DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 
9 
SIZE AND FORM. — A single bed ten feet square well manured, well spaded, and thoroughly cultivated and 
cared for will produce more good vegetables, be more profitable and give better satisfaction than an acre unma' 
nured, half prepared and poorly cared for. Our golden rule for size is, make your garden no larger than 
you can prepare and care for in the best possible manner. If it all has to be done by hand it will take the 
entire time of one man to keep in good order a garden of one acre, but if it is so arranged that the horse cultivator 
can be used, he can care for four times the area. In village gardens the form is usually determined by that of the 
lot, but where there is a choice a rectangle several times longer than wide, the sides running from north to south, is 
the most economical ; if this can be so placed that a space eight feet wide at both ends or along both sides can be 
left for a horse to turn in it will be a great advantage. 
DRAINAGE. — Nothing is more essential for a good garden than good drainage. It is impossible {to raise a 
supply of fine vegetables without it. If the soil is at all wet it should be well drained with tile, but if this is not 
possible, something can be gained by ploughing or throwing the soil up into beds from six to thirty feet wide, with 
smooth-bottomed trenches between them to collect and carry off the surface water. 
MANURES. — For garden purposes, there is nothing better than well-rotted stable manure, with which 
tobacco stems, bones (which after a few weeks in fermenting manure will crumble to powder), leaves or any refuse 
vegetable or animal matter may be composted with advantage. This should be ploughed in unless the soil is quite 
sandy and the manure very fine, when it may be applied oh the surface and simply harrowed or raked in. Plaster, 
9alt, wood ashes, guano, ground bone, all are valuable and can be used to advantage in connection with the stable 
manure. Plaster should not be applied until the plants are well up. Ashes and salt should not be mixed with the 
other manures, and may be sown broadcast and raked in just before planting. Guano, ground bone, and superphos¬ 
phate give better results if one-half is sown broadcast at planting and the balance when the vegetables are half 
grown. In some cases, sand, leached ashes and peat on clay soils, and clay and muck on sandy soils will prove as 
valuable as manures. Occasionally a spot which has been used for a garden for many years will become unproduc¬ 
tive in spite of liberal manurings. We know of no other remedy than to abandon it for a garden, seed down to 
clover and allow it to remain two years when it may be ploughed under, and the garden will be found to^have re¬ 
gained its original fertility. 
PREPARATION OF THE GROUND. — Thorough preparation of the ground is of vital importance in 
raising good vegetables; if this work is well done all that follows will be easier. The garden should be well 
ploughed or spaded, taking care if it is a clay soil that the work is not done when it is too wet. If a handful 
from the bottom of the furrow moulds with slight pressure into a ball which cannot be easily crumbled into fine 
earth again, the soil is too wet, and if ploughed then will be hard to work all summer. The surface should be 
made as fine and smooth as possible by the harrow or rake, and in the case of sandy soils it should be roiled with a 
heavy roller. Stiff clay soils are frequently wonderfully improved by trenching, that is spading two feet deep in 
such a way as to leave the surface soil on top. This is accomplished by digging a trench two feet wide across one 
side and a second one adjoining and parallel with it one spade deep. The remaining earth of the second trench is 
then thrown into the first and covered with the surface soil from a third trench ; the balance of the third is then 
thrown into the second and covered with the surface of the fourth ; and so on until all is worked over when the soil 
from the first trench is used to fill the last. This is quite expensive, but frequently changes a soil upon which 
nothing can be grown into one producing the finest vegetables, and its effects last for several years. 
ARRANGEMENT.— In city gardens, or where most of ths work is done by hand, this maybe entirely a 
matter of taste, but it is quite important to have the garden so arranged that most of the work can be done by 
horse power. We can best point out the things to be considered in the arrangement by means of an illustration 
given on the opposite page. The points gained in this plan are : — 
First — Ability to cultivate the ground. All but a strip three feet wide between the radish and lettuce can be 
worked by any common one-horse cultivator. 
Second — Placing those vegetables which may stay oat all winter side by side, where they will not interfere 
with next season’s ploughing. 
Third — Arranging the vegetables very nearly in the order in which they should be planted or set out in the 
spring — this would be nearly perfect if the beans and early cabbage were to change places. 
Fourth — Providing for ea«' r rotation of crops by simply reversing (with the exception of the permanent row of 
Asparagus, etc.) the plan. 
The number of rows of each vegetable and the relative proportion of each may be varied according to the wants 
of the family, but the proportion given here will be found to about suit most families who depend upon the garden 
for both winter and summer vegetables. 
If necessary, the turning ground at both ends may be filled with winter Squashes, as these are planted so late 
and at such a distance apart that they would not seriously hinder the turning of a steady horse with a careful 
driver. Whatever the arrangement followed may be. we earnestly urge that every effort be made to secure straight 
and perfect rows. There is perhaps no one thing that will make the subsequent cultivation easier, or contribute 
more to the owner’s satisfaction in his garden than this, and a little extra effort in this respect at the first will give 
pleasure all through the season. 
SOWING THE SEED.— There is no more prolific source of disappointment and failure among amateur 
gardeners than hasty, careless or improper sowing of the seed. A seed consists of a minute plant minus the roots, 
with a sufficient amount of food stowed in or around it to sustain it until it can expand its leaves, form roots, and 
provide for itself, the whole inclosed in a hard and more or less impervious shell. To secure germination, moisture, 
heat and a certain amount of air are necessary. The first steps are the softening of the hard, outer shell, the de¬ 
veloping of the leaves of the plant from the absorption of water, and the changing of the plant food from the form of 
starch to that of sugar. In the first condition the food was easily preserved unchanged, but the plant with its un¬ 
developed leaves and no root was incapable of using it, while in its sugary condition it is easily appropriated ; but if 
not used it speedily decays itself and induces decay in the plant. A seed then may retain its vitality and remain 
unchanged for years, while after germination has commenced a check of a day or two in the process may be fatal. 
There is no time from that when the seed falls from the parent plant until it in turn produces seed, ripens and dies 
