THE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN. 
43 
other good things are produced in plenty, whereas in the 
second, to labour for such things would be to organize dis- 
appointment and prepare for an annual waste of money, labour, 
and land. 
To ensure a constant succession of things in season, and 
have always enough and no great glut at any time, necessitates 
a certain amount of forecasting. In one sense, gardening is 
founded on forecasting, but, as respects the matter now before 
us, it is rather complicated. It is pleasant to be enabled to 
send a friend a few nice cauliflowers or mushrooms or grapes, 
but it is not pleasant, and therefore not desirable to be 
burdened with a great glut of some particular thing, and, as 
you begin to tire of it, discover that there is nothing provided 
to take its place, that while you have been labouring, perhaps, 
to provide ten times more peas and potatoes than you can 
consume, you have made no arrangements to secure delicious 
broccolis in autumn, and have forgotten such useful roots as 
beets, carrots, parsnips, and such-like. There is no part of 
the scheme of a kitchen garden that requires such careful 
forecasting as the supply of the table during April and May. 
In the event of a cold spring, the garden will not supply a 
scrap of vegetation from Spring-sown seeds until far into June, 
when the first supplies of round spinach will be ready, and 
early peas, perhaps, will immediately follow. From the turn 
of the year, we may have collards, sprouts of many kinds, 
green kale and sprouting broccoli being the chief, and in April, 
the broccolis that have stood the winter will turn in and keep 
going to the end of May, and at the same time there should 
be a sufficiency of winter spinach, and the sprouting broccoli 
should hold out to quite the end of May. The fame of sea- 
kale and asparagus is enhanced by the fact that they come in 
at a time when there is not much else to be obtained, and 
hence the importance of doing them well and ensuring a 
sufficiency. 
In selecting from catalogues of seeds, endeavour to hit the 
happy mean between too few and too many sorts of any par- 
ticular thing. You may be inclined to grow a great many 
sorts, and you may be well warned in time that those who 
grow collections are bound to have bad sorts as well as good 
ones ; whereas, on the other hand, those who grow selections 
may err the other way, and select too few. The case can be 
hest illustrated by reference to the potato. You may have a 
