16 PICTORIAL FBAGTICAL - VEGETABLE GROWING. 



year. As a matter of fact^ top-dressings will keep a bed going for 

 periods varying from twenty to fifty years. 



The object of these remarks is not to disparage change-cropping, 

 which is right enough as a theory ; it is to establish the fact that it is 

 not the real key to success. You could do away with the change- 

 course system altogether if your culture was good enough, but no 

 amount of changing about would bring success if the culture was bad. 



It is my desire to give encouragement to those who, having small 

 plots of vegetable ^ ground, are unable to bring into play those 

 principles of rotation-cropping which some people advocate so 

 eloquently. The theorist would aver that the principle is equally 

 applicable to a piece of 10 rods and to one of as many acres ; but in 

 this he would only prove that he is a theorist, and nothing better. 

 Practical experience proves that with very small plots of ground it is 

 impossible to effect the changes that are easily effected on large ones. 

 There is an overlapping that the utmost ingenuity cannot smooth 

 away. 



The value of rotation-cropping is claimed to be established in two 

 directions— (1) avoiding soil exhaustion, (2) averting insect or fungoid 

 attacks. 



1. Given ordinary farm culture, it is likely enough that there is a 

 certain advantage from rotation-cropping, for at all times the food 

 supply is limited ; but, given good garden culture, which is a very 

 different thing, there is little or none, because the food supply is 

 abundant. As much manure may be put. on the farm as on the 

 garden land, yet the former will not be so fertile as the latter. An 

 attempt may be made to prove, by the ash of a plant, that it abstracts 

 a certain ingredient from the soil, and that if another class of crop, 

 which does not extract the same ingredient, is not put upon the soil 

 in place of the first, exhaustion must follow. The answer to this is 

 (a) that the ash of a plant is no guide to its requirements ; and (b) 

 even if it were, the matter would be of trifling consequence, inasmuch 

 as a thoroughly tilled soil can never be exhausted. 



2. Change of ground is of far less value than is supposed in 

 averting the attacks of insects and fungi. The majority approach the 

 plant by means of the air, and not of the soil, and even in the case 

 of the latter a change to a considerable distance is required to be of 

 much use, and that is not possible in small vegetable gardens. The 

 Carrot fly, the Celeiry fly, the Onion fly, the Cabbage butterfly — these 

 and numerous other enemies come on the wing. Some pests, such as 

 the club-root, certainly make their home in the soil, and attack the 

 root, but shifting the crop which they attack to another part of a 

 garden will not, as a rule, keep them away. Something else besides 

 that is necessary, of which more later. 



The small cultivator cannot, as I say, secure the perfect rotation 

 which is possible to the man with many fields. The nearest that he can 

 get is as follows : He can divide his ground into three sections, a 

 half and two quarters. The half he can devote to Potatoes, the two 

 quarters respectively to tap roots (Beet, Carrots, Parsnips, and others) 



