130 



^i)t larmcr'g iHontI)hj bisitor. 



7. The territory nf the Uniicd Slates induiles 

 Biirh viiriety of dittioles, defirees of Ijeat and 

 cold so differfiil at tlie SHirje |>er'[iid of the jenr, 

 that it is iniposHlilB to give iti!<liiipiioii.«, as rehit- 

 itiK lo timt, for soVvihi'j pliuitinp, and so tiirlli, that 

 sliall be applicahle to every |iurt of tlie co^jiitry. 

 I therefore, for thn most |iiirt, iimke my di- 

 rections 8|r|ilical)te <■) seasons, <>r slates of the 

 wcallier, ratlier than to dales. VVlien I make no 

 ]>artiriihir mention as lo .limes ofllie year or 

 month, it is to lie understood that 1 am supposing 

 myself at or near the city of A*eir York, and that 

 ] Hin spetikiiiir of what onplii lo he done there. — 

 With thi* clearly home in mind, the reader, who 

 will know the difieietice in the defirees of heat 

 nnd cold in the different "arts of the connir), 

 will know how to apply the instructions accord- 

 injily. 



8. Those persons who perform their parden 

 work themselves, will need no caution with re- 

 spect to men that they employ as jjardeners; hut 

 those who employ ffu'deiiers onjiht by no mfans 

 to Itave them to do as they please. Their practical 

 experience is worth something; hut if they aie 

 peiierally found very dificient in knowledfre of 

 their hiisiness in England, what must those ol 

 ihem be who come to Atnerica? Every man, 

 who can di;; and hoe and rake, calls himself a 

 pardtner as soon as he lands liere from Etiglantl. 

 This description of persons are {jeueiaily handy 

 men, and havinj: been iis»-d lo spade-work, they 

 from habit do ihirigs well and neailv. But as to 

 the art of gardening:, they {ieuerally know no 

 thing of it. 1 wisheil to carry ihe nicer parts of 

 gardening to perfection at Botley. I succeedeil. 

 Biu I took care to employ no inaii who called 

 himself a gardener. I selected handy and clear- 

 lieaded farm-laborers. They did what I ordered 

 them to do, and offeied me none of their advice 

 or opinions. 



9. There is a foible of human nature which 

 greatly contributes to iestahlish and perpetuate 

 the power and the mischief of pretended garden- 

 ers. Tell a gentleman that this is wrong, or iha! 

 is wrong, in the management of bis garden, and 

 he instantly and iiiiif-umrily replies, tliat his 

 gardener is a very siUfu! man.' " That may he," 

 eaid I once to a hieml who, at an enorujous ex- 

 pense, had got IHO 01 three poor litlle melons, 

 while I, at hardly any expense at ail, had large 

 quantities of very fine ones; "that may be; (or 

 skill may cousisi in getting you lo expend \oin- 

 money without getting you any fruit." The truth 

 is, however, that il is not a desire to be deceived, 

 that produces this species of perverseuess — il is 

 a desire not lobe Ihought loolish. The gentle- 

 man had clmsen Ihe gaidener; and the reason 

 why he siickles (or him is, that if he allow the 

 gardener lo be a bad orje, he himself has made a 

 bad choice, and that would he an impulaliou on 

 his understanding; rather than allow which to 

 be just, he will cheerliilly bleed from iiis ))nrse 

 pretty freely. 



10. The best security against the effects of ihis 

 foible of human nainre is liir ilie owner of the 

 garden to be head gardener himself, and I hope 

 that this work may assist in rcuil.-Ving this office 

 easy and pleasant. IJiit to perform the office 

 well, the owner nnist be diliprent as well as skil- 

 fid. He must look /oruirtri/. It is a veiy good 

 way lo look attentively In every pint of the gar- 

 den every Saturday, and to write down some, at 

 least, of Ihe things lo he done during the next 

 week. Tbig lends in prevent those omissions. 

 which, when they have once laken place, are not 

 easily compensated for. Seasons wait for no tuaii. 

 Nature makes us her offers freely; but she will 

 be taken at her word. 



11. I caimot help, in conclusion of this Preface, 

 ex|)re8sing my hope lliat this work may tend to 

 the increasing, in gome degree, of a taste r)f gar- 

 d-ning in America. Jt is a source of ujuch great- 

 er profit than is generally imagined, and, merely 

 as an amusement or recreaiion, it is one of the 

 most rational and most coiuhicive to health. It 

 is a pursuit not only compalible wilh, but tiivor- 

 able to, the study of fuiy art or science. It tends 

 to turn the minds of yoiitli from amusements ami 

 attachments of a frivolous or vicious nature. It 

 W indulged at home. It tends lo make home 

 |>le««iujit, and to endear to us the spot on which 

 it 18 our lot to live, 



WiM. COBBETT. 



A«rM UtmpsUad, long hland, 1819. 



