ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 109 



Coarse manure may be put upon your pie-plant bed, as 

 a strong and succulent leaf-stalk is desirable. Let it be 

 thoroughly forked, gently near the stools and deeply 

 between the rows. 



With an iron-toothed rake go over your old strawberry 

 beds that are matted together, and rake thera severely. 

 Strawberries that have been kept in hills and cleanly tended 

 should be manured between the rows and gently spaded or 

 forked. 



Early Sowings. — Tomatoes, egg-plant, early cucumbers, 

 cabbage, cauliflowers, broccoli, lettuce, melons, celery for 

 an early crop, should have been, before this, well advanced 

 in a hot-bed. If not, no time is to be lost ; and if a first 

 sowing is well along, a second sowing should be made. 



.You cannot get too early into the ground after the frost 

 is out and the wet a little dried, onions for seed or a crop, 

 lettuce, radishes, peas, spinage, parsnip, early cabbage, 

 and small salads. 



Asparagus. — ^The beds sliould be attended to; remove 

 all weeds and old stalks ; give a liberal quantity of salt to 

 the bed — if you have old brine, or can get fish brine at the 

 stores, that is better than dry salt. Asparagus is a marine 

 plant, growing upon sandy beaches along the sea coast, and 

 is therefore benefited by salt, to which, in its habitat^ it was 

 accustomed. Put about three or four inches of old, thor- 

 oughly rotted manure upon the bed ; fork it in gently, so as 

 not to wound the cro\vns of the plant. Directions for form- 

 ing beds belong to a later period in the season. 



Oxioxs. — Should be sown or set early. 



If you prefer seed, sow, across beds four feet wide, in 

 drills eight inches apart ; young gardeners are apt to be- 

 grudge room — give it freely to everything, and it will repay 

 yon ; when they come up, thin out to one for every inch ; 

 as you wish young and tender onions for your table, draw 

 these, leaving, at least, one every five inches in the row. If 

 your soil is deep and very rich, onions can be grown in one 



