1871.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
103 
but no longer. They can hardly be put in too 
early, provided the soil is dry, but it is a great 
mistake to plant them when the ground is wet. 
This is especially true of Yeitche’s Perfection, 
and other large peas. They are almost certain 
to rot in the ground if it is cold and wet. I 
sow a quart of Bishop’s Long Pod and a quart 
of Harrison’s Perfection, and these will bridge 
over the time between the early peas and the 
main crop. I know of nothing better for the 
main crop than Champion of England. But 
they want deep, rich land, and land that was 
made rich a year or more ago. But in the ab¬ 
sence of this, make the land rich by the liberal 
use of the well rotted manure we have described, 
and let it be thoroughly mixed with the soil 
under the peas and for at least a foot on each 
side the row, and nine or ten inches deep. 
I have never had any satisfactory results 
from dwarf peas, but have not tried the Little 
Gem. With the editor of the Agriculturist at 
“ The Pines,” it proved excellent, and I mean 
to try it. With me, a short, half-dwarf pea is 
no object. If I have to pole the peas at all, it 
is about as easy to pole Champion of England 
as a variety that does not grow two feet high— 
and it is much easier work to pick from the 
tall rows than the low ones. 
In the cities and villages, nearly every one 
who has any taste for gardening has a hot-bed. 
On the farm, we seldom see one; and yet the 
farmer has plenty of horse manure and can 
make a hot-bed with little trouble and expense; 
and most of the labor required is during a com¬ 
paratively leisure season. It is high time that 
farmers, for their own sake, and the sake of their 
children, paid more attention to their gardens 
and less to fast horses. Don’t tell me you can¬ 
not afford a hot-bed and a good flower and vege¬ 
table garden. It is not so. Draw out a dozen 
HOME-MADE GARDEN MARKER. 
loads of horse or sheep manure to some conven¬ 
ient sunny place in the garden,sheltered from the 
north and west winds. Throw the manure into 
a loose heap, and in a few days after the heat is 
well up, make it into a liot-bed, five feet high 
and a foot wider and longer than the sashes. If 
you have no mold already prepared, put on the 
top of the manure five or six inches of light, rich, 
sandy soil, free from lumps. The better way is 
to sift it. I should devote one sash to lettuce, 
sown in rows two inches apart. It is a great 
mistake to sow any thing broadcast, as it causes 
so much more work in weeding. And as soon 
as the plants are large enough to eat, you can 
pull out every alternate row, and leave the other 
rows to grow larger. If you have any super¬ 
phosphate, two or three tablespoonfuls scatter¬ 
ed over the soil in each sash will be a great 
help, especially to lettuce. Tomatoes should 
receive immediate attention. The market gar¬ 
deners usually manage to have plants twice as 
large as I can raise, and three times as high; 
but they are not half as good as the nice, stocky 
plants we raise ourselves. I sow the seed thick 
in rows, and transplant into a cooler hot-bed or 
cold-frame when the plants begin to crowd each 
other. It is very desirable to put a dozen or 
two of plants, of some early variety, into two 
or three-inch pots and plunge them in the soil 
of the liot-bed. But I have not time to go into 
details. Full directions can be found in the 
Agriculturist and in the books for the manage¬ 
ment of liot-beds, etc. For my part, I attempt 
to raise but few things in 'he liot-bed, such as 
lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, a paper or two of 
extra early cauliflowers and cabbage and flower 
seeds, and among the latter phlox drummondii 
is my great favorite. If I can get a hundred 
early, stocky phlox plants, I feel sure of having, 
for a farmer, quite an attractive flower-garden. 
So far as cabbage and cauliflowers are con¬ 
cerned, I have usually far better success by sow¬ 
ing in some warm, samty, sheltered spot in the 
open ground than in a liot-bed. I generally 
start a dozen or so early potatoes in the liot-bed, 
and when four or five inches high transplant 
them into the open ground, protecting them a 
few days 'with a wooden box with a pane of 
glass on top. They are checked but little by 
being transplanted. The main crop of early 
potatoes should be planted the moment the 
ground is in proper condition, and a little well- 
rotted manure in the trench is a great help, and 
so far as I have observed it does not increase 
the rot or injure the quality of the potatoes. 
Of course, a warm, dry, sandy soil is desirable. 
