INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 21 



gardener into whose hands they pass. The individual who 

 cannot give such exacting treatment had better by far abstain 

 from plunging into a business which he cannot accommodate, 

 and be content with the old, useful varieties instead. 



In speaking of the old-fashioned sorts, I would like to com- 

 mend them. Have not many of our oldest vegetable selections 

 kept their place in the forefront of utility, despite 

 Old the greater attractiveness and superiority of the new- 

 versus comers ? And cannot these same vegetables be made 

 New to yield wondrously well by fair and generous cultiva- 

 tion ? But I am afraid many gardeners forget the 

 status of the older sorts, and look upon the improved vegetables 

 as merely labour-saving creations whereby they can work less and 

 obtain more ; but it is not so. It is the duty of every gardener 

 to maintain the standard, and, if he can, raise it still higher. 



Size is not always a desirable quality in vegetables, and the 

 amateur especially should be careful in this matter, because 

 the finely-proportioned vegetable is so very attractive 

 Size and so alluring that the temptation to produce it is 

 versus almost irresistible. And nothing can be more dis- 

 Quality appointing and disgusting than the discovery that a 

 huge, white, perfectly-shaped Turnip is nothing more 

 or less than a fraud when its interior is exposed to light, or the 

 ine-looking super-Carrot which on cooking betrays the fact 

 :hat it consists of wood rather than flesh! Yet I have nothing 

 to say against the advance in proportions many vegetables have 

 ittained, when the outward gain is balanced by an equal amount 

 of inner richness. Such a vegetable, it must be remembered, 

 s not brought into existence by a process of stimulating culture 

 or forced growth ; rather, it is the result of years of patient 

 selection and re-selection, often bringing disappointment and 

 chagrin to the experimenter, but paying him well in the end. 

 There is a vast difference between the two processes ; and time 

 s always the factor which evolves the larger vegetable with 

 unimpaired stamina and finer qualities. 



The committal of seeds to the ground is an operation which 

 does not always receive sufficiently serious consideration. Upon 

 seed-sowing, to a very large extent, depends the 

 Seed- success or failure of the crop. Seeds are often spoilt 

 Sowing by being sown at the wrong time during very wet 

 or very dry weather ; sown upon unsuitable surface, 

 composed of soil of a sticky nature, liable to cake, dry or sandy, 

 'umpy, insufficiently drained.; sown too deeply or not deep 



