The seeds all mustered, she may be seen, after the breakfast things are all done up, busy with spade and hoe, hiding her treasures. And thus she does it. First a liberal suit of onion beds—savory vegetables to the tongue and most unsavory to the nose—making it almost impossible for these respectable neighbors to live together in peace, one or
other of them being in bad odor with the other. Next, a seed-bed full of cabbages—significant to the imagination of cold-slaw, sourcrout, etc. A good row of peas, and a few hills of running beans are added. The alleys are ruffled with bush beans; a few early potatoes, some corn for roasting-ears, with a slender bed for beets, complete the stock of esculents. But sage, and summer savory, and thyme, and rue, and sweet marjoram, tansy, boneset and wormwood are attended to; a part for stuffing ducks and chickens—and the others for curing those who have been too much stuffed with them. The garden yields in due time its first fruits; the potatoes come and go, the corn is early plucked, lettuce shoots up its seed-stalk, peas render their tribute and grow sere, beans rattle in the pod, and before August her work is done and her garden forsaken except a small retinue of flowers, which are nursed to the last. Weeds now make up for lost time, and in a few weeks a weedy forest hides every trace of cultivation. This is not a fancy sketch; we have been far from drawing a picture from the worst specimens; it is a fair average case.
Our business is, not to quarrel with the farmer, but to suggest a better plan for his garden. We saw the plan stated some years ago; where, we have forgotten, but think well of it. It is simply this: let the garden be an oblong—say three times as long as it is broad—and cultivate it with the plow. Instead of having beds, let all seeds be planted in rows running the whole length of the garden. For example, begin with one row of beets—or more if wanted; next a row or rows of carrots, parsnips, cabbages, potatoes, corn, and all about three feet apart. The same system should be followed for small fruits—currants, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc.—and it will have this advantage over common gardens, that the bushes will have sun and air on all sides, and be more fruitful and more healthy for it. The whole garden, thus arranged, can be kept in order with very little labor. A single-horse plow will dress
between the rows of the whole garden in a very little time and save all hand-hoeing. The hand-weeding in the row may be performed by women or children.
In large towns ground is scarce and labor abundant. Gardens, therefore, are properly laid out for economy of space. In the country the reverse is true; land is abundant but labor scarce and dear; of course gardens should be laid out not to save room, but to economize labor. The plan suggested will save labor, improve the garden, and take from the wife the drudgery of the spade and hoe.
EARLY DAYS OF SPRING.
If the soil be thrown up during the open weather into ridges, an immense number of insects will be unburrowed and destroyed; stiff clayey soils will be rendered more crumbling and mellow by exposure to frost. If advantage is taken of the weather to haul manure, let it be stacked up, and a little earth thrown over it, else the volatile and most valuable portions will escape. Ashes may be spread over the garden; a small portion of refuse salt will benefit the ground, and may be sown now. Clear the ground of all vines, stalks, haulm. If you have flowering bulbs, cover slightly with coarse manure—they will not be so much tried by the changes of temperature and moisture, and will flower stronger for it. Bright, dry days afford a fine time for going to the woods and cutting poles for your beans, stakes for your trees and dahlias, brush for peas, etc. While you are about it, collect moss from old logs, and put away in the barn or shed to cover the ground in summer where roses and shrubs have been newly set out, and require to be kept moist. If not done before, put two or three forks full of coarse green manure about tender shrubs—Noisette
and China roses. Freezing and thawing at the crown of the roots, destroys them oftener than anything else.
On mild days when the earth is open, sow lettuce seed in a warm corner, beat it gently with the back of the shovel, and cover it slightly with fine earth or old crumbling manure. You will have lettuce ten days earlier for your trouble. Pepper-grass and radishes may be sowed in like manner.