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PLAY AND 
 
 PROFIT 
 
 > 
 
 MY GARDEN 
 
 Rev. Er P.^ROE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "Barriers Burned Away." 
 
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 DODD & MEAD, PUBLISHERS, 
 
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 
 DODD&MEAD, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
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 'P H I s j3 o o 
 
 Affectionately Dedicated 
 
 HONORED FATHER 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This is not a scientific work, as the reader will soon dis- 
 cover. I know that lofty minds will pass it by in silent dis- 
 dain. I have not tried to make the world wiser. Let the wise 
 do that. 
 
 Nor is it a manual, giving in terse, sharp periods, the greatest 
 amount of accurate information in briefest space. My style, I 
 fear, is like my garden, w-hich grows successfully many weeds, 
 while attempting something useful. I never could write a 
 manual any more than I could work steadily in my garden at 
 one thing all day. I always did like to weed near tlie straw- 
 berry-bed or the raspberries, on the same principle. I fear 
 that when a boy (?) I enjoyed sitting near the choir, where 
 I could glance at the pretty singers during the dry passages 
 of the sermon. Do we not need occasional relaxation from 
 the severe duties of life ? 
 
 In brief, it is my sincere conviction that a garden is good 
 for humanity (see Genesis ii. 8), and it is my wish to diffuse 
 this belief as widely as possible. 
 
 I frankly admit that the following pages arc very mucli the 
 same in character as if I had taken the reader by the arm, 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 from time to time, and strolled around my garden-paths (which 
 are irregular and straggling as my story), and chatted in a famil- 
 iar way on the topics suggested as we passed along. 
 
 I know that I shaU be met at the outset by that inevitable 
 Yankee question, " Does a garden pay ? " 
 
 I might answer indignantly, does it pay to kiss your wife, 
 to, dandle your baby, or to go back to the past (?) to look 
 at the choir, or do anything else agreeable to human nature ? 
 
 Is the gain in health, strength, and happiness, which this 
 Eden form of recreation secures, to be gauged by the doUar 
 symbol ? 
 
 Can the flavor of your o\\'n crisp lettuce or strawberries and 
 cream be bought? Is the perfume of the flowers that your 
 own hands have planted, to be had in the market ? 
 
 I don't believe that Eden was laid out on the principle of 
 a "truck -garden," every inch being planted in a profitable 
 crop; nor do I think that Adam and Eve bustled out every 
 morning with the expression seen on so many American faces, 
 " Time is money." The question in regard to a garden seems 
 to me to be, shall we enjoy a little bit of Pai-adise this side 
 of Jordan? 
 
 Still aware of the general indifference to Paradise on either 
 side of Jordan, I hasten to state that my garden did pay in 
 dollars and cents, and I think yours can be made to do the 
 same, my reader, as I shall try to prove in the following pages. 
 
PLAY AND PROFIT 
 
 MY GARDEN. 
 
 I. 
 
 WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN? 
 
 Two thousand dollars seems a snug sum to a 
 quiet, professional man, but to a country parson, 
 pastor of a struggling church, it looms up into 
 the regions of the sublime. 
 
 But when at the close of '71 I came to sum 
 up the results of my small garden of about two 
 acres, I found the grand total to be this rather 
 surprising amount. 
 
 If this success had grown out of some lucky 
 stroke of fortune, I should not have intruded a 
 
S WILL you WALK INTO MY GARDEN ? 
 
 small personal matter on the public. But I am 
 one that the fickle goddess has rarely smiled 
 upon, and hard work has been the only Alad- 
 din's lamp of my experience. Again, the world 
 is ever agape at those gifted with genius, who 
 flash with meteoric brilliancy through striking 
 and original means to astonishing results. Alas ! 
 my modest little garden has never been the 
 scene of any such agricultural pyrotechnics, and 
 I warn the reader from the start, that he will 
 find nothing to dazzle or bewilder in the follow- 
 ing pages. There will be a record of facts and 
 figures, of many blunders, lame experiments, 
 and not a little neglect. In brief, it will be my 
 way of doing it ; and already, in imagination, 
 upon the face of many a notable reader, (if I se- 
 cure the attention of any such,) I see an expres- 
 sion of supreme disgust and horticultural dis- 
 dain. I hear them say in tones that would 
 blight a hardy perennial : 
 
WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN? 9 
 
 " The idea of raising anything by such rough 
 commonplace methods ; it's a wonder he got 
 his seed back." 
 
 Yet, thanks to kindly Mother Earth, she will 
 give a struggling onion or a radish a good lift 
 on in the world, though straggling about in 
 places where they have no business to be, and 
 not planted according to " the book." At 
 times, when absent from home, I have met 
 some of "the agricultural authorities," and have 
 ventured to put my " small treble " in the sono- 
 rous discussions of the ways and means. But 
 they would look over their spectacles at me with 
 an expression such as might rest on the venera- 
 ble faces of a Presbytery of ripe and thoroughly 
 indoctrinated divines, when a young licentiate 
 presumes to express an opinion on that which 
 they had settled long ago. In fact, I was at first 
 led into painful misgivings, and feared that on 
 my return I should find a miserable blight steal- 
 
lO WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN? 
 
 ing over my garden. It was intimated, as a 
 matter of course, that things wouldn't grow, 
 couldn't grow, ought not to grow, unless it be 
 in an orthodox way, and that with them seemed 
 to mean their way. 
 
 But when, fluttering with apprehension, I 
 hastened out among the vegetable heretics, I 
 usually enjoyed the most agreeable surprises. 
 Everything had developed wonderfully in my 
 absence, and plants, that did not seem to grow 
 at all when daily watched, had in the interval, 
 like little tow-headed urchins, not seen for a 
 year or more, taken a palpable step toward ro- 
 bust maturity. 
 
 The fact is, vegetables are no respecters of 
 persons, and acknowledge no hereditary, horti- 
 cultural, or hypercritical rights vested in privi- 
 leged classes. 
 
 Then there is another favored class, who justly 
 boast of their shrewdness. The world finds out 
 
WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN ? II 
 
 that they are smart. That is the word. They 
 have New England " faculty," and do every- 
 thing by a sort of sleight-of-hand that is almost 
 as surprising as a juggler's marvels. They are 
 as quick and sharp at a bargain as a steel trap. 
 Even while you are gingerly feeling them, and 
 considering the matter in the most circumspect 
 manner, as you think, you are caught before 
 you know it. They are people who do not 
 need capital. They invest their wits, and usu- 
 ally get the Dutchman's " von per shent." 
 Their eyes are natural microscopes, and see 
 chances and openings that arc blank walls to 
 ordinary mortals. Now, I have no doubt that 
 there is a scope for this kind of shrewdness in 
 the garden, although Dame Nature is a very 
 matter-of-fact old lady, and not to be imposed 
 upon. Unless her rules and moods arc com- 
 phed with, "we waste our sweetness on the 
 desert air." It is astonishiuL: what credulous 
 
12 WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN? 
 
 humanity can be made to do and believe. One 
 of your smart men can talk and engineer any 
 measure through ; but there is just that per- 
 verseness about nature, that if a thing is not 
 done exactly right, it is done in vain. If a seed 
 is sown too deeply, or out of season, all the 
 wisdom in the world may settle that it is right, 
 but Nature will prove that it is wrong, and no 
 amount of coaxing or sharp practice will help 
 matters. 
 
 But, while highly valuing the keen-eyed thrift 
 that sees diamonds of opportunity in the sands 
 that others plod stolidly over, I must confess 
 that I am not a Yankee. My little ventures 
 have often netted me a handsome loss, and I 
 have again and again seen where I could have 
 made a good round sum when it was a little too 
 late. 
 
 In brief, I am a humble disciple of Nature. I 
 sit at her feet and learn. Instead of striding into 
 
WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN? 13 
 
 my garden with a high-sounding theory that a 
 score of savans have sat on, thus giving their seal 
 and sanction, and with this seeking to daunt the 
 good dame, I saunter leisurely around my walks 
 (which much resemble cow-paths), and watch 
 for sly hints, suggestive nods and beckonings. 
 While in this spirit she will often give you a 
 glimpse of a secret, as a kindly old lady shows 
 to her grandchild the end of a paper parcel pro- 
 truding from her capacious pocket. Follow up 
 sharply and the treasure is yours. 
 
 Therefore it has seemed to me that what I 
 have done any one can do, who is willing to soil 
 black clothes and white hands. Of course, there 
 are two other conditions. First, land ; second, 
 a love, natural or acquired, for its cultivation. 
 A back-yard in the city can grow little save 
 cats, and the mellowest garden in the world will 
 become a tangle of thorns under a man who 
 hates and shirks its care. 
 
14 WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN? 
 
 But the love of the soil, like the love of chil- 
 dren, is a very general instinct, and though our 
 artificial life is hostile to both, it will be some 
 time yet before the race will betake itself to city 
 boarding-houses, where ground is not and chil- 
 dren are forbidden. To that class, wLo must 
 be ready for the end of the world, since they 
 would bring it about, we have not a word to 
 say. 
 
 There is still a most respectable audience 
 among those who continue a little homesick for 
 Eden, and who would gladly go backward and 
 approach somewhat to that state when the first 
 man " was put into the garden to dress and to 
 keep it," and his wife had not meddled with 
 things forbidden. 
 
 There are many having land about them like 
 uninvested money, bringing in little or nothing ; 
 others for whom it is a bad investment, making 
 for them a yearly loss ; still more for whom it is 
 
WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN? 1 5 
 
 a poor investment, securing but slight and pre- 
 carious return. Possibly these pages may sug- 
 gest better things. 
 
 There are thousands in cities pining for the 
 pure healthful air of the country. There are 
 multitudes shut up within tenement-houses and 
 brick walls, and paying roundly for their pris- 
 ons too, where their children grow up pale and 
 sickly, like plants in the shade, poisoned physi- 
 cally and morally by the conditions of their life, 
 who might have a home on some breezy hill- 
 side, that would almost, if not more than pay its 
 own way. But I mean to draw no rose-colored 
 pictures, nor indulge in misleading generalities. 
 By country, I do not mean swamps, or low lands 
 where the mosquitoes keep up the old allopathic 
 treatment, and bleed a man to a skeleton, and 
 then chills and fever step in, and Hnish him by 
 shaking his bones loose. I mean land with good 
 drainage. Without that, speculators may ro- 
 
1 6 WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN? 
 
 mance in vain about the healthfulness of the lo- 
 cation, such rare salubrity that people do not 
 die, " but dry up and blow away." 
 