CHAPTER I. 



Oa the situation, soil, fencint;, aild layine«out 



of Uardeus. 



SITUATIOIf, 



12. Those who have gardens already formed 

 and planted have, ol course, not the si'nalion lo 

 choose. But I am lo suppose that new gaidens 

 will, in a ronnlry like this, be continually lo be 

 liuiiied ; and therelore it is an essential part of 

 my duty lo point out what situations aie best, as 

 well with respect to the aspect as lo other cir- 

 cnmstiinces. 



13. The gronud should be as nearly on a level 

 aspossilile: because, if the slope be considera- 

 ble, the heavy rains do great injury by washing 

 away Ihe soil. However, il is not always in our 

 power lo choose a level spot; but if tliere he s 

 slope in the ground, it ought, if possible, lo he 

 towards the south ; for, tjiougb such a direction 

 adds to the heat in the smnrner,lhis is more than 

 counterbalanceil by the earliness which it causes 

 ill the spring. By all means avoid an inclination 

 towards the north or west, and towards any of 

 the points between north and west. After all, il 

 may not he in Out power to have a level spot, nor 

 even a spot nearly level, and then We innst do 

 our best tvilh what we have. 



14. I am ppeakin^r here solely of a kitchen-gar- 

 den. Of ornamental gardening I shall speak a lit- 

 tle in Ihe chapter on Flowers. From a kitchen- 

 garden all large trees ought lo be kept at a dis- 

 tance of thirty or foriy yards; lor the shade of 

 them is iiijiirioiis, anil" their roots a great deal 

 more injurious, to every plant {.'rowing within 

 the influence of those roots. It is a conmion, 

 but very erroneous notion in Engliuid, thai the 

 trees, which grow iu the heilges ihal divide the 

 fields, do injury by their shade only. ] had a field 

 of transplanted riita baga, in the' hedge on the 

 north-west side of which there were five large, 

 spreadina oak lri;e.«, at some dislance li-oni each 

 other. Ojiposite each of these trees, which could 

 wax shade the riita haga much, there was a piece of 

 ihe rnia baga, in nearly a semi-ciicnlar form, in 

 which the plants never grew to any size, though 

 those in all the rest of the field we're so fine as lo 

 draw people fio'tn a great distance to look at 

 them. One gentleman who came out of Sussex, 

 and who had been a farmer all his life-time, was 

 struck with the sight ol these semi-circles;— 

 ami lookiim over ihe hedge, into a field of wheat, 

 wliiih had a ditch belwetu it and the hed;:e, and 

 seeing timi ihe « heal, though shaded by tlie trees, 

 was very Mule affected by them, he discovered 

 that it was the roots and not ihe branches, that 

 produced the mi.-chief: The ditch, which had 

 been lor ages in the same pl.ice, had prevented 

 the roots of the trees from growing into the field 

 where the wheat was growing. The gronnd 

 where the rula baga was grinving had been Hell 

 ploughed and manured, ai.d the plants had not 

 been in the gronnd more than thrrt months; \et, 

 such was the power of the lools of the trees, 

 and so tpiirkly did it operate, that il almost whol- 

 ly destiojed the rula haga that stood wilhin its 

 reach. Grass, w hidi mats llie gioiinil all over 

 wilh its roots, ami does not <lema'iid much food 

 liom any depth, does not suffer luiirh liom ihe 

 roots of ireis; but every other plant does. .\ 

 kitchen-garden should, liierefore, have no lari;e 

 tiees near it. In the sprin;; and fall, Irees do 

 great harm even by their shade, which robs the 

 garden of the eaily and iho parting ijiys of the 

 sun. Il is, ihereliire, on nil accounts, desirable to 

 keep all such trees iit a distance. 



15. If it he practicable, without sacrificing too 

 much ill other respects, to make a garden near 

 to mulling water, and espei-ially to water that 

 may he inrned into Ihe garden, Ihe advantaife 

 ought to be profited of; but as to watering with 

 a watering-pot, it is seldom of iiiucIt Ufe, and it 

 caiiiioi be practiced upon a large scale. It is bet- 

 ter to II list to judicious lillage and to tlia dews 

 and rains. The moisture » hich these do not Sup- 

 ply, cannot be furnished, fi any extent, by Oe 

 waterinc-poi. A man will raise more moislnfe 

 with a hoe or spade in a day, than he can pour 

 on the earth out of a watering-pot in n month. 



SOIL. 



16. Thi^ planl.i which grow in a garden prefer, 

 like most other plant.", Ihe best soil that is to be 

 found. The best is loam of several feet deep, wilh 

 a bed of iiiije-sloue, sand stone, or sand, below. 

