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GET A GARDEN. 
There is one thing that I have long been wishing 
to tell the readers of the Cabinet, and that is the way 
that many ladies can make themselves happy, and at 
the same time save doctor’s bills. I can talk on this 
subject all the better, because I have tried it myself. 
My recipe is summed up in these few words— 
Get a garden. I very often see ladies, white, weak, 
and wan, nothing particular the matter, and yet never 
well; to these I say, only try my plan, and see for 
yourselves how superior it is to all the apothecaries 
under the sun. I myself was one of these much to be 
pitied ladies until, by the advice and aid of a kind 
friend, a little square of twenty-five feet, near our 
house, was dug up, laid out, and became a garden. 
During the whole of one summer, for about an hour 
every morning before breakfast, I worked diligently 
in my garden, aud 1 was amply rewarded for my pains. 
The flowers throve, and with them my strength. By 
the next summer I increased my boundaries to fifty feet 
square, and in a very few years I felt myself equal to 
even more than that, so now the garden measures one 
hundred by fifty feet in flowers, besides a small vege¬ 
table garden. Of course it is not so easy to make a 
garden as to write about it, but with a little help from 
the stronger sex in the beginning, the difficulties were 
soon overcome, and then came the pleasures. My 
garden was in the midst of the pine woods, where 
neither plow nor hoe had ever broken the earth before, 
so there was much to do in the way of digging up 
roots, pulverizing the soil and laying out beds. When 
one gets through this much, there is no further use for 
men then, unless, indeed, to amuse us or to admire. 
To begin in systematic style, we must first enrich our 
garden. For this, nothing in the world is so good as 
the earth from some old rubbish hole. In every 
country lot, probably, there is such a hole, where the 
sweepings of the yard and the scraps from the kitchen 
are all thrown to be out of sight. All gardeners pos¬ 
sessing such a hole are rich, and those who do not, 
will, if they take our advice, set to work at once to 
make one. As soon as the decayed contents are 
evenly laid over the flower-beds, we begin to fill up 
our hole again with the same material, so keeping up 
a constant supply of fresh food for another season. 
Flowers do not require strong manures; it makes them 
grow too much to bush, fresh mold and decayed 
vegetable matter being the food they delight in ; Roses 
especially luxuriate on this sort of diet. Another 
excellent fertilizer is the greasy, soapy water that the 
plates and dishes are washed in. Annuals in particu¬ 
lar improve on this, and a bed of Petunias will beam 
out their thanks for such a treat in countless blossoms 
and the brightest leaves. In fact, I do not know any 
plant that will not grow and thrive for a bucket of 
greasy water occasionally. Guano and bone-dust are 
both fine, but one does not always have them at hand ; 
and to couutry people, they are sometimes impossibili¬ 
ties. For Violets, I think nothing better gs an 
enricher than thoroughly decayed wood-dust. After 
the garden is once set going, it is but little trouble to 
keep it up. Seeds of annuals and perennials are so 
cheap in these days, and reproduce themselves so 
rapidly and easily, and even Roses cost so few cents, 
that one wonders why so few people have gardens , 
surely it must be because they do not know the pleas¬ 
ures to be derived therefrom. For several years our 
church has been dressed on every Sunday from my 
garden, so that the pleasure has been shared by many, 
I often think of the refining power that flowers yield. 
They make a sympathy where nothing else can. 
There is another mode of cultivating flowers which 
is very delightful, although, perhaps, not so healthful 
as out-door exercise in the garden. I mean house- 
plants, and these are open to everybody who possesses 
at least one window, be that window north, south, east, 
or west, for there are many plants that will flourish 
in a shady northern window as well as in warm south¬ 
ern one. The way I grow my plants, which are 
Geraniums, Pelargoniums, Begonias, Callas, Libonias, 
Azalias, Fuchsias, and Lobelias, is very simple. I 
have neither hot-house nor green-house, and as I 
believe more than half the lovers of flowers are in the 
same condition as myself, they will be the better able 
to appreciate my plan. I will begin by telling of my 
proceedings in the fall, as that season always seems to 
be the beginning of the plant year. As soon as 
October’s -winds begin to chill the weather, I com¬ 
mence to cut down the plants, not merely trimming 
them, but cutting them down until only two or three 
inches are above the ground. They are then set aside 
to rest, for rest they must have as well as ourselves. 