 Nor do I mean to intimate that any such 
 gardening will answer as was suggested by an 
 enthusiastic Western orator, when he quoted : 
 " Our prairies are so fertile, that we have only 
 to tickle them with a plough and they laugh into 
 a harvest." It took a good deal more than 
 tickling to make my garden produce $2,000 in 
 one summer, I assure you. But I do hope to 
 show some that in their idle, weedy fields, and 
 neglected gardens, there is an unwrought mine 
 of wealth and happiness ; and I do mean to 
 prove that what they get will be by the " sweat 
 of the face," as God said of the first gardener 
 when he commenced breaking in such land as 
 ours. (I find the Bible and my garden fit to- 
 gether as accurately as an acorn in its cup, how- 
 ever "the authorities " may disagree.) But be- 
 
WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN? 1 7 
 
 fore my reader is repelled by this condition, let 
 him ask his physician what he thinks of a good 
 perspiration over the fresh-turned earth. I 
 think that the medical gentleman would be ob- 
 liged to admit that, like Othello, his occupation 
 would be gone if this corrective and tonic were 
 generally indulged in. 
 
 I hope the few preceding paragraphs have 
 not proved a long and tiresome way of saying 
 to the reader " Once upon a time," the brief 
 and classic preface of so many stories. I shall 
 now proceed to tell mine, to faithfully portray 
 my garden as it exists and has existed. I shall 
 carry the reader forward with the season. He 
 shall see the seed planted, and watch it come 
 up and grow into bulky vegetables. My straw- 
 berries shall ripen under his eyes, and my vines 
 hang their clusters in aggravating proximity to 
 his nose. And then he shall go to market with 
 
 them and count the change — and he meantime 
 2 
 
1 8 WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN? 
 
 in his arm-chair. AU shaU be as clear and gra- 
 phic as the play wherein Bottom the weaver ex- 
 plained everything, and left little room for the 
 imagination. But, however numerous the de- 
 fects of the story, it shall be unmarred by one 
 — insincerity. It will be a truthful record of 
 an actual experience. I shall aim to tell sim- 
 ply and naturally how my summer recreation 
 was a source of profit in many ways, for the 
 $2,000 does not sum up all that I gained, by 
 any means. If a little unstrained humor plays 
 over these pages, let it be like the sunlight that 
 falls upon my garden, now lighting up a homely 
 cabbage-patch, now reddening the cheek of the 
 patrician strawberry. If some parts are dull, 
 remember there are dull, dark days in the gar- 
 den, when the ground is bare and nothing but 
 plodding work to be done. If, now and then, 
 dry spots are found, remember in charity that 
 drought is the worst enemy of gardens as 
 
WILL YOU WALK INTO MY GARDEN? 1 9 
 
 well as books, and if you have seen cherished 
 crops shrivel and wither as I have, you would 
 not be surprised that a few dead leaves mingle 
 with these. If these pages incite a few weary 
 brain-workers to that great duty in our hard- 
 driving American life — healthful recreation ; if 
 to some hollow cheeks and still hollower pockets 
 of my beloved brethren of the country pastor- 
 ate, I can bring a greater fulness by alluring 
 them also into " a garden to dress it and to keep 
 it," I shall have plucked from my little shadow 
 of the lost Eden the choicest fruit of all. 
 
II. 
 
 MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 Although I do not hold with the late la- 
 mented Diedrich Knickerbocker, that in writing 
 a history it is necessary to go back to the pre- 
 Adamic ages and account for everything up to 
 the time in question, still, in presenting my gar- 
 den to the reader, it is necessary to give some 
 account of myself; for, paradoxical as it may 
 seem, the material garden is largely a mental 
 product. The stony field looks very differently 
 now from what it did when I took it six years 
 ago, and that difference is due mainly to 
 thought. I have planned it before going to 
 sleep at night, and laid it out when mastered by 
 my old enemy, sick headache, and too misera- 
 
MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 ble to think of much else save some favorite 
 hobby. I have plotted it during long, monoton- 
 ous journeys, and perfected many details be- 
 fore spade or plough touched the heavy loam. 
 It has been almost my only recreation during a 
 country pastorate. 
 
 But a deep abiding liking for any pursuit is 
 not the growth of a night. We do not wake up 
 as in the fairy tales and find ourselves or every- 
 thing around us changed, for it amounts to about 
 the same thing. However general may be the 
 taste for rural life, a most decided predisposition 
 and love of it, as of anything else, must cither 
 be inherited or developed by peculiar circum- 
 stances. Just those circumstances existed in 
 my early home, and still exist, for the dear old 
 place is in the main unchanged. 
 
 The same clear little brook murmurs musi- 
 cally across the lawn and skirts the garden, im- 
 peded here and there by water-cresses, and by 
 
MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 mimic dams made by other childish hands than 
 mine. The same slumberous sound comes from 
 Moodna Creek as it rolls over the " Tumbling 
 Dam," scene of many thrilling boyish exploits 
 in snaring suckers. On the steep hill behind 
 the house still stand the great chestnut-trees, to 
 which I raced with the turkeys in crisp October 
 dawns, to secure the first downy nuts that the 
 night winds had rattled to the ground. Hard 
 by are yet growing the butternuts that furnished 
 a winter's store to us children and sundry fami- 
 lies of red squirrels. In the stony lot the tall 
 pine still breathes its sighs night and day, only 
 they seem more real and mournful than when 
 they fell on my childish ears. The trees in tho 
 orchards have lost many of their side-boughs 
 during the storms of past years, but they stand 
 like aged Christian patriarchs, persisting in well- 
 doing though they can no longer bear the fruit 
 of their prime There are the large barn and 
 
MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 outbuildings, where we searched for stolen nests 
 with more zest than fortune-hunters for diamonds 
 in the hot African sands. The same grand old 
 trees throw their shadows around the roomy- 
 country-house, and even the same white rose- 
 bush climbs to the window of the room of that 
 dear mother, who years ago climbed to where 
 the flowers she so fondly loved do not fade. 
 In the adjoining beds and through the garden 
 still bloom the hardy perennials that her hands 
 planted, and every spring and summer they arc 
 her fragrant memorials. Oh, how vividly their 
 perfume brings back her drooping form as she 
 bent over them, and it seems that she has 
 breathed part of her sweet pure spirit into 
 their poor plant life. If wc would live pleas- 
 antly in the recollection of those remaining, let 
 not the cold marble in some unvisitcd gravc}-ard 
 be our only monuments, but plants, trees, and 
 flowers, and then every spring there will be a 
 
24 MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 resurrection of our memory which will continue 
 green and fragrant for months. 
 
 My mother was an invalid, but so cheerful a 
 one that she chose the sunniest room of the 
 house as her own, and as boy and youth I never 
 remember entering it without seeing flowers 
 upon her open Bible. From my earliest recol- 
 lection, she was accustom.ed to sit in her garden- 
 chair and direct or walk feebly around, and help 
 me in the care of what were to her pets and 
 friends. Oh, that I could help her now with 
 the patience of a man, and atone for the heed- 
 lessness and petulance of the boy. 
 
 But the one who has done most to inspire me 
 with a fondness and knowledge of gardening, 
 is still at the old homestead — a silver-haired 
 patriarch of eighty-four, and yet "his eye is 
 not dim, nor his natural force abated." 
 
 The large square garden with its flower-bor- 
 dered walks daily prove his skill and vigor ; 
 
MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 25 
 
 and though the gardener turns off the heavier 
 work, there are few of its labors he cannot lead 
 off in still. Many a happy hour I have worked 
 there at his side and under his direction. It 
 must be confessed that my experience was not 
 altogether thornless, especially when my task 
 was among the raspberry and blackberry 
 bushes and the day was good for fishing, nor 
 always rose-colored when directed to weed a 
 rose-border. Volumes of poetry have been 
 written about roses, but their bushes in early 
 April are desperately prosaic and inclined to 
 scratch. 
 
 Our strawberry-bed also was annually in- 
 vaded by legions of white clover and sorrel, 
 and my back still aches in memory of the boy- 
 ish weariness with which I weeded my daily 
 stint. But then, on the other hand, there was 
 a bright side to the picture. I would win 
 gracious smiles from the girls by bringing 
 
2 6 MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 them a half-bushel of rose-buds on some fes- 
 tival occasion. And even the strawberry-bed, 
 that through much of the year I anathematized 
 by mild boyish expletives, became the scene 
 of a joyous thrill of excitement and exultation, 
 as on the last of May we found the first ripe 
 berry and bore it in triumph to mother. Oh, 
 the wonder she would express. " So early ! 
 Why, she thought they were scarcely out of 
 blossom yet. She would get better right away, 
 now that she had strawberries." We were in 
 a mood then to weed strawberry-beds forever. 
 What saints we would be if we could only 
 keep up our virtuous and exalted states ! But 
 I'm afraid I was impatient over and over again 
 before the autumn weeding was complete. I 
 need not descant on the summer and autumn 
 fruits that we indulged in ad libitum, nor the 
 luscious melons, revelled in under the shade at 
 noon, and jealously, but often vainly, watched 
 
MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 27 
 
 over by night lest the factory urchins should 
 make love to them also. Suffice it to say that 
 taking the sweet with the bitter, as ever must 
 be done in this world, the sweet predominated, 
 and the garden gradually and surely took its 
 place in that warm corner of the heart that we 
 reserve for the things we love. 
 
 And even now the sweetest play spell of my 
 middle age is to go back to the old place with 
 its dear memories and associations, and spend a 
 few hours with my honored father in the scene 
 of boyish labors. I usually find him among 
 his flowers and vegetables, armed with his hoc 
 and rake, and it ever seems that he has found in 
 his garden what Adam lost in his — peace and 
 happiness. At the sound of my approaching 
 footsteps he pushes back his broad-brimmed 
 hat and spectacles, and on recognition greets 
 me with a kiss as when I was a little boy, and I 
 am at home. 
 
28 MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 Sometimes when I am working there with 
 him, it seems as if the mystical and eternal 
 paradise bordered on that old garden, and we 
 might step over into it unawares. 
 
 Then after an hour or two of labor follows 
 such a dinner. Benjamin's portion was a mor- 
 sel compared with the way my plate is heaped, 
 for somehow while there the old boyish appetite 
 comes back, and enough is made way with to 
 make one a very "blue Presbyterian" on any 
 ordinary occasion. 
 
 Then comes a stroll to scenes abounding in 
 pleasant memories, or a shady seat in the old 
 garden again. 
 
 , Truly our Lord called heaven by a sweet 
 alluring name when He said the "Father's 
 house;" and my father's house is to me the 
 best type of the home above. 
 