Do not attempt to make a garden without a 
garden-line. Nothing looks worse than crooked 
rows. We should hardly know how to get 
along without a garden-marker. Quite a num¬ 
ber of designs for making such a marker have 
been given in the Agriculturist. For ordinary 
garden purposes I find one made as follows to 
answer every purpose: Take a piece of two-by- 
three scantling, and bore boles in it with a three- 
quarters or inch bit, 15 inches apart, and put in 
some pegs, 3 or 4 inches long. Bore a hole in 
the center and put in an old wooden rake han¬ 
dle. In a small garden, a marker with four 
teeth is large enough. And, while speaking of 
tools, let me say that you should have a light, 
bright, sharp spade, and a good steel rake. No 
man can do good work with a dull rusty spade. 
Use the grindstone freely and always have a 
sharp edge on the spades and hoes. For dig¬ 
ging among the roots of trees and vines, of 
course you must have a garden fork, and the 
tines of this, also, should be kept bright and 
sharp at the points. 
Comparatively few farmers have much suc¬ 
cess in growing black-seed onions. There are 
three principal reasons for this : poor seed, poor 
land, and late sowing. Onions should be sown 
at the earliest moment the ground can be got 
into good condition. And if they are sown 
by hand, I would soak the seed in warm water 
for 24 or 48 hours before sowing. 
Parsnips should also be sown early; then car¬ 
rots and early Bassano beets, and for my part I 
always like to put in a few hills of corn so early 
as to run considerable risk of having it rot in 
the ground or nipped by frost; putting in some 
more a "week or so later. But I think I have 
said enough. In conclusion, to have a good 
garden you must kill the weeds. And it cannot 
be too often repeated that you must attack them 
early, the moment they are out of the ground, 
or before. Thousands of weeds, just as they 
are sprouting, can be killed with a steel-toothed 
rake. And as soon as the rows can be traced, 
use a hook or a hoe freely. You cannot stir the 
ground too frequently or too thoroughly. And 
another thing, do not leave the plants too 
thick. If there are three plants where there 
should be but one, two of them are weeds 
and should be treated accordingly. 
Let me say a word about old currant-bushes. 
A little of the manure I have described, if fork¬ 
ed into the soil around them, will act like magic. 
Keep the soil well stirred around them and free 
from weeds. Prune out all the dried and use¬ 
less wood and shorteu-in the shoots. As soon 
as the leaves appear, look out for the eggs of 
the currrnt-worm on the under side of the leaves, 
and crush them. Dust the bushes with helle¬ 
bore, keep down the suckers, and you will be 
rewarded with what few farmers in this section 
now have—a noble crop of currants. 
—--«> —a»®E—-- -- 
Grassing a Terrace or Bank. —“To use 
the most improved method for covering a bank 
of earth with grass, there is just one satisfactory 
way,” if time and uniformity of the surface are 
important. This is to cover it with sods, taken 
from a road side or from an old pasture-field. 
A heavy seeding of white clover and red-top 
will make a good finish where the soil does 
not wash and gully away; but alone they are 
hardly reliable for terrace work. Upon very 
steep surfaces the turf may be held in place by 
means of wooden pins driven through it into 
the bank. Pieces of lath, a foot long, answer 
the purpose very well. 
-■■&-«- i . » ■ 
Rock-Work and Alpine Plants. 
A mass of furnace clinkers, made glaring 
white with lime-wash, and built up into a gro¬ 
tesque form unlike any thing ever seen in nature, 
is often dignified by the name of rock-work. 
This mass is, in the building, provided with 
“ pockets,” to hold a quart or so of earth, and 
in these are planted Tropaeolums, Scarlet Gera¬ 
niums, and other bedding plants, which, in our 
Fig. 1.—ROCK-WORK BADLY DONE. 
hot summers, present a sorry spectacle, having 
no “deepness of earth.” A structure of this 
kind obtruding itself in a conspicuous place in 
the lawn, is one of those horrors one is forced 
to witness in his travels. In spite of this sham 
work, rock-work can be constructed in a man¬ 
ner that will be in good taste and afford much 
pleasure. There are some places in which 
rock-work may be properly introduced as a fea- 
Fig. 2. —ROCK-WORK PROPERLY DONE. 
ture of the landscape; but our purpose is to 
speak of it as a place for growing such plants 
as will grow better upon rocks than elsewdiere, 
as well as some that cannot be grown at ail in 
the open border. No one but a real lover of 
plants will ever undertake a rock-work, as the 
plants which are most at home in such situa¬ 
tions are usually delicate subjects that com¬ 
mend themselves to our attention by their 
