ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 211 



fine charcoal, if you can get it from blacksmith's or else- 

 where, vegetable mold, ashes, and very old manure. Spread 

 and spade in a good coat of this, spading lightly near to the 

 plants and deeply between them. When frost destroys the 

 tops wholly, cover the bed with coarse, strong manure 

 about four inches deep, smooth it down, and let it remain 

 thus. The next spring stir the surface smartly with a rake, 

 and no further care will be required except to pluck out any 

 weeds that grow through the summer. 



GATHERING. Leaves are constantly springing from the 

 centre. Of course the full-grown ones will be on the out- 

 side. These should be harvested, leaving the inside ones 

 to mature. By going regularly over your bed, and taking 

 in turn the outside leaves, a bed may be used till July with- 

 out the slightest injury. Other fruit, after that time, 

 usually displaces pie-plant and leaves it to rest the 

 remainder of the year. The leaf-stalks should not be cut 

 off. Slide the hand down as near as possible to the root, 

 and give the stalk a backward and sidewise wrench and it 

 will be detached at a joint or articulation, and no stump 

 will be left to rot and injure the root we usually cut off 

 the leaves on the spot, leaving them about the root, both 

 for shade to the ground and for manure. 



PRESERVE TOUR POT-PLANTS. We warn ladies having 

 pot-plants designed for winter-wear, to be prudent before 

 hand, or some frosty night will cut every tender plant left 

 out, and then prudence will be good for nothing. Every 

 one who pretends to keep parlor plants should own a 

 thermometer. If at sundown or at nine o'clock it stands 

 anywhere near forty degrees, your plants are in danger. 

 Sometimes it will fall, in one night, from fifty degrees to 

 below thirty-two degrees, which last is the freezing point. 



