THE VEGETABLE GARDEN 8i 



more attention to the raising of Salads and the less coarse 

 vegetables, which respond readily to intensive culture, 

 and are not so easily obtained from shops and the regu- 

 lar market gardeners. In the small garden it is out of 

 the question to grow main crop Potatoes, although space 

 can sometimes be found for early varieties ; bulky pro- 

 duce, like Cabbages, Beans and mid-season Peas, might 

 more fittingly be raised on an additional strip of land 

 situated outside the snug security of the walled-in or 

 sheltered garden. 



The so-called rare vegetables, including Salsafy, 

 Asparagus, Seakale, Globe Artichokes and Mushrooms, 

 should be more often found in small gardens, and would 

 form a welcome change for the table. The good prac- 

 tice of Herb culture, once a feature in old-fashioned 

 gardens, might be revived, and as most varieties can be 

 grown in pretty ways, as edgings, for example, they 

 would be interesting apart from their value in the 

 kitchen. Sometimes herbs are raised in small beds, each 

 edged with Box, with narrow pathways between ; a 

 patch of ground treated in this way becomes a quaint, 

 old-world conceit, and the fragrance of Balm, Sweet 

 Marjoram, Mint, and Thyme is grateful to most people. 

 A few hives of bees may also find a place in the shel- 

 tered kitchen garden, and if stood some distance back 

 from frequented paths, the insects are rarely troublesome. 

 Besides giving us of their honey supplies, bees do much 

 good by fertilising the fruit blossoms. I would that 

 every garden lover should possess Maeterlinck's truly 

 wonderful " Life of the Bee," so exquisitely written, so 

 stupendous in its facts, so poetically conceived. Its 

 charm is irresistible even to the least imaginative, and 

 few having read it will fail to become amateur apiarists, 

 surely a good thing for our gardens. 



