Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 325 
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from it. In March I make hot-beds and grow early salad, radishes, 
encumbers, etc.; also start many plants from seeds so as to trans¬ 
plant when the ground is' warm enough, thus gaining a month or 
six weeks in time, and thus by succession, lengthening the season 
for many of the best garden luxuries. After the hot-bed has served 
its purpose in spring-time, it yields a tine lot of compost for fall 
use on the garden. In the bottom of it can be placed all the leaves, 
vines and vegetable refuse of the last season, which will become 
thoroughly decomposed and be out of the way. 
I believe in deep tillage. My garden is thoroughly manured and 
spaded to a depth of three feet, and when I want beets, parsnips, 
carrots, etc., I have to go down into the earth for them, and I get 
no stinted, dwarf, fibrous, tasteless, make-believes, but something to 
make dyspeptics laugh and grow fat. 
I believe, also, in small fruits, grapes, berries, &c. In any well- 
cultivated garden can be grown, with little cost, all the grapes, rasp¬ 
berries, gooseberries, currants, etc., that any family can use. Last 
fall I picked fifty pounds of grapes from two five-year-okl vines, it 
being the second crop, and I expect twice as large a crop next fall. 
If people will plant and care for a few good grape-vines along their 
garden fences, where they are so often put to shame by rank weeds, 
the result will be very gratifying. 
Another suggestion I wish to make is the improvement of farm¬ 
er’s door-yards and lawns. I think it safe to say that a majority of 
them are shabby, unsightly affairs, repugnant to all good taste. I 
don’t wonder that farmers’ sons who are brought up in some of the 
loathesome pens that I have seen should break away from home for 
the more cheerful and inviting homes of the city, with much the 
same alacrity that prisoners escaped from loathesome jails at the 
first possible opportunity. 
We all, in some degree, have a taste for the beautiful and harmo¬ 
nious in life, and when that faculty is brought into harsh antagon¬ 
ism, and face to face with repulsive elements and conditions, it is no 
wonder that we rebel against so uncomfortable an alliance. 
I well remember the absolute enchantment that possessed me 
when for the first time I walked abroad in a great city and beheld 
what tome seemed so many thousands of paradises on earth; so 
many fine lawns and gardens and partarres of flowers and shubbery. 
From that day I ceased to be contented with the disgraceful and 
