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cultural Society take hold of this work of reclaiming the 

 odd corners of our farms with renewed vigor, using our 

 odd time and surplus money, if we are fortunate enough to 

 have any, in making improvements in our own surroundings 

 and adding to our own incomes, rather than to speculate in 

 outside matters, that the farmer had far better let alone. 



ESSAY ON ANNUALS AND THEIR CULTIVA- 

 TION.— Part I. 



BY M. B. FAXON, OF SATJGUS. 



The success in the cultivation of any flower, fruit or 

 vegetable is exactly in proportion to the care and labor 

 bestowed upon the soil for the reception of the seed or 

 plant. In the Fall, as soon as a few severe frosts have 

 stripped my flower beds of their beauty, I clear the 

 surface of the beds and thoroughly trench the soil to the 

 depth of twelve inches ; eighteen inches would be better, 

 but my soil does not average over twelve inches, before a 

 gravelly subsoil is reached. The ground having been 

 thoroughly loosened, well decomposed barn-yard manure 

 is applied at the rate of from twenty to twenty-five cords 

 per acre, and turned under one spade deep. Nothing 

 more is done until spring, when the ground is again 

 trenched as before, and a small quantity of some good 

 chemical fertilizer is spread broadcast, and the surface of 

 the beds is then raked smooth and fine, and the prepara- 

 tion of the soil is complete. My largest flower bed is two 

 hundred feet long by sixteen wide, and faces the south. 

 At the back of the bed is a high board fence, which 

 shelters the flowers from the north winds ; at the ends 

 and front of the bed is an open lath fence, with gates at 

 convenient distances, and every twenty feet are division 

 fences six feet high to break the force of east and west 

 winds. This ample protection from wind renders this 



