Winter is proverbially the farmer’s holiday. But it was no idle time with me. I had too long been trained to habits of industry, to lounge about the house simply because no weeds could be found to kill. The careful man will find a world of fixing up to do for winter. As it came on slowly through a gorgeous Indian summer, I set myself to cleaning up the litter round the premises, and put the garden into the best condition for the coming season. The verbenas had gone from the borders; the petunias had withered on the little mound whereon their red and white had flashed so gayly in captivating contrast during the summer; the delicate cypress-vine had blackened at the touch of a single frosty night; the lady-slipper hung her flowery head; all the family of roses had faded; the morning-glory had withered; even the hardy honeysuckle had been frozen crisp. From the fruit-trees a cloud of leaves had fallen upon every garden-walk. Plants that needed housing were carefully potted, and taken under cover. The walks were cleared of leaves by transferring them to the barnyard. Bushes, trees, and vines were trimmed. Every remnant of decay was removed. The December sunshine fell upon a garden so trim and neat, that even in the bleakest day it was not unpleasant to wander through its alleys, and observe those wintry visitants, the snow-birds, gathering from the bushes their scanty store of favorite seeds. The asparagus was covered deeply with its favorite manure, and heavily salted. Tender roses were banked up with barnyard scrapings, and every delicate plant protected for its long season of hybernation.
Dick had his share of exemption from excessive labor. But I kept him tolerably busy for weeks in gathering up the cloud of leaves which fell throughout the neighborhood from roadsides lined with trees. No manure is so well worth saving in October and November as the falling leaves. They contain nearly three times as much nitrogen as ordinary barnyard manure; and every gardener who has strewn and covered them in his trenches late in the fall or in December, must have noticed the next season how black and moist the soil is that adheres to the thrifty young beets he pulls. No vegetable substance yields its woody fibre and becomes soluble quicker than leaves; and, from this very cause, they are soon dried up, scattered to the winds, and wasted, if not now gathered and trenched in, or composted, before the advent of severe winter.
My horse, and cow, and pigs, all slept in leaves. Their beds were warm and easy, and the saving of straw for litter was an item. As they were abundant, and very convenient, Dick carted to the barnyard an enormous quantity. Placing enough of them under cover, he littered all the stock with them until spring. The remainder was composted with the contents of the barnyard, and thus made a very important addition to my stock of manure. Thus the leaf-harvest is one of importance to the farmer, if he will but avail himself of it. A calm day or two spent in this business will enable him to get together a large pile of these fallen leaves; and if stowed in a dry place, he will experience the good effects of them in the improved condition of his stock, compared with those which are suffered to lie down, and perhaps be frozen down, in their own filth. The fertilizing material of leaves also adds essentially to the enriching qualities of the manure-heap. Gardeners prize highly a compost made in part of decomposed leaves. The leaf-harvest is the last harvest of the year, and should be thoroughly attended to at the proper time.
The leisure of the season gave us greater opportunity for intercourse, both at home and abroad. The city was comparatively at our door, as accessible as ever—we were really mere suburbans. We ran down in an hour to be spectators of any unusual sight, and frequently attended the evening lectures of distinguished men. It was impossible for the world to sweep on, leaving us to stagnate. How different this winter seemed to me from any preceding one! Formerly, this long season had been one of constant toiling; now, it was one of almost uninterrupted recreation. How different the path I travelled from that in which ambition hurries forward—too narrow for friendship, too crooked for love, too rugged for honesty, and too dark for science! Thus, if we choose, we may sandwich in the poetry with the prose of life. Thus, many a dainty happiness and relishing enjoyment may come between the slices of every-day work, if we only so determine.
CHAPTER XVII.
MY SECOND YEAR—TRENCHING THE GARDEN—STRAWBERRY PROFITS.
