8 
D. M. FERRY & CO., DETROIT, MICH. 
THE ESSENTIALS TO THE PRODUCTION OF 
Good Vegetables and Beautiful Flowers 
finnH A rich ,oam is tl,e best. ,)Ut a ^ air (le - 
vJUUU otlll gree of success may be secured from any soil 
which can be made rich and friable. Good vegetables cannot 
be grown on barren sand, a cold, hard, lumpy claj, nor in me 
shade of orchard or other trees. 
I Manuring A soiI wh,ch does not need en ‘ 
LID^ldl lTldllUnil^ riching in order to produce the 
best results is rarely found, and very often success is in pro¬ 
portion to the liberality with which fertilizers have been used. 
Well decomposed stable manure where straw bedding has 
been used is the best: that where sawdust is used is not so 
f oot!. Often wood ashes at the rate of one peck up to one 
usheJ to the square rod will beof great bene'lt. Commercial 
fertilizers are excellent, and may be used at the rateof 4 to 12 
pounds to the square rod, and the more concentrated for us, 
such as Nitrate of Soda. Guano. Dried Blood and Potash Salts, 
at the rate of one to six pounds to the rod. A. mass or In up 
of any of the commercial fertilizers, even if it is but a quarter 
of an inch in diameter, is liable to kill any seed or young plant 
which comes in contact with it, so it is very important that 
they be thoroughly pulverized and mixed with the soil. 
Thorough Preparation ' 
out thorough preparation. The soil must be ina le friable by 
thorough and judicious working; if this is well done all that 
follows will be easy; if it is neglected, only parti il success is 
possible, ami that at the cost of a great de d of hard work. 
The garden should be well plowed or dug to a good depth, 
taking care, if it is a clay soil, th it the work is not done when 
it is too wet. If a handful from the furrow moulds with slight 
pressure into a ball which cannot be e isilv crumbled into fine 
earth again, the soil is too wer. and if stirred then will be 
hard to work all summer. The surface should be made as 
fine and smooth as possible with the harrow or rake. It is 
generally necessary to plow the whole garden at once, and to 
do this in time for the earliest crons, but the part which is 
not planted for some weeks shoulu be kept mellow by fre¬ 
quent cultivation. 
Cifind SppHs There is no more prolific source of 
vjuuu Jtcus • • • disappointment and failure among 
Prnn<>rlv Planted a,, » a teur gardeners than hasty, care- 
r i vpci ly r milieu | HSS or improper sowing of the seed. 
A seed consists of a minute plant minus the root with a suffi¬ 
cient amount of food stowed in or around it to sustain it until 
it can expand its leaves, form roots and provide for its-df, the 
whole enclosed 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, and 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 con¬ 
dition the food is easily preserved unchanged, but the plant 
cannot use it. While in its sugary condition it is easily 
appropriated hut perishable, and if not used it sj>eedily de¬ 
cays itself and induces decay in the plant. A dry seed may 
retain its vitality and remain unchanged for years, but after 
germination has commenced, a check of a day or two in the 
process may be fatal. There is no time in the life of a plant 
when it is so susceptible of fatal injury, from the over-abund 
anceor want of sufficient heat and moisture, as et that be¬ 
tween the commencement of germination and the formation 
of the first true le.-.ves, and it is just then that it needs the aid 
of a gardener to secure favorable conditions. These are: 
First - A proper and coustant degree of moisture. The soil 
should always be moist, never wet. This is secured by mak¬ 
ing the surface of freshly dug soil so fine and the pressing it 
over the seeds so firmly with the feet or the back of the hoe, 
that the degree of moisture remains as nearly uniform as pos¬ 
sible. 
Second— A proper degree of heat, secured by sowing the 
see.l when the temperature of the soil is that most favorable 
to the germination of the seed of that particular plant. Too 
high a temperature is often as detrimental as one too low. 
The pro|>er temperature for each sort may be learned from 
a careful study of the following pages and the experience of 
the most successful gardeners in your vicinity. 
