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THE LUXURIES OP THE GARDEN. 



THE LUXUBIES OF H'HE GAEDEN. 



r' — 



WnAT can be more delightful to the lover of good 

 things than the fruits in ^ their season. First comes 

 the strawberry, all smothered in cream; then early 

 cherries, followed by raspberries, currants, , and 

 gooseberries, and early apples, and peaches, and mel- 

 ons. These fruits furnish a succession of delights, 

 enough to satisfy the most determined epicure. 



Then there are the vegetables. First the lettuce, 

 followed by radishes, all tender and crisp, when prop- 

 erly grown; then pie plant, and cucumbers, and ^fos, 

 and early potatoes, and sweet corn, and tomatoes. 



Only those who have these things growing in their 

 own garden, where they can be obtained when need- 

 ed, fresh feom the soil, know the luxury of good liv- 

 ing-] 



No one can be truly said to live who has not a 

 Garden. None but those who have enjoyed it can 

 appreciate the satisfaction — the lu.xury — of sitting 

 down to a table spread with the fruit of one's own 

 planting and culture. A bunch of radishes — a few 

 heads of lettuce — taken from the garden of a sum- 

 mer's morning for breakfast; or a mess of green peas 

 or sweet corn, is quite a different affair from the same 

 articles brought in large quantities from market in a 

 dying condition, to be put away in the cellar for use. 

 And a plate of strawberries or raspberries lose none 

 of their peculiar flavor by passing directly from the 

 border to the cream without being jolted about in 

 baskets until they have lost all form and comeliness. 

 And yet, how many in the smaller cities and villages 

 of our country, and possessing every facility for a 

 good garden, either through indolence or ignorance, 

 are deprived of this source of comfort? And how 

 many farmers, with enough land lying waste to fur- 

 nish them with most of the lu.^uries of life, are con- 

 tent to plod on in the even tenor of their way, never 

 raising their tastes above the "pork and beans " of 

 their fathers. 



These remarks were called out by a commuuieation 

 long .since received from a lady, who, after giving an 

 account of the difficulty she had in inducing her hus- 

 band to undertake the cultivation of a garden, writes 

 as follows: 



"As soon as the frost was out of the ground, I 

 went to work. When my husband saw I was in 

 earnest, and ready to do the work ' single handed and 

 alone,' if necessary, he was ready to help me. So we 

 had the ground manured, took the ashes from my 



leaches, and spread them. Then it was well sptded 

 up. I then had the strawberry bed thinned oat by 

 digging about two thirds under, leaving them in rows, 

 and placing manure and ashes between the rows. 

 Next, I made a new bed of strawberries, and trim- 

 med and staked the raspberry bushes, pruned and dug 

 around the currants, trees, rhubarb, &c. After this, 

 I sowed peas, beans, flowers, and so on. 



" Now for the result — the reward of all this labor< 

 Last summer we had a good garden ; but I kept 

 improving, and it is of the present (or rather 

 past,) summer that I wish to speak, as it was not till 

 this year that things came to perfection. In the first 

 place, I had rhubarb large and fine, while before my 

 rhuljarb stalks, from the very same roots, were so 

 small and worthless, that I usually preferred buying 

 to using my own. Then lettuce, and radishes, and 

 early peas. A little later, the tall sugar peas, and 

 other peas, as nmch finer than the marrowfat as the 

 marrowfat is finer than the common field pea. Fol- 

 lowing in ((uick succession, came cucumbers and sum- 

 mer scjuashes, and beets, and sweet corn, and Lima 

 beans. The excellence of these Lima beans I had 

 no idea of before. I shall have quite a store of veg- 

 etables to put in the cellar, for winter use, such as 

 winter squashes, &o. All this, and a good deal more 

 I have not mentioned in the vegetable line. 



"Now, a word for the fruits. The first fruit was 

 the early strawberries. I had enough of this fruit 

 during the whole season. Next followed white and 

 red Antwerp raspberries, and then currants. The 

 white Dutch were large and sweet — very different 

 from the small sour things I have usually bought. I 

 like the English black very much for cooking. Goose- 

 berries I used for cooking, from the time they were 

 about half grown until they ripened. Ths larger 

 fruits have done well, with the exception of plums. 

 I have had plenty of fine grapes from an old Isabella 

 vine pruned as recommended in your interesting 

 journal. 



" And now, having told my experience in garden- 

 ing, I can say I am well paid for all my troulile. I 

 now possess more knowledge of the prpper way of 

 cultivating fruits, &c., than I ever expected to pos- 

 sess; and though I did not learn it all from the Gen- 

 esee Parmer, yet, as it was your paper that first set 

 me at work in my garden — that first induced me to 

 observe the nature of plants, and the practice of those 

 who cultivate them the best — that first gave me a 

 taste for reading on the subject, that opened to my 

 view a new creation, and showed mo the wonders and 

 mysteries, and beauties of the vegetable world, — I can 



