A Plea for the Kitchen-Garden. 91 



A PLEA FOR THE KITCHEN-GARDEN. 



We desire to call attention to this most humble, and at the same time 

 most useful, department of horticulture. We are satisfied that our rural 

 districts are suffering from not appreciating the value of a good vegetable- 

 garden. We should suppose that in the country, where land is cheap, 

 vegetables and fruits would abound ; but the truth is, the citizen is far 

 more highly favored in this respect than the countryman. In the neigh- 

 borhood of cities and large villages, market-gardeners give their attention 

 to these things : the garden is managed with skill, and a great variet}' and 

 abundance of vegetables are raised, which are furnished to the citizens, 

 much to their comfort and health. But, with the great mass of our farmers, 

 the garden is considered a nuisance, an interruption to the great business 

 of the farm ; and consequently their families are treated with meat and 

 potato one day, and potato and meat the next, and so through the year, 

 with an occasional interruption of two or three messes of peas, corn, and 

 beans in the summer, and some cabbages, turnips, and possibly onions, in 

 the winter. Economy, health, and comfort demand that our farming popu- 

 lation should give more attention to the raising of culinary vegetables. 

 A good garden will contribute largely to the support of a family. Man 

 was not made to live by meat and potatoes alone. Every production of the 

 garden is good, and should be received with thanksgiving. Americans 

 have a strangely carnivorous tendency. An English laborer is satisfied 

 with his daily ration of bread and cheese, washed down with a mug of ale; 

 and is grateful for a joint of meat for his Sunday dinner. The French and 

 German laborers also live largely on their vegetable soups, and are de- 

 lighted if they can obtain a hock-bone to give a fliavor to their soup, and 

 furnish the oily matter in which the vegetables are deficient. But we in 

 America must have our meat at least twice a day, and very generally three 

 times ; and the meat is by no means a mere relish, but forms a principal 

 constituent of the meal. The habit was doubtless introduced when meat 

 was abundant and comparatively cheap ; and, once introduced, is continued, 

 though the price has doubled and trebled. We well remember the good 

 old man, that used to supply our father's family with veal, apologizing on 



