JANUARY 141 



cular garden. With such allowances duly made, these notes will, it is 

 hoped, prove thoroughly practical, and tend materially to aid the 

 cultivator in obtaining from the vegetable garden an abundance of 

 everything in its season, and of a quality, too, of which he need not 

 be ashamed. 



JANUARY 



WE are now at the mercy of the weather, and must shape our course 

 accordingly. During heavy rains keep off the ground, but prepare to 

 go on it the moment it is fit to bear your weight without poaching. 

 Make ready for the busy spring. Survey the stock of pea-sticks, haul 

 out all the rubbish from the yard, and make a ' smother ' of waste 

 primings and heaps of twitch and other stuff for which you have no 

 decided use. If properly done, the result will be a black ash of the 

 most fertilising nature, such as a mere fire will not produce. During 

 hard frost wheel out manure and lay it in heaps ready to be spread 

 and dug in where seed-beds are to be made. If the weather is open 

 and dry, trench spare plots and make ready well-manured plots for 

 sowing Peas and Beans. So far as may be convenient, all pre- 

 paratory work should be pushed on with vigour, and every effort 

 should be made to lay up as much land in the rough as possible ; 

 for the more it is frozen through, the greater will be its fertility, and 

 the more beautiful, as well as more abundant, the crops. 



It is a matter of the most ordinary prudence to be prepared to 

 resist the shock of a severe frost ; and yet, when this event occurs, 

 many surfer loss because they are not prepared for it. Good brick 

 walls and substantial roofs are needed for the safe keeping of fruits 

 and the more valuable kinds of roots ; but when rough methods are 

 resorted to, such as clamping and pitting, there should be a large 

 body of stuff employed, for a severe frost will find its way through 

 any thin covering, no matter what the material may be. As there is 

 not much to do now out of doors, it is a good time to look over the 

 notes which were made concerning various crops in the past season, 

 and to attend to the seed list. 



SEED SOWING should be practised with exceeding caution ; but 

 great things may be done now where there are warm, sheltered, dry 

 borders, and suitable appliances for screening and forwarding early 

 crops. Under these favourable conditions we advise the sowing of 

 small breadths of a few choice subjects towards the end of the month ; 



