238 The Principles of Vegetable- Gardening 



this, he can work out his method; or if he cannot work 

 out a method, he is necessarily the servant of some one 

 who can. Most men do not rise above details. 



The main or bold facts which one needs first to know 

 about a vegetable he would cultivate are these: (1) 

 whether root crop, leaf crop, fruit crop; (2) demands 

 as to season or climate, — cold -weather crop or warm- 

 weather crop; (3) duration of its growth, — early or quick 

 crop, full-season crop, catch-crop, companion -crop; (4) 

 whether to be transplanted or not; (5) to be grown in 

 hills or drills; (6) the special demands as to soil and 

 plant-food. Knowing these things, he next inquires 

 what peculiar treatments the crop demands in tillage and 

 other special care, what are its enemies, and what are 

 the means of harvesting and marketing. In the follow- 

 ing pages an effort is made to give the comprehensive 

 view when treating the different crops; details of prac- 

 tice are considered to be of secondary importance to the 

 object which the author now has in view and he has 

 not treated them in full, although success in the cultiva- 

 tion of any crop is impossible without close attention to 

 these details. 



1. CLASSIFICATION OF CROPS 



The first essential in an analysis of the methods of 

 cultivating the crops is a classification of the crops 

 themselves. A mere alphabetical arrangement is the 

 best for easy reference and for those who are looking 

 chiefly for rules, but it does not contribute to an un- 

 derstanding of principles. Related plants demand sim- 



