THE HOME VEGETABLE GARDEN. 75 



A gentleman inquired concerning the watering of the vegetable 

 garden during a dry summer. 



Mr. Duncan in reply said that if the garden was well subsoiled 

 and manured it would stand a dry season with little watering. The 

 cultivator was the best watering machine you could get for a dry 

 season. 



R. W. Curtis said he thought some method of mulching would 

 be beneficial in dry weather. 



Mr. Duncan replied that there was no better mulch than the dry 

 dust of the surface soil after frequent cultivation. 



Varnum Frost said that the best instruction in farming came 

 from personal experience and observation. Good farmers learn 

 from observation and not from books. The greatest secret in farm- 

 ing was to know how long you could grow a certain vegetable in the 

 same ground. He thought it a mistake to overfeed strawberries; 

 a plant of the Marshall should have not less than thirty to forty 

 square inches to grow in; he gave his eighty square inches. Root 

 crops are likely to branch if too much manure is used. 



Mr. Duncan said that not too much manure was the cause of the 

 branching of roots, but the lack of deep trenching and subsoiling. 

 The land should be trenched two spades' deep and a modern sulky 

 plow used. 



Robert Cameron rather doubted if one could use the plow in the 

 home garden. 



Mr. Duncan replied that where you can use the plow, use it. 



In reply to the question. Is the first seed that ripens the best to 

 save ? Mr. Duncan answered, Rather select the seed of the best 

 formed and finest specimens. 



Mr. Finlayson asked if the lecturer advocated the saving of seed 

 from one's own products. He had been taught that it was better 

 to change the seed. 



Mr. Duncan said that seed could be saved for years and that the 

 grower should continually be on the outlook for new strains. 



William X. Craig stated that the practise of pricking out onions 

 that had been raised in heat was good for the production of big 

 bulbs for exhibition purposes, but they would not keep near so well 

 as the smaller and harder onions grown from seed sown outdoors. 

 Onions succeeded best grown year after year on the same piece of 



