Feb.] THE KITCHEN GARDEN. jj3 



But when necessary to have the whole space of the kitchen gar- 

 den employed for real use, no ground should be lost in ornamental 

 borders and walks: have a border all around the boundary fence, 

 live or six feet wide, except the south borders, which should be 

 seven or eight feet broad, because of their great use for raisin" - 

 early crops; and have a walk around the garden, not more tlian a 

 yard to tive or six feet wide, allowing the same width for the mid- 

 dle walks, or so as to admit of wheelbarrows passing to bring in 

 the manure, &c, and may either have a four feet wide border all 

 around each quarter next the walks, or not, as you shall think proper; 

 laying the walks neatly with any gravelly materials, or with coal 

 ashes, &c. , so as to have dry walking and wheeling with a barrow 

 in all weathers. 



General Culture of the Ground. 



With respect to the general culture of the kitchen garden, it 

 consists principally in a general annual digging, proper manuring, 

 sowing and planting the crops properly, pricking out, planting, and 

 transplanting various particular crops, keeping the ground clean 

 from weeds, and watering the crops occasionally in summer. 



As to digging, a general digging must be performed annually in 

 winter or spring, for the reception of the principal crops; also as 

 often as any new crops are to be sown or planted at any season of 

 the year, remarking that the general digging for the reception of 

 the main crops of principal esculents in spring, I should advise to 

 be performed by trenching either one or two spades deep, besides 

 the paring at top, though except for some deep rooting plants, as 

 carrots, parsneps, &c, one good spade deep may be sufficient for 

 common trenching, unless on particular occasions, to trench as 

 deep as the good soil admits, to turn the exhausted earth to the 

 bottom and the fresh to the top to renew the soil. However, you 

 should be careful not to trench deeper than the proper soil; and 

 the trenching only one spade deep, will much more effectually 

 renew the soil than plain digging; and by paring the top of each 

 trenching two or three inches deep into the bottom, all seeds of 

 weeds on the surface are thereby buried so deep that they cannot 

 grow; and 1 should likewise advise that the general digging be 

 performed principally, especially in stiff ground, before the setting 

 in of the winter frosts, or early in spring; but it would be better 

 done if some considerable time before the season for putting in the 

 crops, that the ground might have the advantage of fallow, to melio- 

 rate and enrich it, and always let the ground be trenched in rough 

 ridges, that it may receive all possible benefit from the sun, air, 

 rains, frosts, &c, to fertilize and pulverize the soil before it is 

 levelled down for the reception of seeds and plants; and this level- 

 ling down will be an additional improvement in breaking, dividing, 

 and meliorating the earth. Plain digging, however, may be suffi- 

 cient for most of the slight crops, especially in summer or autumn, 

 after the ground has been trench-digged in the general winter or 

 spring digging-. 



