ABOUT MAKING GARDENS 87 



Garden land must also be capable of thorough 

 drainage, as well as easily irrigated. A soggy spot 

 will grow nothing well, while a few tile will turn the 

 same ground into friable soil, giving you luxuriant 

 growth. This is true of trees and bushes as well as 

 vegetables and flowers. Thirty to fifty per cent of 

 sand is all right, if it is well worked with compost. 

 Garden land will have to be well fed, because we 

 expect it to do a lot of work. Beans and peas, 

 however, feed the soil its most valuable constituent, 

 and while they like good soil they also make good 

 soil. 



This wonderful discovery concerning legumes (in- 

 cluding beans, peas, and clovers) is recent, and no 

 one is fitted to be a gardener unless he understands 

 it. The legumes are the only plants able to take food 

 directly from the air, and after using it, to leave 

 an enriching deposit in the soil. All the clovers 

 will do this for our meadows, and the beans and the 

 peas will do it for our gardens. 



In the Southern States we have a much larger list 

 of these air feeders, especially cowpeas and velvet 

 beans. On my place at Clinton, N. Y., I am con- 

 stantly making spots barren for corn and others 

 poor for potatoes. I plant these with beans, and 

 after a few years they are brought back to corn 

 fertility. Bear in mind these three or four prelim- 

 inaries, and you will learn the rest as you go on 

 with your work. Gardening, however, will always 

 be, to a large extent, experimenting. New sorts will 



