14 
A KITCHEN GARDEN 
a different character should occupy the ground in 
rotation, that the soil may 4 be kept in the richest 
state. Thus the quality or size of the crop will not 
be lessened by being planted in a situation that it 
has depleted, to some extent, of its own particular 
food the year before. Reference should also be had 
to the kind of food which the plant requires, as in 
the case of strawberries and potatoes, which should 
not succeed each other without special manures, as 
they both exhaust, to a great extent, the potash in 
the soil, so that the soil, having borne a heavy crop 
of one, would of necessity make but a poor return of 
the other if planted in direct succession. If this can¬ 
not be overcome by a change of location, the gar¬ 
dener will know that the proper food elements have 
been depleted by the previous crop, and must try 
to supply them with special manure or commercial 
fertilizers. 
It is of great importance to rapid work and good 
gardening that all this should be arranged and 
settled in the gardener’s mind, or better, plotted 
out on paper, before the first plowing is done in the 
spring. The plan being kept would be valuable in 
laying out the garden the succeeding year, as it would 
show just where each vegetable had been grown and 
where the different kinds of manure had been 
applied. If, in addition, the success of the various 
crops and notes of their growth were marked upon 
it, it would form a most valuable text-book for the 
study of improved .gardening, each garden being an 
experimental station and each gardener a student 
in pursuit of knowledge and advancement in his 
