8 PICTORIAL TBAGTIGAL VEGETABLE GROWING. 



Vegetable growers have their faihires as well as their successes. 

 ^\h.y, therefore, do they not suffer the depressions of other men 1 

 All ! there's the crux !^ Any ass can be happy when the sun shines 

 and the thistles are thick, but it wants a philosophical ass to be able 

 to bray cheerfully when food is scarce and beatings fall thick and 

 fast. Without claiming that this is a particularly complimentary 

 metaphor, I yet proceed to extract the kernel from it. The vegetable 

 grower is the superior member of society which he is simply and 

 solely because he is able, through good and through evil report, to 

 retain his equanimity. 



It is not easy to say w^hy vegetable growers are, as a class, so con- 

 tented, but the fact is beyond dispute. If I myself were asked to 

 define that fascination which makes my Potato patch more enjoyable 

 to me than an art gallery, or a theatre, or a Parliament house, or a 

 museum, I should very likely be at a loss to answw. Even in the 

 inner ring — the garden itself, with its rockery, its Rose beds, its fruit 

 quarters, its greenhouse — the kitchen garden is the centre of interest. 

 Yes ! there is no possible doubt about it, vegetable culture is of all 

 things on this earth the most completely seductive and satisfying. 



In the few chapters on vegetables which I propose to give, I want 

 my readers to agree with me in putting the subject on this higher plane. 

 I want them to go into it as I do, with an enthusiastic and whole- 

 hearted joy. There is, in some quarters, a craven fear of acknowledg- 

 ing the fascination of Pea growing : w^e wdll have none of it here. I 

 once heard the words infra dig. murmured in connection wdth manual 

 labour in a kitchen garden. I responded with the one pun of my 

 life, and here it is : Yes, and I am IN FOPt A DIG ! " 



The pun w^as execrable, but the spirit ot the response I unflinch- 

 ingly support. Let hifradigr be the w^atchw^ord of the lily-fingered, 

 and " In for a dig" be the battle-cry of you and I. 



Is there a person reading these lines who is hovering on the brink 

 of kitchen gardening ? His plot is small, mayhap, and he has had no 

 training ; perhaps his purse is shallow. Let me link his arm in mine, 

 and tell him, in words of earnestness if not of eloquence, to fear not, 

 neither to despair ; rather to take his courage in both hands, and 

 send his seed order off by the very next post. 



I have said that the person who hesitates may have a very small 

 ■plot ; but then, on the other hand, he may have a very large one. 

 Here, straight aw^ay, we run up against a practical point — one that is 

 well worth an argument. 



What is an adequate sized piece of ground for a kitchen garden ? 

 How large a piece can one man manage How many people will a 

 given area of ground supply with vegetables ? These are questions 

 which call for a little consideration. All of them could be disposed of 

 (and are frequently disposed of) in one abstract proposition — "It all 

 depends." A convenient proposition, this, for the man in a hurry, or 

 for the man who does not know ! Convenient, yet not, when analysed, 

 altogether exhilarating to the man who wants to know. 



Obviously, the question of what area is adequate can only be 