WINTER having passed away, the time for labor and the singing of birds again returned. Long before the land in Pennsylvania was fit to plough, the admirable soil of New Jersey had been turned over, and planted with early peas. One of its most valuable peculiarities is that of being at all times fit for ploughing, except when actually frozen hard. Even after heavy rains, when denser soils require a fortnight’s drying before getting into condition for the plough, this is ready in a day or two. Its sandy character, instead of being a disadvantage, is one of its highest recommendations. It is thus two to three weeks earlier in yielding up its ripened products for market. Peas are the first things planted in the open fields. The traveller coming from the north, when passing by rail to Philadelphia through this genial region, has been frequently surprised at seeing the young pea-vines peeping up above a thin covering of snow, their long rows of delicate green stretching across extensive fields, and presenting a singular contrast with the fleecy covering around them. Naturally hardy, they survive the cold, and as the snow rapidly disappears they immediately renew their growth.
Having been much surprised by the profit yielded last year from the garden, I was determined to give it a better chance than ever, and to try the effect of thorough farming on a limited scale. I accordingly set Dick to covering it fully three inches deep with well-rotted stable-manure, of which I had purchased in the city my usual quantity, $200 worth, though hoping that I could so contrive it hereafter as not to be obliged to make so heavy a cash outlay for this material. I then procured him a spade fifteen inches long in the blade, and set him to trenching every inch of it not occupied by standard fruits. These had luckily been arranged in rows in borders by themselves, thus leaving large, open beds, in which the operation of trenching could be thoroughly practised. I estimated the open ground to be very nearly half an acre. I began by digging a trench from one end of the open space to the other, three feet wide and two deep, removing the earth to the further side of the open space. Then the bottom of the trench was dug up with the fifteen-inch spade, and then covered lightly with manure.
The adjoining ground was then thrown in, mixing the top soil as we went along, and also abundance of manure, until the trench was filled. As the earth thus used was all taken from the adjoining strip of three feet wide, of course, when the trench was full, another of corresponding size appeared beside it. With this the operation was repeated until all the garden had been thoroughly gone over. The earth which had been removed from the first trench, went into the last one. But I was careful not to place the top soil in a body at the bottom, but scattered it well through the whole of the filling. If rich, the roots of every plant would find some portion of it, let them travel where they might. On the whole job we bestowed a great amount of care, but it was such a job as would not require repeating for years, and would be permanently beneficial. I thus deposited $50 worth of manure, as a fund of nourishment on which my vegetables could for a long time draw with certainty of profit.
Now, a surface soil of a few inches only, will not answer for a good garden. The roots of succulent vegetables must extend into a deeper bed of fertility; and a greater depth of pulverization is required to absorb surplus rains, and to give off the accumulated moisture in dry weather. A shallow soil will become deluged by a single shower, because the hard subsoil will not allow it to pass downward; and again, in the heat and drought of midsummer, a thin stratum is made dry and parched in a week, while one of greater depth becomes scarcely affected. I might cite numerous instances, besides my own, where trenched gardens remained in the finest state of luxuriance during the most severe droughts, when others under ordinary management were nearly burnt up with the heat, growth having quite ceased, and leaves curled and withering for want of moisture.
The mode of trenching must vary with circumstances. In small, circumscribed pieces of ground, necessity requires it to be done by hand, as has been just described. In large spaces the subsoil plough may be used, but not to equal benefit. There are many reasons why the soils of gardens should be made better than for ordinary farm-crops. Most of the products of gardens are of a succulent nature, or will otherwise bear high feeding, such as garden roots in general, plants whose leaves furnish food, as salad, cabbages, &c., or those which produce large and succulent fruits, as cucumbers, melons, squashes, &c. As nearly all garden crops are the immediate food of man, while many farm-crops are only the coarser food of animals, greater care and skill may properly be applied in bringing the former forward to a high degree of perfection. The great amount of family supplies which may be obtained from a half-acre garden, provided the best soil is prepared for their growth, renders it a matter of equal importance and economy to give the soil the very best preparation.