8 D. M. FERRY i& CO., DETROIT, MICH. 



THE ESSENTIALS TO THE PRODUCTION OF 



Good Vegetables and Beautiful Flowers 



rinnrl ^C\\\ A- rich sandy loam is the best, but a fair de- 

 vJUUU oUll gree of success may be secured from any soil 

 which can be made rich and friable. Good vegetables cannot 

 be grown on barren sand, a cold, hard, lumpy clay, nor in the 

 shade of orchard or other trees. 



I iKi>ral Maniirin<« A soil which does not need en- 

 LiDlsrdl ITldnunn^ ricWng in order to produce the 

 best results is rarely found, and very often success is in pro- 

 portion to the liberality with which fertilizers have been used. 

 Well decomposed stable manure where straw bedding has 

 been used is the best; that where sawdust is used is not so 

 good. Often wood ashes at the rate of one peck up to one 

 bushel to the square rod will be of great benefit. Commercial 

 fertilizers are excellent, and may be used at the rate of 4 to 12 

 pounds to the square rod, and the more concentrated forms, 

 such as Nitrate of Soda, Guano, Dried Blood and Potash Salts, 

 at the rate of one to six pounds to the rod. A mass or lump 

 of any of the commercial fertilizers, even if it is but a quarter 

 of an inch in diameter, is liable to kill any seed or young plant 

 which comes in contact with it, so it is very important that 

 they be thoroughly pulverized and mixed with the soil. 



Thorough Preparation Si??nr,l'iiSv'ail'SwS: 



out thorough preparation. The soil must be made friable by 

 thorough and judicious working; if this is well done all that 

 follows will be easy; if it is neglected, only partial success is 

 possible, and that at the cost of a great deal of hard work. 

 The garden should be well plowed or dug to a good depth, 

 taking care, if it is a clay soil, that the work is not done when 

 it is too wet. If a handful from the furrow moulds with slight 

 pressure into a ball which cannot be easily crumbled into fine 

 earth again, the soil is too wet, and if stirred then will be 

 hard to work all summer. The surface* should be made as 

 fine and smooth as possible with the harrow or rake. It is 

 generally necessary to plow the whole garden at once, and to 

 do this in time for the earliest crops, but the part which is 

 not planted for some weeks should be kept mellow by fre- 

 quent cultivation. 



There is no more prolific source of 

 disappointment and failure among 



Good Seeds. 



Prrtnarlv PIah^oH amateur gardeners than hasty, care- 

 r I upci ly r ictllicu jggg qj. improper sowing of the seed. 

 A seed consists of a minute plant minus the root with a suffi- 

 cient amount of food stowed in or around it to sustain it until 

 it can expand its leaves, form roots and provide for itself, the 

 whole enclosed in a hard and more or less impervious shell. 

 To secure germination, moisture, heat, and a certain amount 

 of air are necessary. The first steps ai'e the softening of the 

 hard, outer shell, and the leaves of the plant from the 

 absorption of water, and the changing of the plant food 

 from the form of starch to that of sugar. In the first con- 

 dition the food is easily preserved unchanged, but the plant 

 cannot use it. While in its sugary condition it is easily 

 appropriated but perishable, and if not used it speedily de- 

 cays itself and induces decay in the plant. A dry seed may 



retain its vitality and remain unchanged for years, but after 

 germination has commenced, a check of a day or two in the 

 process may be fatal. There is no time in the life of a plant 

 when it is so susceptible of fatal injury, from the over-abund- 

 ance or want of sufficient heat and moisture, as at that be- 

 tween the commencement of germination and the formation 

 of the first true leaves, and it is just then that it needs the aid 

 of a gardener to secure favorable conditions. These are: 



First— A proper and constant degree of moisture. The soil 

 should always be moist, never wet. This is secured by mak- 

 ing the surface of freshly dug soil so fine and the pressing it 

 over the seeds so firmly with the feet or the back of the hoe, 

 that the degree of moisture remains as nearly uniform as pos- 

 sible. 



Second— A proper degree of heat, secured by sowing the 

 seed when the temperature of the soil is that most favorable 

 to the germination of the seed of that particular plant. Too 

 high a temperature is often as detrimental as one too low. 

 The proper temperature for each sort may be learned from 

 a careful study of the following pages and the experience of 

 the most successful gardeners in your vicinity. 



