THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. 105 



CHAPTER VIII. 

 THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. 



Choice varieties of vegetables and fruits are just as 

 easily raised as poor ones, and are ten times more valua- 

 ble. In the management of many farm-gardens, how- 

 ever, seeds are saved as it may happen, here and there, 

 or bought from the old collections of country stores, and 

 only a small variety chosen at that. The result is a 

 "garden" that would be quite put to shame by the plot 

 of ground behind some "city man's" house, or the cot- 

 tage of some busy, intelligent mechanic, who appreciates 

 the resources that lie in a bit of Mother Earth, and 

 studies how to make the most of them. 



It must be confessed, too, that there is a great deal in 

 emulation and competition. The villager, who is hu- 

 man, doubtless likes his early peas and fine tomatoes for 

 their intrinsic worth. And he likes mightily, also, to 

 catch an occasional passer-by casting admiring eyes at 

 his superior vegetables and clean walks ; at any rate, I 

 have never known him to openly resent such glances ! 

 The countryman, who, maybe, is too hurried in the 

 morning and too tired at night for weeding walks and 

 training vines, does not always feel this incentive. His 

 garden "looks about as well as other farmers' gardens," 

 and so he is content with a little seeding, a little weed- 

 ing, and a good deal of rubbish. 



Here is another little field for reform in which farmers' 

 wives and daughters can distinguish themselves. Far be 

 it that they should become sun-burned and hand-hard- 

 ened laborers, like those too patient toilers, the peasant 

 women of the old countries, who do both house- work 

 and field-work ! But half an hour each day, lengthened 



