J26 THE MANSE GARDEN. 



PART SECOND. 



VEGETABLES. 



VEGETABLES are not good for food or profitable 

 to the grower except they grow well ; but the size 

 to which they attain in a given time is not the only 

 criterion of successful cultivation; for there is an 

 overgrowth which, as well as bad thriving, is preju- 

 dicial to every good quality of potherb production. 

 The pea, which cannot be too plump and large, may 

 be judged an exception; but if the stalk be too luxu- 

 riant it will not produce the pea : an overswollen and 

 consequently hollowhearted potato, is a further in- 

 stance of the waste that is occasioned by overkind- 

 ness to the plant, and a hard, stringy, ill rounded 

 turnip affords an example of the bad quality of the 

 vegetable from bad thriving, and of loss to the cul- 

 tivator by poverty of soil. We club the interests 

 of the whole of the vegetable tribes, then, when we 

 consult first for the ground on which they are to be 

 reared, keeping quality and economy equally in view, 

 remembering that the great waste is the failure of a 

 crop, and that crops will fail by either extreme of 

 penury or pampering. 



The most essential requisite to a good garden 

 soil is sufficiency of depth. Eighteen inches may 



