CHAPTER VII. 



FARMER'S KITCHEN GARDEN. 



When properly conducted, the kitchen garden should be the 

 most profitable part of the farm. Toooften its confined area and 

 the laborious methods employed in its management make the 

 labor of cultivating it out of all proportion to the returns. 

 Instead of confining the garden to a small area, it is better 

 to enclose one or two acres of good rich land with a good 

 windbreak of some kind, so that it will make a garden plot 

 twice as long as wide. Leave a headland in grass about 

 fifteen feet wide all around, as good crops cannot be grown 

 next to a windbreak. The rows should run the long way of 

 the land, somewhat as shown in figure 20. If the garden is 

 surrounded by a fence, it will be found a good plan to have 

 the part at the ends of the rows made of movable panels, so they 

 may be removed when cultivating. 



The arrangement of a vegetable garden in the manner shown 

 in figure 20 makes it large enough for practicing something 

 of a rotation of crops in it and permits of hand labor being re- 

 duced to a minimum by the use of horse implements. The 

 land should be cultivated flat, except for a few special 

 crops such as celery. There is no advantage to be gained 

 from hilling uparoundplants,and it isalaborious process that 

 can be dispensed with as well as not. When irrigation can- 

 not be practiced, it is important to have such crops as celery 

 and late cabbage on moist soil, but for general gardening pur- 

 poses a porous clay soil, overlaid with a sandy loam, is best, 

 although a good clay loam will do very well when properly 

 cultivated. Light sandy soils, especially those that are under- 

 laid with sand or gravel, are too liable to injury from drought 

 to be reliable for general garden operations. The garden 

 should be near the house, so as to be easily accessible. 



In planning the garden it is important to put all the per- 

 ennial crops together, and so arrange the other crops that 



