The Home Acre

by Edward Payson Roe

It should be remembered that culture does for soil what it does for men and women. It mellows, brings it up, and renders it capable of finer products. Much, indeed, can be done with a crude piece of land in a single year when treated with the thoroughness that has been suggested, and some strong-growing vegetables may be seen at their best during the first season; but the more delicate vegetables thrive better with successive years of cultivation. No matter how abundantly the ground may be enriched at first, time and chemical action are required to transmute the fertilizers into the best forms of plant-food, and make them a part of the very soil itself. Plowing or spading, especially if done in late autumn, exposes the mould to the beneficial action of the air and frost, and the garden gradually takes on the refined, mellow, fertile character which distinguishes it from the ordinary field.

In dealing with a thin, sandy soil, one has almost to reverse the principles just given. Yet there is no cause for discouragement. Fine results, if not the best, can be secured. In this case there is scarcely any possibility for a thorough preparation of the soil from the start. It can gradually be improved, however, by making good its deficiencies, the chief of which is the lack of vegetable mould. If I had such soil I would rake up all the leaves I could find, employ them as bedding for my cow and pigs (if I kept any), and spread the compost-heap resulting on the sandy garden. The soil is already too light and warm, and it should be our aim to apply fertilizers tending to counteract this defect. A nervous, excitable person should let stimulants alone, and take good, solid, blood-making food. This illustration suggests the proper course to be taken. Many a time I have seen action the reverse of this resulting disastrously. For instance, a man carts on his light thin soil hot fermenting manure from the horse-stable, and plows it under. Seeds are planted. In the moist, cool, early spring they make a great start, feeling the impulse of the powerful stimulant. There is a hasty and unhealthful growth; but long before maturity the days grow long and hot, drought comes, and the garden dries up. Therefore every effort should be made to supply cool manures with staying qualities, such as are furnished by decayed vegetable matter composted with the cleanings of the cow-stable. We thus learn the value of fallen leaves, muck from the swamp, etc.; and they also bring with them but few seeds of noxious vegetation.

On the other hand, stolid, phlegmatic clay requires the stimulus of manure from the horse-stable. It can be plowed under at once, and left to ferment and decay in the soil. The process of decomposition will tend to banish its cold, inert qualities, and make the ground loose, open, and amenable to the influences of frost, sun, and rain.

Does the owner of light, warm soils ask, "What, then, shall I do with my stable-manure, since you have said that it will be an injury to my garden?" I have not said this—only that it will do harm if applied in its raw, hot, fermenting state. Compost it with leaves, sod, earth, muck, anything that will keep it from burning up with its own heat. If you can obtain no such ingredients, have it turned over and exposed to the air so often that it will decay without passing through a process approaching combustion. When it has become so thoroughly decomposed as to resemble a fine black powder, you have a fertilizer superior to any high-priced patent compound that can be bought. Further on I will show how it can be used both in this state and also in its crude condition on light soils with the best results.

It is scarcely possible to lay too much stress on this subject of fertilizers. The soil of the garden-plot looks inert: so does heavy machinery; but apply to it the proper motive power, and you have activity at once. Manure is the motive power to soil, and it should be applied in a way and degree to secure the best results. To produce some vegetables and fruits much is required; in other growths, very little.

In laying out a garden there are several points to be considered. The proprietor may be more desirous of securing some degree of beauty in the arrangement than of obtaining the highest condition of productiveness. If this be true, he may plan to make down its centre a wide, gravelled walk, with a grape-arbor here and there, and fruit-trees and flowers in borders on each side of the path. So far from having any objection to this arrangement, I should be inclined to adopt it myself. It would be conducive to frequent visits to the garden and to lounging in it, especially if there be rustic seats under the arbors. I am inclined to favor anything which accords with my theory that the best products of a garden are neither eaten nor sold. From such a walk down the middle of the garden the proprietor can glance at the rows of vegetables and small fruits on either side, and daily note their progress. What he loses in space and crops he gains in pleasure.

Nor does he lose much; for if the borders on each side of the path are planted with grape-vines, peach and plum trees, flowers and shrubs, the very ground he walks on becomes part of their root pasturage. At the same time it must be admitted that the roots will also extend with depleting appetites into the land devoted to vegetables. The trees and vines above will, to some extent, cast an unwholesome shade. He who has set his heart on the biggest cabbages and best potatoes in town must cultivate them in ground open to the sky, and unpervaded by any roots except their own. If the general fruitfulness of the garden rather than perfection in a few vegetables is desired, the borders, with their trees, vines, and flowers, will prove no objection. Moreover, when it comes to competing in cabbages, potatoes, etc., the proprietor of the Home Acre will find that some Irishman, by the aid of his redolent pig-pen, will surpass him. The roots and shade extending from his borders will not prevent him from growing good vegetables, if not the largest.

We will therefore suppose that, as the simplest and most economical arrangement, he has adopted the plan of a walk six feet wide extending through the centre of his garden. As was the case with the other paths, it will be greatly to his advantage to stake it out and remove about four inches of the surface-soil, piling it near the stable to be used for composting purposes or in the earth-closet. The excavation thus made should be filled with small stones or cinders, and then covered with fine gravel. A walk that shall be dry at all times is thus secured, and it will be almost wholly free from weeds. In these advantages alone one is repaid for the extra first cost, and in addition the rich surface soil obtained will double the bulk and value of the fertilizers with which it is mixed.

Having made the walk, borders five feet wide can be laid out on each side of it, and the soil in these should be as rich and deep as any other parts of the garden. What shall be planted in these borders will depend largely on the tastes of the gardener; but, as has been suggested, there will assuredly be one or more shadowy grape-arbors under which the proprietor can retire to provide horticultural strategy. This brings us to that chef-d'oeuvre of Nature—

The vine. It climbs by its tendrils, and they appear to have clasped the heart of humanity. Among the best of Heaven's gifts, it has sustained the worst perversions. But we will refrain from a temperance lecture; also from sacred and classical reminiscences. The world is not composed of monks who thought to escape temptation—and vainly too—in stony cells. To some the purple cluster suggests Bacchanal revelry; to others, sitting under one's own vine and fig-tree—in brief, a home. The vine is like woman, the inspiration of the best and the worst.