308 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Apni ^0, iSa; 



Ji' 



GARDliNING. 



The following directions for the culture of 

 Kitchen Gurdeu Vegetables, were prepared for 

 rho second volume of the Memoirs of the New 

 York Board of Agriculture. 



ASPARAGUS. 



Beds should be made as soon as the ground is 

 . lear from frost, the first part of April in ordinary 

 seasons. The ground must be well worked to the 

 depth of a spade blade, and intimately mixed until 

 rotten horse manure. The seeds should then be 

 sowed in rows or drills, twenty inches apart, and 

 one inch deep, the rows crosswijo of the beds — 

 They should be raked in, lengthwise of the rows. 



Asparagus will be large enough to begin to cut, 

 the third spring after it is sowed. It may be cut 

 until the 20th of June every year afterwards. As 

 soon as the cutting season is over, hoe it over 

 lightly, so as to loosen the soil and make the sur- 

 face even. Every other year spread on each bed 

 an inch layer of good yard manure before hoeing. 

 The tops will now grow to a great size, and mostly 1 

 seed well. Early in the spring cut the dry tops i 

 close to the ground, lay them evenly on tlie beds, 

 and burn them there. Then hoe the beds over, 

 and rake them again. They are then prepared for 

 ■he new growth. 



Most of the English writers recommend break- 

 ing up old asparagus beds once in a certain num- 

 ber of years. Some beds in the western part of 

 New York have been cut twenty-five years, and 

 under this course of treatment they still continue 

 to be as good as they ever were. 



RADISHES 



Should be sowed in drills, eight inches apart, tjio 

 last week in Marcli. The beds should be made of 

 horse manure fresh from the stables, well mulched 

 with good garden mould. Often loosen the soil 

 .about them while growing, and keep the weeds 

 out. 



Radishes are excellent early vegetables, but 

 soon give place to others. The same ground may 

 ')e planted to cabbages after the radislies are off 



LETTUCE. 



It should be sowed as early as it can be raked 

 into the ground, for it cannot bo injured by early 

 frosts. Some sow a bed for early lettuce late in 

 the preceding fall. It onght to be sowed in rows 

 sixteen inches apart, between vacant rows intend- 

 ed for some other plant. For as the lettuce will 

 soon be pulled out, other rows of later vegetables 

 will occupy the whole land. 



pahsnips. 

 They should be sowed about the 28th of April. 

 But Dr U. Gregory prefers the last week in 

 March; and selects a dry sandy or loaBiy bed 

 which will admit of the earliest culture. lie says, 

 parsnips become- poisonous in damp ground. They 

 should be sowed in drills, 20 inclies apart, and 

 three-fourths of an inch deep, and raked in length- 

 wish of the drills. Tlie beds should be previously 

 well worked and manured ; and afterwards fre- 

 'luently hoed, which is all the care required. 



ONIONS. 



They should bo sowed about the 27th of April, 

 in drills sixteen inches apart, made very shallow, 

 not exceeding'half an inch in depth, and raked in 

 iightly lengthwise of the drill*. The beds having 

 Jieet) well worked with thoroughly rotted manure, 



at least five inches deep, they will be up very uni- 

 formly in about fourteen days. 



Iloe them as soon as they are just up suflicient- 

 ly to bo hoed ciirefuUy without injury. Let them 

 be hoed si.x or seven times during the season. — 

 The tops will fall about the 10th of August. But 

 they will continue to grow until about the first 

 week in September. They must not be pulled 

 until the tops become dry. Being biennial, onions 

 never produce seed until the second year. 



Onions should always bo sowed on the same 

 beds ; for cKperiencc has demonstrated, that the 

 crops become better after being raised on the 

 same beds for many years in succession. Some 

 valuable observations on the culture of Onions 

 will be found in the New England Farmer, vol. iii. 

 pages 89, 138, 140, 251, 3t>5. 



BEETS AND CARROTS. 



Thoy should be sowed about the 2Stli of April, 

 in drills thrce-fouiths of an inch deep, and twenty 

 inches apart — if carrots are in drills, but si.xteen 

 inches apart, and half an inch deep, it is about as 

 well. The ground prepared and the seed raked 

 in as for onions. 



BEAS, (Faba,) 



A genus of plants according to Touriicfort and 

 Jfssieu, and a species [of Vicia] according to Lin- 

 nseus and other botanists. Olivier found it grow- 

 ing spontaneously in Persia, and considers it a 

 native of that, or of some neighboring part of 

 Asia. 



The ancients had mnny ridiculous prejudices in 

 relation to this vegetable. In Egypt, to look at it, 

 was an act of uncleanness. In Greece, Pythago- 

 ras forbid its use ; and at Rome, the Flamcn Dia- 

 lis was not permitted to name it. This proscrip- 

 tion is differently accounted for by difterent wri- 

 ters. Clemens Alexandrinus ascribes it to a sup- 

 posed property in the bean to create barrenness 

 in animals ; and Tlieophrastus superadds a similar 

 property in relation to vegetables; while Cicero 

 accounts for it by alleging, that " it disturbed 

 the mind, and obscured the faculty of divination 

 by dreams." It has however surmounted all these 

 prejudices, and has been long in general use, ci- 

 ther i:i a green or dry state, in every part of the 

 world. 