Third— Covering the seed to such a depth that while a uni- 

 form degree of heat and moisture is preserved, the necessary 

 air can readily reach the germinating seed, and the tiny stem 

 push the forming leaves into the light and air. This depth 

 will vary with different seeds and conditions of the soil ; and 

 can be learned only from practical experience. In general, 

 seeds of the size of the turnip should not be covered with 

 more than half an inch of earth pressed down, ,while corn 

 may be an inch, beans an inch to two inches, and peas one to 

 four inches deep. 



Fourth — Such a condition of soil that the ascending stem 

 can easily penetrate it, and the young roots speedily find suit- 

 able food. We can usually secure this by thorough prepara- 

 tion of the ground, and taking care never to sow fine seeds 

 when the ground is ivet. Occasionally a heavy or long con- 

 tinued rain followed by a bright sun will so bake and crust 

 the surface that it is impossilale for the young plant to find its 

 way through it, or a few days of strong wind will so dry the 

 surface that the young plants will be lolled. In such cases 

 the only remedy is to plant again. 



Judicious Cultivation ^frZ^^'Slo'^SZT^^. 



pears, but the crust which forms after a rain should be broken 

 up and the ground stirred as soon as it is dry enough to per- 

 mit it. The more frequently and deeply the soil is stirred 

 while the plants are young, the better, but as they develop 

 and the roots occupy the ground, cultivation should be shal- 

 lower until it becomes a mere stirring of the surface. We 

 have seen hundreds of acres of vegetables where the jield and 

 quality have been materially lowered by in judiciously "deep and 

 close cultivation after the roots of the plants had fully occu- 

 pied the ground. A very small garden, well cultivated and 

 cared for, will give larger returns and be in every way more 

 satisfactory than a much larger one poorly prepared and neg- 

 lected. 



How to Build and Manage Hot-Beds 



For early vegetables, some provision for starting certain 

 plants earlier than can be done in the open air is desirable; 

 for this purpose nothing is better than a good hot-bed, and its 

 construction is so simple and the expense so slight that every 

 garden should have one. A hot-bed proper not only pro- 

 tects the plants from the cold, but supplies bottom heat. By 

 this term the gardener means that the soil is constantly kept 

 several degrees warmer than the air above, that being the 

 condition so far as heat is concerned, which is most favorable 

 for rapid and vigorous growth, and gardeners usually secure 

 it by making a compact pile of some fermenting material and 

 covering it with the earth in which the plants are to grow. 



Hoa4!n<< Manorial The best heating material that is 

 liedliil^ inai^liai easily available is /res/i horse ma- 

 nure, containing a liberal quantity of straw bedding. Such 

 manure, if thrown into a loose pile, will heat violently and 

 unevenly and will soon become cold. What is wanted in the 

 hot-bed is a steady and moderate but lasting heat. To secure 

 this, the manure should be forked over, shaken apart, and if 

 dry, watered and allowed to stand a few days and then be 

 forked over again, piled and allowed to heat a second time, 

 the object being to get the whole mass into a uniform degree 

 of fermentation, and as soon as this is accomplished it is fit 

 for use. 



C^^U Gardeners commonly use sash made especially for 

 »3aMl hot-beds and glazed with small lights cut from odds 

 and ends and so furnished at very low rates. Such sash can 

 usually be procured in any of our large cities, and costs much 

 less than if made to order. For garden use. however, we 

 much prefer a smaller sash that can be easily handled, and the 

 use of larger and better glass. We would recommend that 

 for home gardens, the sash be about two and one-half by four 

 or five feet, and that the glass be not less than 10x14, laid 

 with not more than one-quarter inch lap. In giving the order 

 to one unaccustomed to the work, it would be well to state 

 what they are to be used for, and that they need to be made 

 like skylight sash. 



Th<> FramP "^^^^ maybe made of sound one-inch lum- 

 I I ic I I ai I ii:/ l^er, the back twelve to fourteen inches high, 

 the front ten to twelve. It should be Avell fitted to the sash 

 so as to leave as little opening as possible and yet allow the 

 sash to be easily moved up and down, even when the frame is 

 quite wet. 



Thp ^nil '^^^^ should be light, rich, friable. Any consid- 

 I 1 !«. .jvii erable amount of clay in it is very objectionable. 

 If possible, it should be unfrozen when put into the bed; for 

 this reason it is much better to prepare it the fall before, and 

 cover the pile with enough coarse manure or straw to keep 

 out the frost. 