 This then is the good old stock out of which 
 my garden grew. When I remember how my 
 
MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 29 
 
 mother, through years of pain and weakness, 
 found sweet solace and unfailing enjoyment in 
 her flowers ; when I see my father at an age 
 when to most life is a burden, entering upon the 
 new campaign of the season with all the zest of 
 youth, I feel assured that here is a pleasure that 
 will not satiate and pall upon the taste. And 
 this conviction has been confirmed by much 
 observation. With few exceptions, the mellow 
 and agreeable ladies of my acquaintance are 
 fond of the culture of flowers. When I see a 
 window green with plants, or a porch interlaced 
 with vines and flanked by fiowcr-beds, I am 
 satisfied that there is nothing acid or sharp- 
 set about the lady of the house, and that she 
 sweetens her domestic circle like the lump 
 of sugar that the old Dutch dames suspended 
 over their tables for their guests or family 
 to nibble at while they sipped the then rare 
 beverage of tea. Men whose hobbies arc 
 
30 MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 among their trees or gardens seem to grow 
 perennial themselves. 
 
 Adjoining my father's place, on what was a 
 barren hillside, stands a noble orchard planted 
 years ago by an old Quaker gentleman, whose 
 memory is still honored in that neighborhood. 
 Some, wise after the fashion of this world, 
 laughed at the gray-headed man as they passed, 
 and shouted from the roadside : 
 
 " You will never eat the fruit of those trees, 
 Mr. S ." 
 
 " Others will, then," quietly answered the 
 good, benevolent man. 
 
 But, bless you, he did eat their fruit year 
 after year, and, for all we know, his life was 
 lengthened out that he might. And others 
 have eaten them too. Not only have three 
 generations of his own family enjoyed them, but 
 a half-dozen families in the vicinity have man- 
 
MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 3 1 
 
 aged to supply themselves, by hook and by 
 crook, mainly by the former. 
 
 He was a kind, genial old gentleman, who 
 had a young heart, and planted better fruit than 
 pippins. It was his delight to visit schools and 
 speak to the young. I can see him now as I 
 remember him when I sat on the front bench 
 among the little boys. His benevolent, placid 
 face was shaded by curling silver locks, and as 
 he stood before us in his plain garb leaning on 
 his gold-headed cane, the rudest and most mis- 
 chievous urchin was subdued into a sort of 
 sympathetic respect. I think that he will eat 
 some of the fruit of such plantings in heaven. 
 
 The worldly-wise are a shallow, short-sighted 
 set after all. 
 
 "But what has all this to do with the gar- 
 den ? " growls some critical reader. 
 
 Every one of any agricultural experience will 
 tell you that almost all vegetables and fruits 
 
32 MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 are inclined to " sport," digress. Strawberries 
 and string-beans are by no means always logical 
 and consecutive, and as I draw the inspiration 
 of these pages from Nature, lay the blame where 
 it belongs. 
 
 But I will immediately step back into the line 
 of succession — the only place for a clergyman, 
 according to the view of some. 
 
 Having thus observed that the loving care of 
 a garden, even though it consist of only a 
 cracked teapot, with a struggling plant, such as 
 I have seen under the eaves of a tall tenement- 
 house, is so conducive to health and happiness, 
 and beneficial to character, I determined that 
 whenever opportunity offered, a garden should 
 be a part of my experience. A will usually 
 finds a way, and even during the horror of our 
 civil war, while chaplain at the Fort Monroe 
 hospitals, I had a chance to indulge my bent to 
 some good purpose. The surgeon in charge 
 
MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 asked me to assume the care of the hospital 
 farm adjacent to the wards. The patients did 
 the work and renewed their own vigor while 
 supplying the means of health to others. One- 
 armed heroes could sow seed and weed, though 
 they could not dig and hoe. After the usual 
 discouragements in getting started, we made a 
 fine success, and sent fresh vegetables to the 
 patients daily by the four-mule-team load. 
 
 After the war, I was settled over a country 
 church, one mile from West Point Military 
 Academy, and of course looked around for a 
 garden as naturally as a migratory water-fowl 
 for water. I know what bird some unsuccessful 
 gardeners will think of, but I will prove them 
 mistaken. The one, I mean the garden not the 
 goose, adjoining the parsonage was little more 
 than a sand heap, and very small. In brief, 
 quite a come-down from my forty-acre rich Vir- 
 ginia farm. There were a vine or two, three 
 3 
 
34 MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 cherry-trees, a straggling row of common cur- 
 rants, and five hills of rhubarb. This was my 
 starting point. 
 
 That spring I obtained from my late and truly 
 lamented friend, Lindley M. Ferris, Esq., ten 
 dwarf pear-trees, and noble fellows they are 
 proving. From one, last summer, I picked 
 seventy splendid Bartletts. 
 
 Then on a bright day, when a steady south 
 breeze was blowing up the river and there was 
 a strong flood-tide, I hired a boat and raised the 
 lid of a large trunk that I was taking home (the 
 old place is home still), and sailed up the Hudson 
 in gallant style, with a craft rigged as one surely 
 never was before. 
 
 I soon reached my father's place on Newburgh 
 bay, and there made such a raid as only an old 
 cavalryman can understand. Having loaded my 
 boat with rich and varied spoils of flowers and 
 fruits, I returned, and the results of that expe- 
 
MY GARDEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 35 
 
 dition are growing more luscious and abundant 
 every year. I had now the nucleus of a garden, 
 and my children could form the associations and 
 acquire the tastes that I had found so pleasant 
 and useful. A sand heap is the place where 
 they are first initiated into its mysteries. Here 
 they plant about everything they can lay their 
 hands on, and often half bury themselves. In- 
 numerable egg-shells have been carefully cov- 
 ered up, in the delusive hope that little chickens 
 would sprout. But have not experienced gar- 
 deners sown many high-priced seeds as vainly? 
 Still the credulous little planters are coming on, 
 and this summer the eldest shall have a flower- 
 bed all to herself, with real geraniums and pan- 
 sies in it, and the very thought will make her 
 eyes sparkle at any time. 
 
 I joy to see this budding taste in them and every 
 one, for I believe that the love of the garden hero 
 helps prepare us to be with Him in Paradise. 
 
III. 
 
 MY GARDEN — ITS LOCATION. 
 
 If I could search the country over, I could, 
 perhaps, find few gardens with a finer prospect. 
 It is in the centre of the Switzerland of Amer- 
 ica — the Highlands of the Hudson ; and it 
 slopes nearly to the rocky precipitous bluff 
 overhanging the west shore of the river. On 
 every side there is varied and striking scenery, 
 a happy combination of civilization and the 
 wilderness. Immediately along the river bank 
 are fine cultivated places, the rural homes of 
 people who are surrounded by so much beauty 
 that they may be tempted never to say, with 
 very good grace, " Nunc dimittas,'' etc. A 
 mile to the northward is that perfection of mili- 
 
MY GARDEN ITS LOCATION. 37 
 
 tary posts, West Point, with its smooth, grassy 
 plain, bold shores, and commanding positions 
 bristling with cannon. The stately academic 
 buildings, the substantial quarters with their 
 trim gardens, make all the more inviting a pict- 
 ure when seen against the sombre background 
 where Nature, in her wildest moods, presents 
 the rocky cliff, the black ravine, and shadowy 
 forest. 
 
 On the bluff adjoining my garden, Cozzens' 
 great hotel looms up like a mountain of 
 brick. Just beneath, in its cool shadow and 
 almost dashed by the spray of Buttermilk Falls, 
 stands a new hotel, known as the Parry House. 
 Both are patrons of my garden, and are so 
 near that the strawberries hardly stop growing 
 before they are in the mouths of the guests. 
 A little to the north is the village of Highland 
 Falls, my market-town. On the outskirts of 
 this are neat cottages and roomy summer 
 
38 MY GARDEN 1X3 LOCATION. 
 
 boarding-houses, where city families, at moder- 
 ate prices, can enjoy mountain air and scenery, 
 while their children are " done brown " by the 
 July sun. 
 
 To the west, and just back of the village, 
 rises Bear Mountain and other wooded high- 
 lands, abounding in walks, horseback rides, 
 magnificent views, and romantic lakes, that 
 might furnish occupation to the artist and 
 sportsman, and delightful recreation to all not 
 enamored by the richer pleasures of the garden. 
 On the east, within pistol-shot, the Hudson 
 flows grandly by, dotted with white sails, 
 musical with the splashing wheels of passing 
 steamers, and furnishing a broad, cool avenue 
 to my city customers from their hot, dusty 
 streets to the airy summer hotels, where my 
 strawberries, just picked, are ready for their 
 supper. 
 
 We have strong, pure mountain air, and 
 
MY GARDEN — ITS LOCATION. 39 
 
 yet are so near the coast, that it is happily 
 tempered by the sea. It thus meets the needs 
 of invahds, and probably does them more good 
 than anything else can, save an hour or two 
 daily with a hoe or rake over the fresh soil. 
 
 My garden is also a classic region, which is 
 fitting, as gardening is highly classical. I can 
 sit in the shade of my lima beans, or beneath a 
 spreading Kittatinny blackberry bush, eating a 
 juicy berry now and then, as thinking is dry 
 work, and meditate on the past. There before 
 me in the distance rises Fort Putnam, still a 
 stately ruin, and there across the river is the 
 house where Arnold plotted his treason, and 
 there the ravine down which he ran, and the 
 little cove from which he embarked in breath- 
 less haste on its discovery. The Father of his 
 country has been here. He may have stood 
 where my garden now is. Hallowed soil ! 
 Why should not things grow ? Perhaps this 
 
40 MY GARDEN ITS LOCATION. 
 
 accounts for my bush-beans so often aspiring to 
 be climbers. A high and elevating influence 
 still lingers here. 
 
 But, after a sultry July day, when the moon- 
 light falls cool and clear on mountain and river, 
 that is the witching time for a stroll in my gar- 
 den. Then by the weird power of imagination 
 (eating Black-caps in the meantime with the 
 dew on them to keep up the connection with 
 the present) you can conjure up the past. 
 There, on the white ramparts of Fort Putnam, 
 against the northern sky, you can see a shadowy 
 Continental with his matchlock pacing up and 
 down in ghostly vigilance ; or the gleaming 
 canvas of the passing vessels on the river can 
 become to you the phantom sails of the British 
 fleet, and the dip of some distant oar that of an 
 emissary of the traitorous Arnold. 
 
 If your fancy is of a lighter cast, the fays and 
 sprites of Rodman Drake will light down from 
 
MY GARDEN ITS LOCATION. 4 1 
 
 Cro' Nest yonder, and trip a fairy measure on 
 the dewy leaves of the strawberry-bed. 
 
 But blare ! bang ! and the tinkling of fairy 
 music is drowned by the sonorous strains of the 
 hotel band as they tune up for the German. 
 The " fa' o' the fairy feet " will scarcely, we fear, 
 apply to the solid thump of some stately dow- 
 ager, who now, on her old campaigning-ground, 
 feels the influence that stirred her heart years ago. 
 
 The illusion passes, but the Black-caps re- 
 main, cool and crisp, and we are comforted. 
 
