House and Garden 
The End of the Cornfield —“Stowell’s Evergreen Corn” 
the coal house and the doorway; three sections, 
each nine by fifteen feet, between the outside of the 
driveway and the next lot; and strips one by ten, 
two by twenty, two by nine and two by nine feet, 
these lour being reserved for sweet peas. As this is 
the story of a Lilliputian vegetable garden,no account 
will be taken ol the sweet peas. The utilization of 
the spaces enumerated left a tiny grass plot in the 
back yard, and provided for the use of every foot of 
available space in the yard. 
It was seen, even by an amateur who, of course, 
wanted to buy and plant some of everything listed 
by the seedsmen, that only by careful selection and, 
afterward, careful cultivation, could any real good 
he derived from a garden of vegetables confined to a 
space so limited. It was finally decided that only 
those vegetables that are liked by all members of the 
family of four should be tried—and not all of these, 
by a good deal, was there room for. Green beans 
and sweet corn at once suggested themselves, as did 
tomatoes; lettuce, radishes, and onions for early 
spring use seemed a matter of course; and a tiny 
plot for blood beets was planned for. Suggestion 
followed suggestion, but the list finally narrowed 
down to the vegetables named, and the order for 
seeds went in like this: 
Head lettuce, one packet, ten cents; radishes, the 
tiny scarlet sort, ten cents; hush wax beans, one 
packet, ten cents; “Kentucky Wonder” (pole) beans, 
one packet, ten cents; “Lazy Wife” (pole), beans, one 
packet, ten cents; “Golden Bantam” sweet corn, one 
packet, ten cents; “Stowell’s Evergreen” sweet corn, 
one packet, ten cents. 
For the onions, the sort known as “Silver Skin” 
were purchased, ten cents’ worth of sets being suffi¬ 
cient; tomato plants, a kind known, locally at 
least, as “beefsteak,” were also bought, seven of the 
plants, large, vigorous and well-started, costing a 
dime. 
To begin, all the space available for gardening 
was spaded up and the ground worked as thoroughly 
as was possible. This was done as soon as the frost 
was out of the ground in the early spring. As the 
soil is a tough, hard, nurtureless yellow clay, the 
work w?as somewhat difficult. Before spading 
up the plots a quantity of well-decayed barnyard 
manure equal to about two wagon-loads was hauled, 
wheelbarrow load at a time, from a neighboring 
stable, and the most of this was spread over the 
spaces that were to be used, the manure being spaded 
into the soil and thoroughly mixed. 
As soon as it was thought the danger of frost was 
past the work of planting the garden commenced. 
Lettuce, radishes and onions were the first to go into 
the ground. A space in the V of the rear walk was 
prepared for the lettuce and the radishes. The 
earth was again spaded and raked, and additional 
manure was worked into it. When ready for plant¬ 
ing there was hardly a clod the size of a bean in the 
bed. Rows were marked off about six inches apart, 
in which the lettuce seed was drilled; between these 
rows other rows were sowed with radishes. The 
onions (sets) were planted in half of the four by ten 
strip at the end of the coal house, the remaining half 
of the strip being reserved for beets. 
A few days later the two one by ten foot strips 
along the rear walk were re-spaded, raked and mel¬ 
lowed, and made ready for the bush beans. A 
trench four or five inches deep was dug in each space, 
and about two inches of the manure was spread in 
the bottom of each trench—these being not more than 
six inches in width. The beans were planted about 
three inches apart in these trenches, care being taken 
to place each seed with the eye down. The trenches 
were then filled with a mixture of manure and the 
original soil and the earth pressed rather firmly over 
the seeds. These beans, being a very early variety, 
were intended for the earliest use. 
The early beans planted, it was time to “put in” 
the sweet corn. The nine by fifteen foot plots 
were given to the corn, and in two of them the earth 
was spaded and raked again, as in the other spaces, 
and put into the very best condition possible. Rows 
of holes were dug about six inches deep, and into 
each hole half a shovelful of manure was thrown, 
l he holes were spaced in rows two feet apart each 
way. In one plot the “Golden Bantam” corn was 
planted. This was said to be the very earliest, as 
122 
