66 The Profitable Culture of Vegetables. 



Every detail of work and every appliance used is specially 

 adapted to the purpose it has to serve, and is the result of 

 continuous improvement through many years of experience. 

 Only a limited range of crops is grown in one garden, and by 

 the gardener devoting himself entirely to these he becomes 

 super-skilled in producing them. In the particular kind of 

 French garden which is being imitated in so many places in 

 England at the present time the production of early salad 

 crops, followed in summer by cantaloup melons or cucumbers, 

 is made the principal feature. 



The arrangement of the garden is planned so that the whole 

 area is used to its utmost capacity for the production of crops 

 in regular sequence, without waste of time, labour, or space. 

 It is divided into equal sections, each of which will accom- 

 modate a certain number of frames or bell-glasses. On some 

 of the sections these appliances are placed over hot-beds, on 

 others they cover cold-beds, whilst the remaining sections are 

 planted with open-air crops. The hot-beds are put on a fresh 

 section each winter, so that they pass regularly round the 

 garden, enriching and cleansing the ground as they go. 



In every garden water is conveyed by underground pipes to 

 numerous convenient points, so that every part of the garden 

 can be watered easily by means of a hose-pipe. Large quan- 

 tities of good straw stable manure are used annually, as 

 much as five hundred tons per acre being not unusual. In 

 some of the larger gardens a light tramway is laid to facilitate 

 the removal of manure, soil, and produce from place to place. 



It will be obvious that a large amount of capital is required 

 to equip and carry on a French garden of from one to two 

 acres so much that such an undertaking is quite impossible 

 to a person of limited means. The sum needed will vary con- 

 siderably according to circumstances and situation, but the 

 average is not likely to be less than 800 per acre to start 

 and carry on through the first season, whilst the annual 

 expenses afterwards for labour, manure, rent, water, carriage, 

 and sundries will probably run to quite 350 per acre. 



It naturally follows that the returns must be very high to 

 make such a business profitable, but the difference between 

 expenditure and income is not so much in the grower's 



