GETTING THE GARDEN READY 



summer.'^ Read ^'warm day'' for swallow'' 

 and you will get the force of the statement. 

 It is not advisable to do much at gardening 

 until you are reasonably sure that warm 

 weather has come to stay. Even if early- 

 planted seed comes up, spells of cold weather, 

 and often of frost, which we are likely to 

 have at the North until about the first of 

 May, will have such a debilitating effect on 

 comparatively hardy plants that those grown 

 from later sowings, when all conditions are 

 favorable, will come to maturity ahead of 

 them. Therefore it will be seen that it is 

 poor policy to be in too great a hurry, and 

 good policy to wait for what the farmer 

 calls growing weather" before doing much 

 work in the garden. 



If very early vegetables are wanted it will 

 be necessary to start them in the hotbed. 

 In another chapter I will give some direc- 

 tions for the making and management of 

 this very important adjunct of gardening. 



The first thing to do in making a garden 

 is to plow or spade it. Plowing is not ad- 

 missible on small grounds, but where there 

 is room enough to allow a team and plow to 

 operate I would advise it in preference to 

 spading, because it will save a good deal of 



hard work, and greatly expedite matters. 



9 



