42 
tiie amateur’s kitchen garden. 
wonders may be done with clay, even in respect of plants that 
clay is altogether unfit for. In our own case we grow potatoes 
and asparagus of the finest quality on undrained clay by 
the comparatively inexpensive process of planting on ridges 
and using lime rubbish largely as a manure, the staple soil 
being deficient of calcareous matter. There is considerable 
advantage in securing from the garden a sufficiency of every- 
thing it should produce, for, as a rule, home-grown fruits and 
vegetables are better than can be purchased. Moreover, if the 
management be right, home-grown produce is the cheapest, 
whatever the cynical and the superficial may say to the contrary. 
Those who talk of cabbages costing half-a-crown each when 
grown at home, and in that case being inferior to twopenny 
cabbages from the market (and there are people who make an 
affectation of superiority when talking such nonsense), have 
simply everything to learn, and therefore should only be listened 
to for the amusement their folly may afford. But it will often 
happen that certain requisites may be more advantageously 
purchased than produced, and then the capabilities of the 
district as regards market supplies will have to be considered. 
In places where there is no difficulty in obtaining market 
vegetables, it will often be found advantageous to trust to the 
greengrocer for early peas, asparagus, mushrooms, potatoes, 
winter saladings, and even turnips ; but first class main-crop 
peas, cauliflowers, seakale, summer salads, turnips for summer 
and autumn use, potatoes for use in June, July, and August, 
summer cabbages, broccolis for cutting in spring, winter greens, 
onions, celery, and such small but useful things as sweet and 
savoury herbs, should be grown if possible. On heavy land 
all kinds of brassicas are likely to prove profitable ; on a good 
sandy soil asparagus will be at home ; on sand, chalk, or peat 
potatoes are likely to prove fine in quality though perhaps 
small unless aided with suitable manures. Beans and peas like 
strong lands. 
The question of climate is full of interest. In one of our 
gardens, which is sheltered on every side by means of dense 
hedges and plantations, it is a rare occurrence for anything to 
suffer from frost in the month of May. In another garden 
not a furlong distant, but open to the east, the havoc made by 
frost in May would be simply ruinous were the cropping not 
ordered with especial care to avoid losses. In the first garden, 
early bush fruits, asparagus, early peas, early spinach, and 
