons, open a trench along the edge of the 

 border into the pathway as large and wide as the ordinary furrow 

 of a two-horse plow, the garden-line being stretched along the 

 edge of the border, and the back of the trench cut square down 

 by it, and perfectly true to the line. Old box edging, which 

 will be a foot or more long, must then be taken and divided by 

 tearing it asunder, or so spreading it that one yard will plant 

 three or four ; lay in the butts across the trench toward the cen- 

 tre of the path, so that only one or two inches of the young growth 

 may remain above the line. As it is laid in and held with the 

 left hand, put earth upon it with .the right, and either with 

 the knee or foot press it solid and secure to its place, so bend- 