Soon they begin to put out new, fresh leaves, and 
some would even bloom, but it is not good to encour¬ 
age them in this, for if we want a fine spring aud 
summer show, we must now keep them from exhaust¬ 
ing themselves. If a winter bloom is desired, we must 
have a set of cuttings from the summer before. From 
this time, until January or February, they require but 
little care. A moderately warm room, say not below 
forty-one degrees at night, a plenty of bright sunlight 
in the day, an airing by raising the glasses when it is 
pleasant, and just enough water to keep the earth from 
drying hard, is all that they ask of us. But in Feb¬ 
ruary comes the great work on which the bloom of the 
whole year depends. We now get a barrowful of j 
earth from the same valuable rubbish hole that we feed 
the garden with, or if there is no rubbish hole, any 
good garden soil with a little leaf mold will answer the 
purpose. Each plant is then taken carefully up, the 
dead earth shaken off gently, and the roots dipped into 
a tub of water until they are clean. Then set the 
plant nicely into the new 7 earth, spreading out the ten¬ 
der little roots and gradually filling up the jar and 
pressing dow'n the earth firmly. We then give each 
plant two or three spoonsful of chicken manure, laid 
on the top of the earth, a good watering, and then set 
the jar where it is to remain. Occasionally the jars 
must be turned round to the light, otherwise the plant 
will grow 7 to an ugly one-sided shape. I particularly 
recommend chicken manure as the best fertilizer that 
I know; some like to use it in liquid form, but I find 
my way the best and least troub’esome. Just lay it 
on top', and every time the plant is watered, a little of 
the strength is carried down to the roots, and the 
bloom w 7 ill be constant and magnificent. Your plants 
will soon begin to show you their gratitude for this 
refreshment, and in a very few 7 weeks they will be cov¬ 
ered with buds and bright blossoms, which I will war¬ 
rant to continue until the “ melancholy days ” come 
round again, when once more they must be divested of 
their tops and put to rest. Surely this is not very 
hard work, my friends, and think how much u 7 e are 
repaid for it. I must not forget to say that Geraniums 
do best always in small jars, and the younger the 
plant the finer the bloom. Keep new cuttings, there¬ 
fore, going all the time, and I promise you there will 
never be any lack of flowers. Remember to keep the 
jars bright and clean on the outside. In my opinion, 
this is far more important as a drainage thau the 
broken crocks inside. There is auother class of plants 
I am surprised not to see mentioned more frequently; 
I refer to those charming bulbs, Achimenes; they are 
the easiest things in the world to cultivate, and humble 
little beauties, they ask no better habitation than an 
old tomato can. Indeed, they seem to delight in old 
tins, I he truth is, they must have moisture, and the 
cans retain the dampness longer than small jars. In 
the spring I set out my Achimenes in a compost of one- 
third sand, one-third leaf mold, and one-third well- 
rotted manure; then put the cans in some half shady 
spot of the piazza, and leave alone until they begin to 
come up. In a short time after the plants commence 
growing, they will begin to put out their lovely flow¬ 
ers, and continue to do so until late in the fall. As 
soon as they cease blooming, discontinue watering, and 
when the tops are quite dry, lift the roots and store in 
thoroughly dried sand until another spring. If my 
lady friends will only follow these easy rules, there is 
no reason why they cannot have an abundance of 
beautiful flowers and much real enjoyment, not to 
speak of the greatest of all blessings, good health. 
You will learn to love your flowers more and more as 
you continue to cultivate them, and in time find in 
them a gentle, silent companionship that b welcome, 
even at that dine w r heu the expression of human sym¬ 
pathy is unavailing. Very often some plant will take 
a history to itself that will enhance its value many 
fold. For instance, this Rose Geranium. It is but a 
poor litile plant, and yet we prize it above rubies. 
Simply for this: two little hands that we loved, once 
tended it, and we laid some of its fragrant leaves and 
delicate blossoms on the gentle, young breast when it 
had “ fallen asleep.” C. P. W. 
BEDDING OUT WINDOW PLANTS. 
Last spring I was like “ the old woman who lived 
iu a shoehad more plants than the flower stands 
would hold; so I prepared early an oval bed on the 
east side of the house, ten feet from it; this bed was 
ten feet wide and eighteen feet long. Removed the 
largest sods, spaded under the lightest; after this it 
rained, froze and thawed—making the ground very 
mellow. Then I wheeled on rich, well-rotted manure, 
two barrows of fine chip dirt, one of manure from the 
hen house, one of sand, spaded all in and raked 
smoothly. This was the third of June. In the morn¬ 
ing I had given the plants selected a good watering, so 
they turned out of the pots easily. It was a dry time; 
into each hole I poured two quarts of water, letting it 
sink before planting. As I finished each plant I drew 
the dry earth around it. Was from three o’clock until 
nearly dark setting thirty plants. When done, show¬ 
ered with a watering pot. Next day made paper caps 
for all, taking them off at night. For four weeks we 
had no rain ; I watered twice a week, drawing the dirt 
away, then covering with dry earth; kept them in 
their paper caps for ten days; after that, they had the 
sun every day until two o’clock, P. M. They never 
wilted, and how they grew ! 
Three times a week I stirred the soil with a push 
hoe. As it grew cooler, with plenty of rain, the whole 
was a mass of verdure and bloom! We had no kill¬ 
ing frost until the night of September 26. The day 
before I had taken up the plants I wished to keep over, 
I trimmed and planted them in boxes of earth, putting 
them in a dark frost-proof cellar. Iu August, I took 
cuttings of all; they are now fine plants in the window 
garden. L. K. Share. 