 The guests at the hotel can look down on my 
 garden, and by the aid of a good glass can 
 almost see the berries ripening for their suppers. 
 From little straws on the current I am satisfied 
 that some do look down on the garden in more 
 ways than the one indicated. They are not 
 above its results, and it is astonishing how many 
 berries even the invalids — a large number of the 
 ladies profess to be invalids — can consume, but 
 
42 MY GARDEN ITS LOCATION. 
 
 they regard its care as belonging to the lower 
 and common layers of humanity — in brief, to 
 those who are not rich. Gardeners, like dress- 
 makers, add much to their well-being. They 
 are useful creatures, like cows and other neces- 
 sary animals. I have had stately beings, whose 
 silks might help maintain their equilibrium, say 
 to me, with a gracious condescending air, " Ah, 
 Mr. Roe, ah, you, ah, raise magnificent straw- 
 berries. We enjoy them extremely. Good- 
 evening, sir ; " and I am dismissed as the high- 
 born dames who could not read, in olden times 
 waived off, with a passing comphment, some 
 humble poet who had ventured to write a son- 
 net in their honor. What higher meed could I 
 have than to know that she, robed in a three- 
 hundred-dollar silk, had enjoyed the fruit of my 
 labors " extremely." But I was so oblivious to 
 greatness as to find a check at the hotel-office 
 more satisfactory. 
 
MY GARDEN — ITS LOCATION. 43 
 
 In fact, I have been led to believe that these 
 gilded creatures are not aware of Avhat Horace 
 and Virgil and a host of other very respectable 
 people have said about gardening. Indeed, I 
 am not sure that they are acquainted with the 
 existence of those two worthy gentlemen 
 named. Or they may indulge in the Darwin- 
 ian theory, and instead of going back to the 
 first gardener for pedigree, hold that they are 
 descended from sundry apes and oysters. From 
 the mental, moral, and physical developments 
 sometimes manifested, I should be at a loss to 
 dispute their claims. 
 
 But while the above is true of many, the re- 
 verse is true of more, and I am fortunate in the 
 location of my garden at a summer resort, for 
 it often brings me in contact with charming 
 people, who have spent much of their money in 
 the culture of heart and brain, and not alone on 
 things that they and their horses must drag 
 
44 MY GARDEN ITS LOCATION, 
 
 around. Who does not despise the man that 
 invariably reminds you of his wealth rather than 
 himself? Who can measure the contempt 
 which that woman inspires who invariably se- 
 cures attention to her dress, while graces of 
 character are tardily, if ever, discovered. Such 
 big, showy, useless plants are called' weeds in 
 the garden. 
 
 But there are wealthy people who are the 
 most skilful of alchemists, and refine their 
 money into books, pictures, and intelligent 
 travel, and thence, by a mystic process, into 
 the golden warp and woof of their minds. 
 Modest diamonds may sparkle on their persons, 
 but richer gems drop from their mouths. More 
 truly, they are like the fruits in my garden, 
 that from the gross abundance and materiality 
 at their roots select with delicate precision 
 and exquisite choice that which makes the 
 melting raspberry and luscious grape. Such 
 
MY GARDEN ITS LOCATION. 45 
 
 people do not despise gardening, but rather re- 
 gard it as a fine art, and a little tasteful pres- 
 ent from its products establishes a true freema- 
 sonry at once. Thus, in addition to all other 
 uses, your garden teaches you human nature 
 and enriches you with friends. 
 
 But how about the prospect when you come 
 to the garden itself? What is the lay of the 
 land ? It is a wonder that some of it lays still 
 at all, for it quite approaches a perpendicular. 
 Now, I doubt not but that many of my readers 
 have been imagining a smooth, mellow plot, 
 sloping gently to the south-east, as all orthodox 
 gardens should ; they have seen a rich loamy 
 soil that seeds would almost sink into by their 
 own weight. They may have been coveting a 
 sunny, favored spot where the curse, that 
 changed Adam from a gentleman farmer to a 
 hard-working man, is suspended, and the only 
 trouble being to keep things from growing too 
 
4.6 MY GARDEN — ITS LOCATION. 
 
 fast and large. I wish they were right, but 
 the facts are against them. 
 
 Nearly lialf my garden is down hill toward 
 the north, and some of it at an angle that would 
 soon bring one to China, if it continued far 
 enough. Not a little of it is a high, gravelly 
 knoll, on which only certain vegetables that 
 are like the people of Vermont, who get along 
 anywhere, will grow. Therefore, my garden 
 is a sort of agricultural paradox, for though 
 it is mainly down hill, it demands decidedly 
 up-hill work. Still lying between these two 
 northern slopes is a swale of most excellent 
 land, and here I have accomplished my chief 
 successes. My soil has one great advantage. I 
 can get to work on it as soon as the frost is 
 out, and even before. I have put in early 
 crops where the plough or spade turned up 
 frozen lumps of earth that were like small 
 boulders. There is no need of impatient 
 
MY GARDEN ITS LOCATION. 47 
 
 waiting for the ground to dry out. As a 
 general thing it does that only too fast. In 
 the spring of '71 I had much of my garden 
 made in March, for after heavy rains I can 
 cultivate my knolls when most gardens are 
 in a swampy condition. 
 
 But in times of drought, so frequent of 
 late, my ground suffers extremely, and I 
 have had blackberries dry to seeds upon the 
 vines, beets shrivel into little fibrous, leathery 
 knobs, and even the hardy tomato droop and 
 faint, ripening fruit that hardly made a mouth- 
 ful. The secret of my success lies largely in 
 planting my crops so early that the principal 
 growth is made, and the ground shaded before 
 the drought and heat of summer. Yet, as 
 the soil is new, I find that small fruits, 
 trees, and vines do finely, whenever the 
 season is at all favorable ; and if I start early, 
 with liberal stimulus of manure, I can gen- 
 
48 MY GARDEN ITS LOCATION. 
 
 erally make a good crop of vegetables. Still, 
 on my knolls it does not pay to plant such 
 kinds as require a moist, loamy soil, and I 
 have to use all the care and judgment I can 
 to overcome this tendency to excessive dry- 
 ness. If I could only irrigate my garden I 
 could make it a greater success; but watering 
 by hand is too slow and expensive to pay 
 on a large scale. I tried it pretty thoroughly 
 last summer, but with doubtful success. 
 
 One other fact is decidedly in my favor : 
 my garden is so near the river that the air is 
 tempered by the large body of water. In 
 spring and autumn we are exempt from frosts 
 when even a mile or two back they are quite 
 severe. I can thus get my plants started 
 earlier, and enjoy the proceeds of lima beans, 
 tomatoes, etc., later than many near neighbors. 
 
 All things considered, it seems to me that, 
 as far as location is concerned, multitudes could 
 
MY GARDEN — ITS LOCATION. 49 
 
 start in a position as favorable as my own, 
 and many, in point of ground and exposure, 
 would be much more favorably situated. I 
 acknowledge that one of the chief elements of 
 success is a good market, and of that I will 
 speak in a later chapter. As respects this 
 also, I think that some will be more favorably 
 situated than myself, and some less so. 
 
IV. 
 
 MY GARDEN — HOW IT GREW. 
 
 A PERSON with a genuine love of gardening 
 is like sorrel, aggressive in his nature. He can- 
 not see a nice piece of ground without mentally 
 plotting it out, and if he gets a chance he is apt 
 to do it in reality. Old King Ahab did a very 
 mean thing even for him, and that is saying a 
 great deal, when he took Naboth's vineyard ; 
 but after all it was only a gardener's instinct 
 perverted. It was the most natural thing in the 
 world that he should want the good mellow 
 piece of ground "which was hard by the 
 palace, for a garden of herbs." If woman, who 
 got a gardener in trouble before, had not 
 stepped in, the whole thing might have ended 
 
MY GARDEN HOW IT GREW. 5 I 
 
 in a fit of sulks, and the greedy old cormorant 
 planted his " yarbs " somewhere else. Not 
 that I mean to run any close parallel between 
 Ahab and myself, or intimate that my agri- 
 cultural domain was increased by such tragic 
 means as kings and queens have ever been fond 
 of using, but which are not becoming to ordi- 
 nary people. The process by which my garden 
 expanded from the sandy knoll by the parson- 
 age, would not hurt the conscience of a downy 
 chicken. But the reader can well understand 
 that the latter patch of sand and gravel, mostly 
 in deep shade at that, and the yard that I could 
 nearly jump across, was to me like a cage to a 
 wild bird — a place where it can only flutter, not 
 fly. And yet even this small area, left entirely 
 to my own care, fared sadly. There were busy 
 days when I could touch no garden tool ; but 
 just at such times the weeds and grass, ni}- nat- 
 ural enemies, saw their opportunity, it would 
 
52 MY GARDEN HOW IT GREW. 
 
 seem, and made the most of it. Not only 
 would they grow with undaunted vigor through 
 the noonday heat, when my vegetables were 
 wilting, but they made the most rapid night 
 marches. In consequence I would, in a few 
 days, be perfectly aghast, and work beyond my 
 strength to regain lost ground. I found this 
 would not answer ; so I employed a worthy 
 German, by name of Breakbill, to supplement 
 my labors, but soon found that his bill would 
 break me, for the provident Teuton naturally 
 reasoned that a job in a small garden, like a 
 small baby, needed much nursing. Unless he 
 used great precaution he would hoe a short row 
 through unprofitably quick. I soon found that 
 at this rate the market would be the cheapest 
 place for vegetables, and those sent from New 
 York were scarcely less wilted than such as I 
 could raise in my hot sand. 
 
 But the fire burned and smouldered, and 
 
MY GARDEN — HOW IT GREW. 
 
 must break out somewhere. A little incident, 
 about midsummer, added fuel to the flame. I 
 had several strawberries of my own, (I think 
 there were enough to justify the plural number,) 
 during the first season, but after my home ex- 
 perience I naturally wanted a few more. So I 
 made arrangements with a neighboring gar- 
 dener to supply me. We had a small dish once 
 for supper, and I took some to the sick a few 
 times, and then had my bill. , "Seven dollars 
 and a half ! " We might as well indulge in 
 rubies by the quart. We all professed that we 
 had lost our taste for strawberries. They are 
 said to contain much iron and to be a great 
 tonic, but those we had seemed impregnated 
 with all the precious metals, and to be very de- 
 pleting. 
 
 But I was growing a thought, if not straw- 
 berries, and it finally fruited in this resolve : I 
 will have a larger garden and a gardener, and 
 
54 MY GARDEN — HOW IT GREW. 
 
 make them pay their own way. Then, while I 
 am writing a sermon or making calls, the pestif- 
 erous weeds will not steal a march on me. I 
 will have a rough and ready lieutenant, who will 
 carry on an active campaign unceasingly, with 
 hoe and fork, while I often retire to the shade to 
 provide the strategy. I find that a good deal 
 of strategy is necessary, especially in hot 
 weather. 
 
