The Home Garden 



Before plowing, I would advise running a 

 harrow over the ground to collect the stalks 

 and debris of last season's crops, of which there 

 will doubtless be a goodly quantity unless 

 you have been gardener long enough to have 

 established the habit of thoroughly cleaning 

 up the garden in the fall — a habit to be heart- 

 ily encouraged for more reasons than one. If 

 the refuse is raked up and disposed of in the 

 fall, by burning, or by adding it to the compost 

 heap, many eggs of insects which prey upon 

 vegetables will be destroyed, and the spores 

 of fungoid diseases will be rendered compara- 

 tively inert. This is a sufficient reason for a 

 general fall cleaning up in the garden, for it is 

 the means of saving a great deal of hard work 

 which would have to be done next season, if eggs 

 and larvae were left to develop. The neat appear- 

 ance of a garden in which no refuse is left to 

 show itself above the ordinary covering of snow 

 is another argument in favor of fall cleaning. 



It may seem to the amateur that the advice 

 to run a harrow over the ground before plow- 

 ing, if the garden was left uncared for in the 

 fall, is more the result of whim than anything 

 else, but it is not. Old stalks and roots of last 



30 



