32 THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



answer is that air is in no way necessary or beneficial to the 

 roots of plants or trees, this being another of the ancient fal- 

 lacies handed down from the past. Nothing is more injurious 

 to roots than air. Exposed to it, they always suffer at once. 

 I can say from extensive and repeated practice, that in cool 

 fall, winter and early spring weather, the less the soil is 

 stirred about growing plants the better. 



Hand picking of weeds around young melons, cucumbers 

 or other early crops while small will pay well, or if hoed, 

 simply scrape the surface as lightly as possible. If any one 

 doubts these facts, let him work a small space deeply in early 

 spring, and the next sunny day sink a thermometer into it, 

 and then place it in a hole dug to the same depth on clean, 

 smooth ground along-side. It is surprising how much warmer 

 the latter will be, and warmth means growth. After a heavy 

 rain the difference will be much more marked, when, as noted 

 above, deep, loose soil retains water and chills the ground. 



As illustrating the value of letting well enough alone, a 

 clipping from a neighboring paper, the Alvin Sun, published 

 on the I4th of February, 1896, is appended : 



"T. M. Savel brought to our office this week a head of cabbage 

 that measured in circumference 58 inches, and weighed 18^ pounds. 

 It has been growing in the patch all the winter, and the ground was 

 well fertilized with barnyard manure ; but, strange to say, was never 

 stirred around it, or the rest of the patch, but once, when young; 

 and he has lots more nearly as large." 



The knowledge of this truth about cultivation in cool 

 weather has been worth a great deal of money to me in the 

 past, as I was thus often able to surprise my first, last and all- 

 the-time-cultivating neighbors by bringing in the first early 

 truck. I learnt it, however, as we do most things of value, 

 by a severe experience, which I will now give. 



Soon after I began gardening I had, one spring, a splen- 

 did stand of cucumbers and cantaloupes with the third leaf 

 nicely out. Being very busy, the ground had not been stirred 

 around them, though the beds were clean. A smart Aleck 

 came along and insisted that it was a shame to neglect such a 

 beautiful patch (and they really were fine, the ground being 

 very rich); so to do the proper thing, I concluded to work 