 Now, my Naboth, whose vineyard is hard by 
 the parsonage, was a most worthy old gentle- 
 man that has proved a friend indeed. So far 
 from looking upon him with an evil eye, or 
 meditating against him deadly designs, I would 
 gladly give him a lease of life for nine hundred 
 and ninety-nine years. He lives right on the 
 edge of the bluff overhanging the river, and 
 from his front piazza has one of the finest 
 views in America. Between his house and 
 the parsonage lies the coveted field, and 
 
MY GARDEN — HOW IT GREW. 55 
 
 gradually my garden has crept across it, till 
 some good souls, prone to see a dark and tragic 
 ending to most events, have intimated that it 
 would finally push my kindly landlord over the 
 bluff into the river. But though I w-ould like 
 two or three more acres to develop my plans and 
 theories, as well as fruits and vegetables, I can 
 yet assure the reader that with the fate of Ahab 
 before my eyes, I am as law-abiding a citizen as 
 any in my parish. 
 
 But no tragic means were necessary for the 
 gradual extension of my garden from the shaded 
 knoll described to its present proportions, for 
 my obliging neighbor kindly staked off about 
 half an acre, and that was my garden in '6^ . 
 Part of this ground w^as an apple orchard, and in 
 such dense shade that not even currants would 
 mature ; but the majority of it had a very good 
 exposure, and has contained some of my best 
 land ever since. When I took it the soil was in 
 
56 MY GARDEN — HOW IT GREW. 
 
 a "tolerably fair condition for corn and potatoes, 
 but according to Henderson, and I soon found, 
 experience also, in no state for a garden. It 
 was very stony, and all the finer and more val- 
 uable vegetables made slow growth upon it. 
 After it was once ploughed and planted I did 
 nothing more with a horse, not having any, but 
 all was handiwork. 
 
 From my easy-going, deliberate Teuton I 
 went to the other extreme, and obtained a chol- 
 eric Dutchman, who was a perfect steam-engine 
 at work. But he was touchy as gunpowder, 
 and I had to walk around my own garden most 
 circumspectly. If he started off rightly he ac- 
 complished wonders ; but if wrong, there seemed 
 even greater energy ; and how to stop him and 
 correct matters without a grand explosion was 
 a knotty and delicate problem. He was not a 
 gardener by profession, but accustomed to work 
 alone at employment devoid of all the little 
 
MY GARDEN HOW IT GREW. 57 
 
 details that now constantly came up. But we 
 jogged along after a fashion till the busy season 
 was over, and then a stout, young boy and my- 
 self carried forward operations alone. That 
 summer I sold from my garden three hundred 
 and fifty-five dollars' worth of vegetables and 
 fruit. I will refer to expenses in another chap- 
 ter, as I scarcely dare speak of them yet. In 
 addition, our table was supplied on a very 
 different scale from the preceding year. 
 
 I resolved, however, that I would not be tyr- 
 annized over in my own garden, and deter- 
 mined to be autocrat there myself in the future. 
 I was an amateur, and fond of all sorts of experi- 
 ments and original methods ; and even when 
 having my own way would spoil anything, I 
 wanted it spoiled just to suit me, and no words 
 about it. The garden, of all places, is the place 
 of peace, where the true mystical heart's-ease 
 should grow. But there could be no peace in 
 
58 MY GARDEN — HOW IT GREW. 
 
 my garden unless I had my own way, and 
 nobody else his — for a garden, like an aspara- 
 gus shoot, requires but one head, and any kind 
 of a head is better than a set of scraggly 
 branches. I determined to have no professional 
 or gunpowder people in my garden another year, 
 and if there was any " blowing up " to be done, 
 to reserve that privilege to myself. 
 
 I made many blunders, and often worked to 
 poor advantage, I planted varieties of vege- 
 tables and fruits that were decidedly inferior. In 
 not a few instances I utterly lost crops, and oth- 
 ers did not pay a tithe of the expense, but all 
 the while there was a most profitable growth 
 of experience in addition to healthful exercise 
 and much enjoyment. My family were no lon- 
 ger dependent on New York markets. 
 
 In the spring of '68 little over half an acre 
 was added to my garden, I can only give a 
 pretty close approximation now, as the old lines 
 
MY GARDEN HOW IT GREW. 59 
 
 of demarcation are obliterated. Early in March 
 the kindly power that presides over gardeners 
 sent me a helper somewhat to my taste — an 
 intelligent Irishman "just over." His sister 
 was one of our " help," and he had a temporary 
 situation near. Changes occurring threw him 
 out of employment, and soon after he was 
 brought to our house in a critical state, from a 
 sudden and severe attack of illness. Of course, 
 simple humanity required that he should be 
 taken care of, and when he got better he com- 
 menced doing little things around to show his 
 good-will. He was very grateful, willing to be 
 told, strong and able to work, though knowing 
 next to nothing about the management of a 
 garden. "Here's a man," I thought, "who 
 will plant lima beans a foot deep, if I tell him 
 to ; " and by the time spring fairly opened he 
 was my gardener, and is with me still. Ikit he 
 plants lima beans now half an inch deep without 
 
6o MY GARDEN — HOW IT GREW. 
 
 telling, and does not poke them back in the 
 ground when they first appear to pop out, as he 
 was inclined to do at first. He has become one 
 of the solid citizens, with a goodly bank account. 
 The young boy to whom I have referred, also 
 proved a treasure, and stayed with me till the 
 fall of '71- 
 
 I cultivated this season about an acre, and my 
 sales rose to seven hundred and sixty-three dol- 
 lars and thirty-six cents. 
 
 It began to dawn on me that fruit paid better 
 than vegetables, and I steadily increased the 
 area given to its cultivation. During that fall 
 I invested about one hundred dollars in rasp- 
 berry and blackberry plants. If I had waited 
 till the following spring I suppose I could have 
 bought the same plants for thirty dollars. 
 
 In the spring of '69 my garden reached its 
 full dimensions of two and a quarter acres. My 
 sales ran up to one thousand three hundred and 
 
MY GARDEN HOW IT GREW. 6 1 
 
 eighty-two dollars and eighty-four cents. But 
 that these figures may not mislead, I am bound 
 to confess that expenses thus far fully kept pace. 
 I see now that they were larger than they 
 need to have been, but will explain farther on. 
 Much of my ground was very stony, cold, and 
 soddy, and not in sufficiently good heat to pro- 
 duce large crops of anything. I put on great 
 quantities of green and unrotted manure, but as 
 the season proved dry it was almost a detriment, 
 and did not improve the land as it would if the 
 summer had been moist. Many of my crops 
 did not return their cost, and Avere of a kind 
 that do not pay in such a garden as mine. 
 
 I kept setting out fruit, though not nearly as 
 rapidly as I ought. If I had from the first put 
 two-thirds of my ground in strawberries and 
 raspberries, and used my fertilizers on them, in- 
 stead of sweet corn, peas, and potatoes, my gar- 
 den would have told a very much better story. 
 
62 MY GARDEN HOW IT GREW. 
 
 Undaunted by the summing up of the year's 
 results, I went into the campaign of 1870 with 
 renewed zest, hoping to make a wide and favor- 
 able margin in the debit and credit sides of my 
 balance-sheet. 
 
 But the season proved one of unparalleled 
 drought in our vicinity, while along the coast 
 and about New York showers were abundant. 
 New York vegetables were, therefore, fine, and 
 our own poor. Berries dried upon the vines. 
 Most of my cabbages perished from the club- 
 foot, and the results fell short of what I hoped ; 
 and yet, under the circumstances, they were 
 large, due to the fact that my fruit was coming 
 into bearing. 
 
 My sales in '70 reached one thousand four 
 hundred and ninety-six dollars and eighty-five 
 cents. 
 
 Then dawned '71, in which I had abundant 
 reward. Though my fruit had not made the 
 
MY GARDEN HOW IT GREW. 63 
 
 growth I had hoped on account of the drought, 
 still I had a greater breadth in bearing ; the 
 season, all things considered, was much more 
 favorable. 
 
 The grand total, Dec. 31, was two thousand 
 and eleven dollars and sixty-nine cents. 
 
V. 
 
 MY GARDEN — WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTI- 
 VATED, 
 
 My readers will naturally suppose that the 
 two and a quarter acres that produced two 
 thousand dollars in one summer are not the 
 bare, stony field I found it ; nor would they 
 be mistaken, A more luxuriant plot of 
 ground about June 30th could hardly be 
 found. Everything there is in the strength 
 of its youth or maturity, and the impres- 
 sion of superabundant vitality is given. Rasp- 
 berries and blackberries toss their forming and 
 ripening fruit high above my head, and the boys 
 picking are utterly lost to view, save where 
 they mount a box to reach the topmost sprays. 
 The bean-poles are no longer gaunt and bare, 
 
MY GARDEN — WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED, 65 
 
 but slender cones of green. The season is at 
 its height, and the withering breath of hot July 
 has not shrivelled a leaf. At this season you 
 would think there was a great deal in my gar- 
 den. 
 
 In the first place there are sixteen large ap- 
 ple-trees, and though my garden is a grand 
 thing for them, they having improved greatly 
 since the ground has been brought into a high 
 state of cultivation, their shade is mainly lost 
 space. Some of my boys also find more to do 
 •under them than where the sun shines. I do 
 not know whether all trees would have the same 
 efifect, or whether from the first there has been 
 some mysterious attraction about the apple- 
 tree. Between the fruit on them, though green 
 and bitter in its immaturity, and the shade un- 
 der them, they have a tempting power that few 
 in my garden resist at all times, while sundry 
 
 idle urchins, picked up in the streets and put to 
 5 
 
66 MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 weeding, are drawn to them with the certainty 
 of gravitation ; and the centrifugal force re- 
 quired to keep them out among the vegetables 
 is nearly as exhaustive as doing the weeding 
 one's self. I use the shaded ground however 
 for composts, preparing fruits and vegetables for 
 market, and have lately occupied quite a por- 
 tion of it as a chicken yard. Though the fruit 
 belongs to my good landlord, he is very gener- 
 ous with it, and I was glad to get the ground 
 with so slight a drawback. But no apples have 
 entered into my sales. 
 