 But we must take what wo find, or ralljer ^iiM 



we happen to have. If we have a choice, we 

 ought to take that which comes ncaresl to perfec- 

 tion, and, if we [los.sibly can, we ought to reject 

 c/(7i/and grarc/, not only as a lop-soil, but as a 

 bottom-soil, however great their distance from 

 llie surface, 



17. Oak trees love clay, and the finest and 

 heaviest «heat grows in laud with a bottom of 

 clay ; but if there be clay within even six feel of 

 Ihe siirlace, there will be a coWneM in the land, 

 which will, in spite of all you can do, keep your 

 spring crops a week or ten' days behind those up- 

 on laud which has not a boiiom of clay. Gravel 

 is warm, anil it would be very de.-iraiile if jou 

 could exchange il iiir some other early in June; 

 but since you cannot do this, yon must submit to 

 be burnt up in summer, if yon have the benefit 

 of a gravelly hoiioin in llie spring. 



18. If ihe land where you like lo have a garden 

 has rocA-j, great or small, they, of course, are to 

 be carried off; but il'yoii have a «/ony .-^oil, that is 

 to say, little short of gTai;t/ to the vety surface, and 

 if you can get no other spot, mui must e'en h;im- 

 mer } nur tools lo pieces amongst the stones ; lor 

 it has been amply proved by experience, that to 

 cany away stones of ihe flint or gravel kind im. 

 poverishes the land. However, we are tioi to 

 frame out plans upon the supposition of n>eeling 

 wilh obstacles of this extraordinary nallire. Wo 

 are not to suppose, that iu a ceuntry where men 

 havn bud lo cAooje, and have still to choose, they 

 will have liiiili, and yet will build their linuses on 

 spols peculiarly sterile. We must siipjiose ihe 

 conlraiy, and upon that euppositioii we ought to 

 )>roceed. 



19. Having fixed upon the spot for the garden, 

 the next tiling is to prepare Ihe ground. 'I'bisinay 

 be done by ploughing and hanowiiig, until the 

 ground, at lop, be perfectly clean ; and then by 

 double ploughings : that is to say. by going with 

 a strong plough that turns a large furrow and 

 liiriis it cleanly, iw ice in the same place, and thus 

 moving the ground to the depth of fourteeu or 

 sixteen inche*, liir llie advantaae nf deeply mov- 

 ing the ground is \ery great indeed. When this 

 has be en done in one direction, il ought to be 

 done across, and then ihe ground will have been 

 well and liuly moved. The ploughing ought to 

 be done wilh liiur oxen, and the plough ought to 

 be held by a strong and careful pluiigjimaii. 



20. This is as much ns I shiill, probably, bo 

 able to persude any body to flo in the way of pre- 

 paring the grounil. But this is not all ll'at ought 

 to be done; anil it is proper to give direclions for 

 the best way of doing this and every thing else. 

 The best way is, ihen, to trench ihe groiid. which 

 is I er.iirmed in this manner: Atone end of the 

 piece of ground iiilended for the garden, you 

 make with a spade a trench, all along, two feet 

 wide and two feet deep. You throw the earth 

 out on Ihe side away lion' the garden that is to 

 be. You shovel out the bottom clean, and 

 make ihe sides of the trench as nearly perpen- 

 dicular as possible. Thus you have a clean, open 

 trench, running all along one end of your gardeu- 

 ground. You ilieii take another piece, ail along, 

 t^^o feet wide, and put the earth, that this new 

 piece contains, int.) the trench, laking off the lO|) 

 of llie new, twd feet wide, and liirning that top 

 down into the bottom of the trench, an<l Ihen ta- 

 king the remainder of the new two feet, ami plac- 

 ing it on the top of the earth just turned into the 

 bottom of the ireiu-h. Thus, when you have 

 again shovelled out ihehoiioui, and piit'it on llie 

 top of the whole that ynu have put inlo ihe 

 trench, you have anoiher clean trench two feet 

 wide and two deep. You thus proceed, till the 

 whole of your garden-ground be trenched; and 

 then it will have been cleanly turned over lo Ihe 

 depth of two feet. 



21. -As to Ihe expense of this preparatory ope- 

 ration, a man that knows how lo \is*; a spade will 

 Ireneh (iiur rods iu a day very easily, in the 

 month ofOrtolier, or iu the month of November, 

 if the ground be not flozen. Suppose tlie gar- 

 den to contain ail acre, an<l the laborer to earn a 

 dollar a diiy, the cost of this operation will of 

 course \>e forty dollars ; which, perhaps, would be 

 twenty dollars above the expense of the various 

 phaigliin<;s and harrowiii'.'s necessary iu the oth- 

 er way" hilt the difference in the value of ihe 

 two operatiotjg is beyond all calculation. There 

 is no point 01' grvlilec iinporiance ibaii lliis. Poor 

 grolnitl, vleeply OioVed, is piefi;rable, in many cas- 

 es, to rich ground wjih sUidlow lillage; and ivheii 



