HOUSE AND GARDEN 
i53 
To me it looked rich and black, needing only drainage 
to produce a fine yield. 
The first big February thaw, with its multitudinous 
puddles, showed me where the low spots were, and 1 
filled most of them with furnace ashes and field soil. 
The garden was 35 x 75 feet, capable of feeding five 
people all summer with green vegetables and fruits if 
managed rightly. I first trenched and drained it, using 
about 100 feet of terra-cotta inverted U tile laid on 
boards in the bottom of the trench, with straw over the 
joints. The reason for this straw is to catch and hold 
the silt, which is carried along by the muddy water to 
the drain and dropped along the plank, thus blocking it. 
A great deal of it washes through the cracks in the tile 
joints and catches in the straw. If you put these in¬ 
verted U tiles directly on the bottom of the trench with¬ 
out the boards underneath, your drain will soon be filled 
up with silt, and in a year or so you will have to dig it 
up again. The best material for the bottom board is 
pitch pine, because of its durability. 
This drain carried off all surface water very effi¬ 
ciently, but still the garden was soggy and wet. My 
water table was not low enough. Now, 
I had read, vaguely, of water tables in 
agriculture papers, but I never thought 
of one as a hostile factor in my own 
garden. The water table may be de¬ 
fined as the prevailing height of water 
in the soil all over a given section of 
land. If too high, put your drains 
lower. I could not put my drain any 
lower, for its outlet was already at 
the lowest available exit from the 
garden, yet the water table was only 
about four inches below the surface 
The original layout of house, barn, garden and 
shrubbery. About twenty-five forest trees were 
left on the place, four of them on the garden 
site making too much shade, as was later dis¬ 
covered 
The first thing out of the ground: rhubarb in April. It wants the richest kind of soil and a low 
wire screen to keep out dogs and children. Sixteen roots planted at each end of the hot frame 
sufficed for a family of six 
Meanwhile I had 
ordered a large box 
of privet, apple trees, 
pears, peaches, cher¬ 
ries, berries and 
grapes, and they now 
arrived from the nur¬ 
sery. I chose standard 
apples on the corners, 
with dwarf Bartlett 
pears in between, two 
peaches flanking the 
garden gate, and two 
cherries along the 
back as fillers be¬ 
tween the apples. 
These latter should 
go on 35-foot centers 
if standard, whereas 
dwarf trees require 
but 15 feet of room; 
but a standard tree, 
while it takes longer 
to get to bearing, will give bushels of apples to your dwarf’s 
dozens. The same is true of pears; the dwarf will begin to bear 
in two years (one pear!) ; the third year it may have three pears 
on it, and the fourth, a dozen. The standard will not bear at all 
until the fifth year after planting, starting with a two-year, 8-foot 
nursery tree, but then it will give a dozen for a starter, and from 
that time on will beat the dwarf five to one in yield. Standard 
pears should set on at least 20-foot centers, but in a garden like 
this they will do well enough as fillers between the apples. 
For selection of varieties I had no literature available, and 
there were no orchards near me, but in general, for light, sandy 
soil, Baldwin (red, winter), Early Harvest (yellow, summer), 
and Stayman’s Winesap (red, striped, fall) are good garden selec¬ 
tions. 
All peaches do well in light soils, so your choice will be mainly 
for a succession of ripenings throughout the peach season — 
Early and Late Crawford, Elberta, Ray, etc. — and in this garden 
I have had very good success with Governor Wood and Black 
Tartarian cherries. All these were two-year, 7- and 8-foot trees, 
(Continued on page 199) 
Liming the soil to cure acidity. Five hundred pounds of bone meal and land plaster 
were spread over the garden in March, following as nearly as possible the future 
lines of planting 
of the soil. A spade 
thrust any lower would 
turn up wet, soaking, 
sandy loam. Now, the 
capillary action of soil 
will draw water up at 
least four inches above 
the water table, so my 
soil was always wet, 
even in bright sunlight. 
The only way out was 
to raise this water 
table by putting on 
more fill. This seemed 
an expensive proposi¬ 
tion, so I decided to 
leave the soil as it was, 
in the hopes that sum¬ 
mer would bring drier 
conditions. 