 In the next place I had three rows of cherry 
 currants, ninety-three feet long, and one row of 
 forty-eight feet. Besides these there were a 
 number of small plants that have since com- 
 menced fruiting, and about twenty-five bushes 
 of the old common kind. Nearly all are young 
 and not very large as yet, and altogether not 
 over ninety are bearing, some producing but 
 
MY GARDEN — WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 67 
 
 a few handfuls. But my journal shows that 
 from this modest plantation of currants four 
 bushels and four quarts were sold during the 
 season, bringing nineteen dollars and thirteen 
 cents. In addition we used not a few our- 
 selves, and some were given away. The 
 most of these bushes were raised from cut- 
 tings, the manner of which will be explained 
 farther on. Any one who has enjoyed the 
 cherry-currant with berries two or three times 
 the size of the old common kind, will acknowl- 
 edge that they are a beautiful and delicious fruit ; 
 yet a bush will take up no more room than a 
 full-sized burdock, such as I have seen orna- 
 menting many a back-yard, and occasionally 
 flaunting in front of some shiftless farmer's 
 door ; and it will grow about as easily, as we 
 hope to show in the following pages. 
 
 Among my currants I have another old- 
 fashioned friend, which, though somewhat 
 
68 MY GARDEN— WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 soured and thorny in character, nevertheless 
 has its good points, and is well deserving of 
 the limited attention it requires. I refer to the 
 gooseberry, dear to the memory from the innu- 
 merable tarts and pies it furnished for our 
 dinner basket in school-days. Its propagation 
 and culture are as simple as those of the cur- 
 rant ; so men who are without gooseberries are 
 without excuse. I have twenty-three bushes, 
 and from these two bushels and twenty-two 
 quarts were sold for eleven dollars and sixty- 
 three cents, and sundry quarts disappeared in 
 other ways. 
 
 But even these hardy fruits could not stand 
 the severe open winter of '71-2, and the bushes 
 were so much injured that there was but little 
 more than half a crop of currants, and not 
 over half a bushel of gooseberries were picked 
 altogether. Thus the receipts in '72 from the 
 currants fell off ten dollars and forty-one cents 
 
MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 69 
 
 from those of the previous season, and the 
 gooseberries scarcely returned anything. 
 
 There are fluctuations in the garden as truly 
 as in Wall Street, as the following pages "will 
 prove. Only in the garden honest industry is 
 the trait that success crowns in the long run, 
 while in Wall Street, it would seem that a men- 
 tal " sleight-of-hand" secures the prize. 
 
 We next pass on to what some Avriter calls 
 the " finest fruit God ever made," the straw- 
 berry. It is indeed a divine alchemy that can 
 transform clay and water into the luscious 
 Triomphe de Gand, the sprightly Wilson's 
 Seedling, and the aromatic Lenig's White. 
 Little wonder that we look anxiously at our 
 beds in March and April to see how the plants 
 have "wintered." With justifiable solicitude 
 and joy we watch them throwing up their new 
 green foliage in April, and in May becoming 
 such a mass of bloom that it would seem a 
 
70 MY GARDEN — WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 flurry of snow had passed over the bed. At 
 last, when the June rose, "the queen of 
 flowers," resumes its sweet dominion over our 
 senses, the strawberry stands nearest the throne 
 in Nature's realm. 
 
 Passing from the strawberry as a thing of 
 " beauty and a joy forever" (I am sure some 
 varieties will " flourish" in the " New Earth "), 
 to the strawberry as a " crop," may seem to 
 some fair readers a letting down, and yet it is 
 upon the practical phase that I propose to 
 dwell. In '71 I had about five-eighths of an 
 acre in bearing, and from this area sold fifty- 
 seven bushels and two quarts. In addition 
 how many the boys ate in picking, how many 
 my own children devoured in their innumerable 
 raids, how many were given away, I have no 
 means of accurately computing. We also used 
 them like water upon our table, fifteen quarts 
 finding a home market during one day. 
 
MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 7 1 
 
 Again, the beds were scattered all over the 
 garden, and in looking after this, and strolling 
 around it, I had to pass them continually ; and 
 surely the gloomiest ascetic could not resist 
 their alluring red cheeks, as half-hidden, like 
 coy beauties, they peeped out from the partial 
 shade of the leaves. If all eaten during the 
 season in this promiscuous manner were placed 
 in one pile, I fear my friends would regard 
 me with something of the same wonder that 
 Goldsmith's rustics had for their pedagogue's 
 head. 
 
 The birds, too, proved arrant thieves. From 
 the sedate robins and demure little wrens to 
 the saucy cedar-birds, with their jaunty red 
 topknots, it was all the same. From the time 
 the berries reddened, like the Great Reformer, 
 they all turned their backs on the " diet of 
 worms," and, though their crops were greatly 
 increased, my crop was sensibly diminished. 
 
72 MY GARDEN — WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 But in memory of certain predatory incursions 
 of my own upon strawberry-beds in the past, 
 I felt impelled to charity. I believe, also, 
 that birds and bugs have certain vested rights 
 from Nature that no arbitrary civilization should 
 wrest from them. It is only when they take 
 more than their share that we should commence 
 "proceedings " against them. 
 
 But with all these abstractions and without 
 reckoning what was consumed in the miscella- 
 neous ways mentioned, the above-named quan- 
 tity sold for the good round sum of five hun- 
 dred and eighty-nine dollars and sixty-five cents. 
 
 The next fruit in the order of ripening be- 
 longs to the raspberry family, and is familiarly 
 known as the Blackcap. I have cultivated with 
 success three varieties : the Davidson's Thorn- 
 less, the Mammoth Cluster, and the Doolittle, 
 and find the Doolittles do the most of any of 
 them. 
 
MY GARDEN — WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 73 
 
 These berries are simply improvements of the 
 wild Blackcap of the woods, and I have seen 
 growing in damp and favored spots as fine fruit 
 as any borne by my cultivated varieties. With 
 those who pride themselves on the pearl of their 
 teeth and the coral of their lips, the Blackcap 
 will never be a favorite ; but to us plain people 
 it has been an old friend from the time its pur- 
 ple blood smeared our faces, clothes, and din- 
 ner-baskets, and its brambles added largely to 
 the v/eekly mending. 
 
 The Davidson's Thornless is a variety free 
 from sharp spines, and its fruit ripens a week 
 earlier than that of the Doolittle, and therefore 
 is deserving of a place in the garden. The 
 Mammoth Cluster matures the last of all, so that 
 by planting the three varieties named, the sea- 
 son of Blackcaps can be extended almost three 
 times as long as if onh' one kind were cultivated. 
 This extension could be considerably increased 
 
74 MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 by a judicious selection of soil and exposure. 
 Place the Davidson's Thornless in a warm, sunny- 
 spot with a light soil, the Doolittles in the open 
 garden, and the Mammoth Cluster in a cool, 
 moist, and somewhat shaded position, and the 
 canny cultivator has Blackcaps for a month, in- 
 stead of merely little over a week, by the growth 
 of only one variety. 
 
 I had in bearing in '71, one row of the Thorn- 
 less, one hundred and eighty feet long ; three 
 rows of the Doolittles, one hundred and eighty- 
 five feet long ; and two rows of the Mammoth 
 Clusters, one hundred and seventy-six feet 
 long ; also a row of one hundred feet of the 
 wild Blackcaps of the Avoods, which I have 
 since dug up and thrown away. There were 
 also some bushes of the Seneca and Miami 
 varieties, which not doing very well Avith me, 
 shared the same fate. From these seven rows 
 and a few scattered bushes besides, fourteen 
 
MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 75 
 
 bushels and twenty-three quarts were sold for 
 the sum of one hundred and eight dollars and 
 forty-seven cents. There was also the same 
 unstinted use of them for preserving and the 
 table in the family, and the same promiscuous 
 filling of mouths at all times and seasons ; for 
 who, brought up in the country, could pass a 
 Blackcap bush, purple with fruit, and keep his 
 hands in his pockets ? 
 
VI. 
 
 MY GARDEN — WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTI- 
 VATED — CONTINUED. 
 
 We next come to the delicate raspberries that 
 melt on your tongue like a snowflake ; picked 
 in hot July with the cool morning dew upon 
 them, what could be as refreshing ? The old 
 heathen knew enough to cultivate them fourteen 
 centuries ago, while now many a Christian farmer 
 "can't bother with them," and regales his wife 
 and daughters mainly on corn, potatoes, and pork. 
 With very many in the country these delicious 
 small fruits are as neglected as the means of grace. 
 Man is a queer animal to boast of reason ; for, go 
 the world over, God's best gifts are generally the 
 most slighted. There is not a farmer but might 
 
MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 77 
 
 have a bowl of raspberries and milk for break- 
 fast every day in July. There is not a family 
 controlling twelve square feet of ground but 
 could grace their tea-table with the chief deli- 
 cacy of the season. People who often make 
 long expeditions through the fields, trampling 
 down their neighbors' grass and grain, to obtain 
 a few quarts of inferior fruit, might have an 
 abundant daily supply within twenty feet of the 
 kitchen-door. The ladies should take the mat- 
 ter of small fruits in hand themselves. With a 
 tithe of the attention they give to their back 
 hair, they could secure from husbands, and those 
 who might become such, quite as much admira- 
 tion, by placing before the lordly animal a dish 
 that might even tempt a spirit of the air. (Met- 
 aphysicians have found the heart and stomach 
 nearer together than the physiologists.) For 
 the encouragement of those who nurse a gera- 
 nium or monthly rose through the season, it can 
 
78 MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 be stated that a few hills of hardy raspberries 
 would not require half the care. 
 
 My plantation consisted of two rows, one 
 hundred and thirteen feet long, of white and 
 red, that by some mistake got mixed when 
 first set out ; four rows of White Antwerp, 
 ninety-two feet long ; two rows of Clark rasp- 
 berry, two hundred and twenty feet in length ; 
 five rows of the same, of one hundred and 
 eighty-one feet ; and one of ninety feet. Of 
 the Philadelphia variety I have three rows of 
 two hundred and twenty feet and two of one 
 hundred and eighty-four feet. In addition, there 
 were four rows of the Franconia, one hundred 
 and twenty-five feet long, and four of the Hud- 
 son River Antwerp of the same length. The 
 plants of the two last-named varieties were 
 young, and not in full bearing. There were 
 also quite a large number of scattered bushes 
 of the old purple cane variety, but most of 
 
MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 79 
 
 these I had swept away. The fruit is so 
 small, soft, and liable to drop off, that it is 
 scarcely profitable. 
 
 From the plants above named I sold thirty- 
 six bushels and nineteen quarts, receiving three 
 hundred and forty-three dollars and eighty-two 
 cents. 
 
 In addition to preserving and using them ad 
 libitum, as with the other fruits, very many 
 dropped from the vines and were lost. During 
 the height of the season they ripened so rapidly 
 that it seemed impossible to keep up with them ; 
 and after some of the intensely hot nights and 
 days in July, every bush would be red with the 
 ripe fruit ; and then, before they could be picked 
 in many instances, the ground would be red also, 
 and I usually noticed that the mouths of the 
 pickers were redder still. But I have learned 
 to go on the principle that a boy must get his 
 own basket full before he will zealoush' bc^in to 
 
8o MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED, 
 
 fill mine, and this well-established fact must en- 
 ter into the grower's calculations. 
 