Of the species wo have mentioned, the horse 

 bean is supposed to be the type, and has many va- 

 rieties, known in different places by different 

 names, as the Julian, the Mazagan, the Toker, 

 the Sandwich, the Spanish, the green Genoa, and 

 the Windsor. Of the Kidney bean, (the Phaseolus 

 Vulgaris,) the varieties are still more multiplied, 

 as they alter, when planted near each other, by 

 reciprocal fecundation. La Buriays, in his La 

 Quintanie, enumerates sixty, and M. Bosc says, 

 that in the garden of M. Gavoty do Resthe, he 

 had seen four hundred !*. 



But however multiplied the races, the character 

 and habits of the plants continue to be nearly the 

 same. They all affect a. strong, substantial, moist 

 soil, well dug, and abundantly manured ; and the 

 enemies they most dread, are late and frosty 

 springs and early and hot summers. These cir- 

 cumstances cannot fail to attract the attention of 

 the cultivator, and the mora so, as they involve a 

 practical contradiction ; for as the one invites to 

 late planting, so the other would appear to forbid 

 it. The only remedy, in this ease, is to regulate 



our labors, not by the alniunnc, but by the t( 

 rature of the weather and the earth, wliic 

 never deceive us. Wbeu these begin to ft 

 vegetation, and not before, dig and manure 

 ground tlioroughly, and (after smoothing the 

 face and forming the drills) begin by planting 

 Toker, Broad Spanish, and Windsor, and suj 

 quently the Mazagan, Early Lisbon, Long 

 White Blossom, and Green Genoa, the former 

 inches apart in tlie rows and the latter half 

 distance. The effect of this management will 

 to secure a succession of fruit, according 

 different degrees of precocity in the plants ; 

 to make the varieties which bear cold the 

 the ^first, and those which are least injure 

 heat, the Icisf, in the series. , 



Tiie Kidney-bean, being more sensible of 

 and wet weather, than the preceding spei 

 must be planted later. Its varieties are d 

 into two races — the climbing and the dwarf, (s( 

 dons et humilis) the former requiring pole 

 support them, the otlier requiring no support, 

 the first of these races, the most approved are, 

 Prague, the Prudhome, the Altogethcr-Yelli 

 and the Red : and of the second, the Dutch, 

 Loan, the Yellow, and tlie Swiss. After the 

 paratory labour, indicated above, the clic 

 should bo planted in groups (four or five togethi 

 with a pole, well fixed in the earth, for themi 

 mount upon ; whilo the dwarfs should be ph 

 in rows, at the distance of two or three in( 

 from each other and carefully covered. Squ; 

 of these ("the dwarfs) rnay be planted from A 

 till August, according to the taste and convi 

 fence of the cultivator. 



Tlie la.st species ue shall mention, and 

 latest td be sown, is the Lima Bean, w'hich ou 

 not to be hazarded before the frosts are coraple 

 ly over, and then committed only to a rich, vvai 

 and well laboured soil. It is usually and best cul 

 tivated (like all other climbers) in what gardened 

 call hills, composed of rich mould and separalsj 

 six feet from each other. Four or five beans and 

 tv;o or three stout poles, nine or ten feet in length, 

 are sufficient for each hii'. When the beans be- 

 gin to run, they should he trained to mount tli4 

 poles, for it is only by doing so, that they will r*- 

 ceive that degree of air and of sunshine, which ii; 

 necessary to the production and perfection o( 

 their fruit.- ? 



Our remarks thus far have been confined, o| 

 nearly so, to the sowing of the bean. Those 

 which follow, apply to its management after that 

 work is over, and are common to the labours ne- 

 cessary or useful to the whole family. When the 

 plant has attained the length of three or four 

 inches, the earth about its roots should be loosen- 

 ed with the hoe and a fresh portion of it drawn up 

 to the stem. The rule for subsequent labours is 

 to hoe again, when the flowers begin to show 

 themselves, and a third time, about a month after 

 the second hoeing — but the better practice is to 

 take as our guide, in this, respect, not the condi- 

 tion of the plant, but that of the soil and of the 

 weather, and whenever the latter is dry and hot, 

 or the former hard, or baked or infested with 

 weeds, repeat the hoeing : remembering, that it is 



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! * N. Coursd'Asrioglturo, -"Vrt. Fcve- 



* The Carolina Bean, is but a variety of th^ 

 Lima, and is therefore to be managed in the sam* 

 way. with the exception, that being less in vo-^ 

 lume, four feet between the hills, give sufficient 

 room for if. 



