D. M. FERRY & CO’S DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 3 
THE ESSENTIALS TO THE PRODUCTION OF 
Good Vegetables and Beautiful Flowers 
G d Soil A rich sandy loam is the best. but a fair de- 
00 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. 
Liberal mM anurin A soil which does not need en- 
q riching in order to produce the 
best results is rarely found, and very often success is in pro- 
portion to the liberality with which manures 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 beof 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 tothe rod. A mass or lump 
of any of the commercial fertilizers, even if it be but an inch 
in diameter, is liable to kill any seed or young plant which 
comes in contact with it, soit is very important that they be 
thoroughly pulverized and mixed with the soil. 
Thorou 1) Pre aration Rich soil and liberal ma- 
q p nuring will avail little with- 
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 toa good depth, 
taking care, if it is a clay soil, that the work is not done when 
it is too wet. Ifa 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 orrake. 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. 
Good Seeds There is no more prolific source of 
¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ disappointment and failure among 
Pro er] Pl anted amateur gardeners than hasty, care- 
p y less or improper sowing of the seed. 
A seed consists of a minute plant minusthe root with a suffi- 
cient amount of food stowed in or around it to sustainit 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 are the softening of the 
hard, outer shell, the developing of 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 
condition 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 germination. Too high a temperature is often as detri- 
mental 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 be covered with half an 
inch of earth pressed down, while corn may be an inch, beans 
an inch to two inches, and peas two to six 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 wet. Occasionally a heavy or long con- 
tinued rain followed by a bright sun will so bake and crust 
the surface that it is impossible 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 killed. In such cases 
the only remedy is to plant again. 
dicious Cultivation Not only should every weed 
u be removed as soon as it ap- 
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 yield and 
quality have been materially lowered by injudiciously deep and 
close cultivation after the roots of the plants had fully oceu- 
pied the ground. A very small garden, well cultivated and 
eared 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 desirabie; 
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. 
Heating Material The best heating material that is 
easily available is fresh 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 
= fermentation, and as soon as this is accomplished it is fit 
or use. 
b Gardeners commonly use sash made especially for 
Sas 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 small size that can be easily handled, and the 
use of larger and better glass. We would recommend that 
the sash be about three by 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. 
This may be made of sound one-inch lum- 
Che Frame ber, the back twelve to fourteen inches high, 
the front ten to twelve. It should be well 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. 
Ch S | This should be light, rich, friable. Any consid- 
4 N 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. 