 During the year '72, the receipts from the 
 Blackcaps and red raspberries were not kept 
 separate, and I can only give the aggregate of 
 both, which was fifty-four bushels and seven 
 quarts, selling for five hundred and seven dol- 
 lars, this being a slight advance on the previous 
 year. 
 
 The last small fruit of the summer I consider 
 a truly noble one. 
 
 If I have a weakness for anything that comes 
 out of the garden, it is the Kittatinny black- 
 berry, when fully ripe. The majority in our 
 cities hardly know the real taste of this fruit 
 for two reasons. First, the berry is black be- 
 fore it is ripe, and is picked a day in advance of 
 its true perfection ; and in the second, if it is to 
 be sent any distance, it is too soft in its fully 
 matured state to bear carriasre. 
 
UY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 8 1 
 
 "No, sir; I do not like blackberries, with 
 their hard bitter core," said a city lady to me 
 very decidedly. She would hardly like a 
 winter pippin in October. But a Kittatinny 
 or a Lawton blackberry fully ripe will dis- 
 solve in one's mouth like so much syllabub ; 
 and to the majority it is the most wholesome 
 of fruits. 
 
 In our latitude it is very uncertain, being like 
 many people who develop wonderfully under 
 encouraging warmth, but cannot endure cold- 
 ness. 
 
 From the abundance and stockiness of the 
 
 branching canes you felicitate yourself on the 
 
 marvellous crop the following season ; but when 
 
 spring comes you may find them hard and dry 
 
 enough for pea-brush, requiring a double padded 
 
 buckskin glove to handle them. If they could 
 
 only be laid down, buried, and thus protected 
 
 like the raspberry, I think it would pay in some 
 G 
 
82 MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 localities ; but all the varieties I have seen, ex- 
 cept the Wilson, grow as stout and stocky as 
 young oaks, and will bend as easily. 
 
 My plantation consisted of three rows of 
 Kittatinny one hundred and fifty feet long, two 
 rows one hundred and seventy-five feet long, 
 and one row of two hundred and fifty-eight 
 feet. I also had two rows of the Lawtons one 
 hundred and sixteen feet long, and five rows of 
 the Wilson variety one hundred and seventy- 
 five feet in length, and a few additional 
 bushes along the garden fence. The vines 
 were young and not in full bearing, and yet 
 my sales amounted to fifteen bushels and 
 twenty-six quarts, realizing one hundred and 
 fifty-two dollars and eight cents. At the same 
 time there was a magnificent growth of canes 
 for bearing in '72, justifying the anticipation of 
 double the crop named. But we had no snow 
 of any consequence in the winter of ''Ji-2, and 
 
MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 83 
 
 March, the most trying month of the year in 
 the garden, was unusually severe and late, so 
 that the vines without any protection nearly 
 all died. Twenty-seven quarts, selling for 
 eight dollars and thirty cents, were the meagre 
 results. In a small garden and for famJly use it 
 certainly would pay to protect the canes in the 
 winter, and farther on we hope to discuss this 
 matter more fully. With the Wilson variety 
 there would be no great difficulty in doing this, 
 if, as with me, it always grows in a slender, trail- 
 ing fashion. 
 
 The remaining fruit of my garden from which 
 I reaped an income in '71 is the historical and 
 poetical product of the vine — better, I am 
 obliged to confess, in poetry and history, than 
 in reality with me. In our soil and latitude the 
 raising of first-class grapes is a fine art to which 
 I have not attained. And yet I believe it can 
 be done — indeed it has been done, as Mr. 
 
04 MY GARDEN — WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 Rickets, of Newburgh, Mr. Ferris, of Pough- 
 keepsie, and others prove annually. And a 
 very small city lot owned by an eminent physi- 
 cian of the first-named town would also make 
 an interesting study to many who require a 
 several-acre sphere in which to develop their 
 incompetency. I should be prejudiced in fa- 
 vor of a doctor who could deal so deftly with 
 Nature, for however it may be in theology, in 
 the garden and sick-room one must not fight 
 her. True skill consists in knowing just how to 
 further and quicken her impulses in accordance 
 with her own moods, or laws, as a philosopher 
 would put it. Perhaps there is scarcely a fruit 
 in which culture makes so great a difference as 
 the grape. Any one can raise vines and leaves, 
 but if you are not careful, they are the main crop. 
 In no department have I inade so many blun- 
 ders as with my grapes ; but if misery loves 
 company, I have plenty of it. 
 
MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 85 
 
 The grape-vine is a patient friend, and, there- 
 fore, we neglect it. We can train it when con- 
 venient after October, so we delay and put it off 
 till spring, and then every cut becomes a bleed- 
 ing wound. It is nearly hardy, and many 
 varieties will usually endure exposure, so we 
 delay covering till the edge of winter, or risk 
 them above ground altogether. I did this in 
 '71, and scarcely had five pounds of fruit in 
 consec^uence the next season, when I ought to 
 have had five hundred or a thousand. Then in 
 the spring we can tie them up any time ; and in 
 the press of other things and the general spirit of 
 procrastination in which we like to put off ever}'- 
 thing, even preparing for Paradise till it is almost 
 too late, wc leave them till the buds arc no longer 
 little hard knobs, but incipient branches that 
 will drop off even if }'ou touch them as one 
 would a baby's check. I would like to sec the 
 man of superhuman patience who could finish, 
 
60 MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 in an equable frame of mind, the tying up of a 
 long, scraggly vine about the first of May. 
 How the branches twist around and tangle 
 themselves up ! How they fall out of hand and 
 strike every possible thing on their way to the 
 ground ! How his fingers seem all thumbs, 
 while with many contortions of face in his anx- 
 iety and excessive care he tries to tie a lofty 
 spray so as not to knock off a prominent bud, 
 but in the meantime, with his elbows, does the 
 business for a half dozen others unseen ! And 
 how at last the ground is sprinkled with little 
 purple germs, each representing two or three 
 clusters that might have ripened in the autumn. 
 Well may he sigh with Whittier, " It might have 
 been ! " Premising that the vine was his own, 
 the amateur who could look serene through such 
 an experience would be ready for translation at 
 once, providing he had not neglected his other 
 duties as he Had the tying his vines in season. 
 
MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 87 
 
 On some occasions like the above, I am satisfied 
 that the expression on my face might well ren- 
 der sour such grapes as grew on the few buds 
 left. 
 
 Then the culture of grapes is one of the most 
 remarkable instances where man's avarice over- 
 reaches itself. 
 
 " What ! cut that splendid branch of new wood 
 way in there ? " asks the novice in dismay. 
 " Leave only two or three buds ! That seems 
 like throwing away pounds of fruit." 
 
 Yes, it "seems;" but your experienced 
 grower cuts as remorselessly as a veteran army 
 surgeon. And yet I am told that professional 
 gardeners are so conscious of this weakness in 
 regard to their own vines, that sometimes they 
 will send for another of the fraternity to do the 
 annual pruning, knowing that the hand of a 
 stranger will be directed by science, unswa}X'd 
 by interest or affection ; and in the costly green - 
 
88 MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 house it is no trifling matter how the vines are 
 trimmed. (Reflection : I suppose it is on this 
 principle that surgeons and physicians do not 
 hke to practise in their own famihes.) 
 
 The great majority of us leave one or more 
 buds too many on every branch, meaning to do 
 some rigorous spring and summer pruning. 
 Where the buds start too thickly we will rub 
 some off, not promiscuously, by late tying, but 
 with great judgment. And when the forming 
 clusters are little furzy blossoms of exquisite 
 perfume, we can go through them on June even- 
 ings, and cut out all save the most promising 
 canes. Yes, we can, but do we always in time? 
 Though such a task is the very poetry of gar- 
 dening, the Eden phase in which we have only 
 to check Nature's too exuberant cfibrts in our 
 behalf, still the tangled and matted mass of 
 vines and smothered fruit that I have seen in 
 other gardens as well as my own indicate the 
 
MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 89 
 
 fatal neglect. In the average garden, procrasti- 
 nation, that Ave all preach against and nearly all 
 practise, is one of the most common sources of 
 ill-success. 
 
 But if a man will study grape-vines and learn 
 grape-vines, he can do some very beautiful 
 things with them, and by attention and outlay 
 can do it on a large scale. Still, as I have said, 
 it is a fine art requiring no little skill, judgment, 
 and thought. A nice balance must be kept 
 between root and vine. You must feed your 
 vine in view of what you wish to produce. It 
 must be pruned with a forethought looking 
 through several summers instead of only one ; 
 otherwise you soon have long reaches of barren 
 old wood, with a few clusters at the end, like 
 some dry sermons finishing off with a good 
 practical application. 
 
 You must see that those in your employ, 
 economical of time and cord, do not tic them 
 
90 MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 all up in a bunch, as mine once were. On such 
 matters I can give a few crude hints, but when 
 it comes to the niceties of hybridization, etc., 
 such as my medical friend practises in moments 
 of leisure, I have nothing to say. 
 
 If any have been beguiled into sitting at my 
 feet as disciples in expectation of the inner 
 mysteries, they had better move on. The ora- 
 cle is dumb. 
 
 In time I hope to raise grapes that "au- 
 thorities " will press approvingly between their 
 critical lips at a horticultural exhibition. In 
 the meantime I am growing such as people 
 who cannot get better are willing to eat and 
 pay for. My sales in '71 were three hundred 
 and twenty pounds, realizing thirty-seven dol- 
 lars and ninety-four cents. 
 
 It should be added that, though as a family 
 we were not great producers of the classical 
 fruit, we were all great consumers. It seemed 
 
MY GARDEN — WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 9 1 
 
 also as if the beasts of the field and fowls of the 
 air — things above, on, and under the earth — all 
 conspired to deplete my vines. I do not think 
 over half the crop was sold. It was well that 
 everything and everybody made the most of it, 
 for scarcely a cluster did we get in '72. The 
 vines were not protected, and the severe open 
 winter turned even the Concords into dry sticks. 
 But a good growth was made for '73, and I 
 hope this year to catch up with '71. Some 
 may regard this as crab-like progress. 
 
 My pear-trees are young and few, yet in 
 bearing. But the past three seasons we have 
 had some splendid fellows to put away on 
 shelves to ripen for state occasions. 
 
 I have quite a number of peach-trees, nearly 
 all natural fruit, that is, grown directly from the 
 pit without the budding in of some approved 
 variety. In '71 ^ ^^^^ of the trees commenced 
 bearing, but last year many of them bore fuiely. 
 
