PRODUCTIVE FAMILY GARDENING, 
359 
refresh the rising crop, whatever it may be. 
Another mode of economising the ground is 
to plant out some subjects at half distances. 
Cabbages, in the fall of the year, are adapted 
for this. If, for instance, they would cabbage 
well at two feet apart from row to row, 
and eighteen inches from plant to plant, put 
them in rows only one foot apart, and only 
nine inches from each other in the row: all 
through the winter, you may be pulling the 
alternate rows for greens and cabbage plants, 
and when you have removed the alternate 
rows you may begin to pull up the alternate 
plants ; meanwhile the plants intended to cab- 
bage have lost nothing, because before they are 
too thick those that are removed give ample 
room to the remainder to cabbage. Another 
mode of economising, is to sow radishes, 
spring onions, lettuces, &c, in the same 
quarters as the early potatoes, and they are 
cleared off for consumption or for planting 
out before the potatoes are inconvenienced, or 
grow enough to injure the other crops. Ex- 
perience will always teach us the best mode 
of economising ground and labour ; but some 
few general hints may be useful to the amateur 
and the cottager. There are many books in 
which there are directions for the garden 
operations every month in the year, but even 
the best of them are not explicit enough in 
respect to the quantities or proportions of 
ground to be sown or planted ; but so much 
depends on the circumstances under which a 
garden is cultivated, the wants of the culti- 
vator, and his command of labour, that we 
hardly know how it could be defined, unless 
we take an ordinary garden required for an 
ordinary supply. There are not, however, 
two families alike in this particular : one 
family may not consume a peck of onions in 
a year, while another, no larger, may eat 
several bushels; under these circumstances 
(like the little work called Gardening for the 
Million), we recommend frequent sow r ing 
rather than large crops, and lay it down as a 
rule that the wants must regulate the supply. 
Productive gardening, therefore, may mean 
large produce, abundance of everything ; but 
the intended application of the term is large 
produce without waste, and the way to secure 
this is to limit the quantity of perishable 
articles, and make ail the abundance and 
surplus of some crop which is always sale- 
able and not perishable, — that is, not perish- 
able within the period of several weeks. We 
propose to direct briefly the cultivation of the 
various subjects desirable to a family, so as to 
make the most of the ground. 
POTATOES. 
The numerous writers on the cultivation of 
the potato differ as much in their plans as if 
they were advising upon as many different 
subjects. We have grown them upon every 
plan. The indifference of the root to many 
different modes of treatment, and its success 
occasionally under all, has made all men too 
careless. We set out with preferring whole 
tubers for sets, in preference to cut sets, when 
they can be got of the right size, and, when 
we can get whole sets, we like autumn planting 
better than spring. Whole sets should, on 
account of economy, be small, that is, about 
the size of a walnut in its green husk ; those 
much smaller might prove weak, if much 
larger there would be waste. Whole tubers 
are less liable than cut ones to be damaged by 
wet or frost, but for winter planting, or rather 
for autumn planting, they should be a clear 
six inches under the surface, for which pur- 
pose the dibble must be thrust down eight 
inches. In selecting the place for potatoes, 
plant those intended to be early under a south 
wall or paling, or on a sloping southern aspect, 
using the Ash-leaf kidney, Soden's early 
Oxford, Pilot's flour-ball, Alliway's early 
seedling, and Looker's Oxonian, or any other of 
the well-known early kinds. Plant any of 
these a foot apart, in rows eighteen inches from 
each other. Plant in October. Between 
these rows there may be planted rows of cab- 
bage plants, not more than six inches apart, 
to be pulled as greens as soon as they are large 
enough to eat, beginning by taking every other 
one the first time you go over them, and 
clearing them altogether the second time. 
When the potato plants are well up, let them 
be earthed, that is, the earth drawn up round 
their stems with a hoe; but although we men- 
tion October, the open weather from that time 
till May would be good, if the vegetation 
could be kept back ; for the instant a potato 
begins to shoot the eyes, it begins to take 
harm. Common sense dictates that the instant 
the eyes begin to swell the tuber ought to be 
in the ground ; for this reason, seed potatoes 
ought never to be pitted, but when taken up 
they should be dried on the surface of the 
ground, or what is called greened. This 
process thickens the skin, evaporates a portion 
of the moisture, and adapts them for keeping, 
though it totally spoils them for eating. They 
ought then to be kept in a dry, cool place 
until the period for planting arrives. Suppose 
them disinclined to gi'ow, and the eyes not to 
start even till late in the spring, they would 
be just as well planted the last day as the 
first; but we repeat that the instant they 
begin to grow (before planting), they begin to 
lose quality. Presuming large potatoes alone 
can be had for seed, the necessity of cutting 
them into smaller sets must be admitted ; but 
equal care, indeed greater rather than less care, 
must be taken to cut and plant before they 
