12 GARDENING FOR YOUNG ANJ) OLD. 



PREPARING THE SOIL. 



In preparing land for a garden, as before said, we can 

 not plow ib too much in the autumn. If the land can 

 not be got into good condition in the fall, it certainly can 

 not be done in the spring. This is true not only of new 

 land, but of old garden land. Said an old gardener and 

 seed-grower tome the other day: "The longer I live, 

 the more am I convinced of the importance of fall plow- 

 ing. It makes the land cleaner, and you are ready to 

 commence work much earlier in the spring." 



I know a farmer who wished to make a large field- 

 garden, who selected a good piece of land, and plowed it 

 up in the spring and sowed it to buckwheat, and when 

 the crop was in flower, he plowed it under and seeded it 

 again to buckwheat. He had an immense crop, but he 

 managed with a good plow and chain to turn it under. 

 He then, in August, or the first of September, sowed the 

 land to rye, and the next spring, about the middle of 

 May, he plowed under the rye. The land was wonder- 

 fully mellow and full of vegetable matter, and he had a 

 grand piece of land on which to commence gardening 

 operations. By the aid of a little phosphate it is easy 

 to grow good sweet corn, melons, cucumbers, beets, and 

 late cabbages on such land. 



Gardeners who live near a city where land is high, 

 will think they can not afford to let their land lie idle. 

 They will prefer to buy manure rather than plow under 

 green crops. But in the country, where we wish to start 

 a field-garden, and can not buy manure, there can be lit- 

 tle doubt but that we can very cheaply enrich the land 

 by plowing under such crops as buckwheat, white mus- 

 tard, .and rye. I do not say that we can make land very 

 rich in this way, but we can fill it full of vegetable 

 mould, and at the same time make the soil clean and 

 mellow. The system of gardening I wish to advocate in 