Third— Covering the seed to such a depth that while a uni¬ 
form degree of heat and moisture is preserved, the necessary 
air can readily reach the germinating seed, and the tiny stem 
push the forming leaves into the light and air. This depth 
will vary with different seeds and conditions of the soil: and 
can be learned only from practical experience. In general, 
Seeds of the size of the turnip should not be covered with 
more than half an inch of earth pressed down, while corn 
may be an ihch. beans an inch to two inches, and peas one to 
four inches deep. 
Fourth Such a condition of soil that the ascending stem 
can easily penetrate it, and the young roots speedily find suit¬ 
able foo.I. We can usually secure this by thorough prepara¬ 
tion of the ground and taking care never lo sow Jine seeds 
when the ground is wet. Occasionally a heavy or long con¬ 
tinued lain followed by a bright sun will so bake and crust 
the surface that it is impossible for the young plant to find its 
way through it, or a few days of strong wind will so dry the 
surface that, the young plants w ill be killed. In such cases 
the only remedy is to plant again. 
IlldiriniK Clllfiv^ilAn Not only should every weed 
JUUlUOUb \^UmVdllOn be removed as soon as it ap¬ 
pears, but the crust which forms after a rain should be broken 
up and the ground stirred as soon as it is dry enough to per¬ 
mit it. The more frequently and deeply the soil is stirred 
while the plants are young, the better, but ns they develop 
and the roots occupy the ground, cultivation should be shal¬ 
lower until it becomes a mere stirring of the surface. We 
have seen hundreds of acres of vegetables where the yield and 
quality have been materially lowered by injudiciously deep and 
close cultivation after the roots of the plants had fully occu¬ 
pied the ground A very small garden, well cultivated and 
cared for. will give larger returns and lie in every way more 
satisfactory than a much larger one poorly prepared aud neg¬ 
lected. 
How to Build and Manage Hot-Beds 
For early vegetables, some provision for starting certain 
plants earlier than can be done in the open air is desirable; 
for this purpose nothing is better than a good hot bed, and its 
construction is so simple and the expense so slight that every 
garden should have one. A hut-lied proper not only pro¬ 
tects the plants from the cold, but supplies bottom heat. By 
this term the gardener means that the soil is constantly kept 
several degrees warmer than the air above, that being the 
condition so far as heat is concerned, which is most favorable 
for rapid and vigorous growth, and gardeners usually secure 
It by making a compact pile of some fermenting material and 
covering it with the earth in which the plants are to grow’. 
The best heating material that is 
easily available is fresh horse ma¬ 
nure, containing a liberal quantity of straw bedding. Such 
manure, if thrown into a loose pile, will beat violently and 
unevenly and will soon become cold. What is wanted in the 
hotrhed is a steady and moderate but lasting heat. To secure 
this, the manure should be forked over, shaken apart, anil if 
dry, watered and allowed to stand a few days and then be 
forked over again, piled and allowed to heat a second time, 
the object being to get the whole mass into a uniform degree 
of fermentation, and as soon as this is accomplished it is fit 
for use. 
Heating Material 
Cook Gardeners commonly use sash made especially for 
JQ311 hot-l>eds and glazed wilh small lights cut from odds 
and ends and so furnished at very low rales. Such s sh can 
usually l>e procured in any of our large cities, and costs much 
less than if made to order. For garden use, however, we 
much prefer a smaller sash that can be easily handled, and the 
use of larger and better glass. We would recommend that 
for home gardens, the sash be about two and one half by four 
or five feet, and that the glass be not less than 10xi4. laid 
with not more than one quarter inch lap. In giving the order 
to one unaccustomed to thework.it would be well to state 
what they are to be used for, and that they need to be made 
like skylight sash. 
TU/> Fnmp This maybe made of sound one-inch lum- 
i i ix/ i tame her. the back twelve to fourteen inches high, 
the front ten to twelve. It should be well fitted to the sash 
so as to leave as little opening as possible and yet allow the 
sash to be easily moved up and down, even when the frame is 
quite wet. 
TU/> Soil This should be light, rich, friable. Any consid- 
i i ix/ oxfii era ble amount of clay in it is very objectionable. 
If |possible, it should lie unfrozen when put into the bed; for 
this reason it is much better to prepare it the fall before, and 
cover the pile with enough coarse manure or straw to keep 
out the frost. 