92 MY GARDEN — WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 
 
 Some of the seedlings produced unusually fine 
 peaches ; but partly from neglect and partly 
 from avarice, I permitted them to overbear. 
 Another year I shall believe in the paradox, 
 that when the trees are loaded, if you will pick 
 off two-thirds of the green ones when large as 
 hickory-nuts, you will have more fruit. More- 
 over, the hornets, wasps, and yellow-jackets got 
 nearly half the crop. As soon as a peach 
 begins to mellow on one cheek they puncture it 
 and appropriate the best part, leaving the 
 remainder to speedy decay. From the time of 
 raspberries forward I hardly know how to deal 
 with these little stern-armed pirates. When 
 you approach they leave you in miserable 
 uncertainty whether they will fight or fly, and 
 most of us Avould rather endure the stings of 
 conscience than their envenomed attacks. I 
 have hit on one means of fighting them that is 
 doubly " sweet," since it is composed of molas- 
 
MY GARDEN WHAT FRUITS WERE CULTIVATED. 93 
 
 ses and water, and gives you "revenge." I 
 fill a smooth china bowl with the liquid and put 
 it under the trees and vines. They get in, but 
 cant get out, and, like the " dying swan," they 
 hum themselves to death. Or to indulge in 
 another allusion suitable to their just, but un- 
 happy fate, they die on the same general prin- 
 ciple that Mirabeau preferred, when he said, 
 " Intoxicate me with perfume; let me die with 
 the sound of music." 
 
 Exit wasp, hornet, yellow-jacket — and my 
 chapter. 
 
VII. 
 
 MARKETS. 
 
 The heading of this chapter suggests to the 
 reader a question of no shght importance : 
 "Suppose that I raise all and more than you 
 do, (and there would be no difficulty in doing 
 this,) what shall I do with it ? " One of the first 
 things I learned at Sabbath-school was, that it 
 is easier to ask questions than to answer them. 
 I admit at once that this query as to a market 
 must enter into it and modify all garden plans. 
 In the main it is a question which each one who 
 possesses or contemplates a garden must answer 
 for himself It is one of the points on which 
 judgment, native shrewdness, and especially a 
 knowledge of what is in demand, must be exer- 
 
MARKETS. 95 
 
 cised. The merchant would be regarded as 
 very ignorant, to say the least, who should lay 
 in a large stock that he could not sell ; and the 
 agriculturist is equally lacking who plants his 
 land with that for which there is little or no re- 
 quest. 
 
 Having learned what is reasonably sure of a 
 prompt sale, judgment must be used in respect 
 to what crops shall be grown, and how much of 
 each ; for there is usually quite a varied choice 
 permitted to the grower. 
 
 Again, a little shrewdness in the introduction 
 of a new thing will often create a market. 
 
 This is speaking generally. In the following 
 remarks I will try to be as specific as I can, and 
 to give the character of my own market. And 
 yet it is mainly on general principles that one 
 must speak, for this question of a market is so 
 modified by local circumstances, that nothing 
 said of one place will exactly apply to another. 
 
96 MARKETS. 
 
 It must be remembered that these articles are 
 written from the stand-point of a professional 
 man, and chiefly for those who propose to make 
 the garden a mere adjunct to some other call- 
 ing. As my title suggests, I hope to show many 
 who have and many who have not a garden, 
 how they also might find "play and profit" in 
 one. 
 
 I will touch but briefly on the great markets 
 of New York and similar large cities. Mr. 
 Henderson, in his well-known book, has clearly 
 presented the nature of vegetable gardening and 
 its rewards. It is shown to be extremely profit- 
 able to those who understand it, set about it 
 under the right conditions, and devote their 
 whole energies to it. At the same time, unless 
 one chooses it as a calling, it is a phase of agri- 
 culture impossible for a professional man. One 
 must be within three or four miles of the mar- 
 ket, and land is so high, competition so keen, 
 
MARKETS. 97 
 
 that success requires all the skill and energy of 
 the most absorbed and driving business man. 
 In the South a professional man having land 
 near some line of quick transportation north, 
 might often ship vegetables to great advantage. 
 Judging from the price that early produce brings 
 here, it ought to pay them abundantly. 
 
 But the fruit market of a large city is a very 
 different affair. This can be supplied from a 
 distance, and generally at a fair profit to the 
 producer. Multitudes are securing a good 
 livelihood in this business, and not a few are 
 amassing fortunes. There is nothing to pre- 
 vent the merchant or professional man from 
 sharing in these profits. Say one has an acre 
 or more around his country home, and has a 
 little taste and time for gardening. It is no 
 great task to put out fruit-trees and vines ; and 
 a Bartlett pear or golden pippin will thri\-c in 
 
 some neglected corner where before only weeds 
 7 
 
MARKETS. 
 
 were rampant. As we have said, a cherry-cur- 
 rant bush will grow where a burdock may have 
 flourished, and as readily. If one is not artistic 
 and particular as to appearances, he can line his 
 fences with currants and fruit-trees, and leave 
 the open space for strawberries, raspberries, etc. 
 When the owner can give an hour or two a day 
 in supervision and labor, it will go a good way 
 if judiciously expended. In many families there 
 are those who could look after the lighter labors 
 of culture and the preparation of fruit for mar- 
 ket. The train or boat takes it to town, and 
 your commission man sells it and makes returns. 
 The carrying forward of all this on a moderate 
 scale need not require more than a fraction of a 
 man's time, providing he can lind suitable as- 
 sistants ; and a sensible man should have no 
 more difficulty in finding these for his garden 
 than for his store or office. The merchant does 
 not give up his store because he has a few in- 
 
MARKETS. 99 
 
 competent and dishonest clerks ; no more 
 should he his garden. In the stocking of his 
 place with fruit, a man must use judgment, not 
 planting whatever he can first lay his hands on, 
 but such kinds as he has found to be in demand, 
 and such as are suitable in their habits of 
 growth to his own locality. Some of his neigh- 
 bors, no doubt, are raising and selling fruit ; let 
 him learn from them the varieties that grow the 
 thriftiest and sell the readiest. 
 
 In marketing he should not put good, bad, 
 and indifferent together in any old baskets or 
 boxes that may be lying around, and send it to- 
 ward the great city, like a man drawing a bow 
 at a venture. Let him go first to the city and 
 find a trustworthy commission-house, (the thing 
 is possible ! !) or, at least, let him try several, 
 and selecting the one with whom he is best sat- 
 isfied, then learn from the market just the kinds 
 of packages that are most approved. 
 
MARKETS. 
 
 Thus, after some time ^nd trouble in starting, 
 and several dear lessons from experience, there 
 is no doubt that the persisting man might not 
 only supply his own family, but secure a con- 
 siderable addition to his income. In some re- 
 spects, I should prefer such a market as I have 
 spoken of to any other ; for, while ordinary fruit 
 often sells at very low prices, it ahvays can be 
 sold, and so got off your hands, while superior 
 fruit will invariably brihg a good price and often 
 a very large one. Thus your market becomes 
 an incentive to produce the best. Moreover, 
 after your fruit is picked and shipped, you have 
 no more trouble, while a small local market is 
 hopelessly glutted, and you have to make great 
 exertions to prevent parts of crops from perish- 
 ing on your hands. 
 
 But as my experience has been mainly with a 
 local market, I will now restrict my discussion 
 to this phase of the subject. 
 
]\IARKETS. 
 
 Under this aspect I would consider the home 
 market, such as a man's own table furnishes, as 
 first in importance. If a family, in ordinarily- 
 good circumstances, kept a separate account of 
 the fruit and vegetables bought and used during 
 the year, they would doubtless be surprised at 
 the sum total. But if they could see the amount 
 they could and would consume if they didn't 
 have to buy, surprise would be a very mild way 
 of putting it. A very small piece of ground 
 judiciously cultivated will give a large family a 
 large supply, while acres neglected or poorly 
 managed will yield little save expense and dis- 
 appointment. Premising that the actual or 
 possible possessor of a little land and his family 
 have a fair average of brains, and are willing to 
 use them in Icarninghow to take care of the gar- 
 den, just as they would learn to do an}-thing 
 else; — then, if they can regularly give a certain 
 amount of time to its culture, the work can all, 
 
MARKETS. 
 
 or at least mainly, be performed without outside 
 help, and the saving of money expended in the 
 wilted cholera-morbus producing products of 
 the market, the gain, in quality and quantity 
 enjoyed, and in health and pleasure secured, 
 ought to make a sum total that would drive any 
 man with a conscience to the furnishing of his 
 own home supply. 
 
 Having done this, and still often possessing a 
 surplus, the grower may very naturally wish to 
 dispose of it. He may be so located as to ren- 
 der it impossible to ship to any large market, or 
 the amount may be too small to make it worth 
 the while. And yet the odd dollars that would 
 be secured if the surplus could find a market, 
 are a consideration. 
 
 It must be remembered that all this is 
 not written for those patricians who sell pills 
 and pewter, stocks and justice — in brief, all 
 kinds of merchandise, themselves included 
 
MARKETS. 103 
 
 sometimes, but who are too proud to dispose 
 of anything from their country-place ; nor for 
 those weakhy, easy-going famihes who consume 
 and give away what they can, and leave the 
 rest to perish, but rather for such as have long- 
 ings for country-life and garden luxuries, which 
 can only be gratified by careful economy and 
 some financial return ; or for those who, having 
 land and needing such return, would only be 
 too glad to know how to secure it. If any pro- 
 fessional or business men feel that their " cloth " 
 will not permit them to enter into any negotia- 
 tions with their grocer or butcher for an ex- 
 change for the products of the garden, let them 
 cherish their cloth. We are writing for those 
 whose dignity and reputation do not require 
 such careful nursing. 
 
 But through these worthy members of the 
 village commonwealth a local market may soon 
 be discovered and developed. They can in- 
 
I04 MARKETS. 
 
 form the grower what articles are in demand," 
 and by temptingly displaying at these rural 
 centres fruiis and vegetables not ordinarily in 
 request, a market can be created for them. 
 Such has been my experience ; and perhaps I 
 can best suggest to the reader how to deal with 
 a local market by describing to them my own. 
 
 My little plantation is situated on the out- 
 skirts of a village of about one thousand five 
 hundred inhabitants. It contains two markets 
 and half a dozen stores, more or less, that 
 keep among their multifarious wares what 
 some of the country-people call "garden 
 sass." Like most places near New York, 
 the supply is derived partly from the sur- 
 rounding country and partly from Washington 
 Market. When I first commenced, my contribu- 
 tions were small and precarious, but I have since 
 been able to overcrowd our limited market for 
 weeks together with certain articles. Some of 
 
MARKETS. 105 
 
 the stores daily send a wagon to West Point to 
 accommodate their customers there, and I have 
 had occasional dealings with the West Point 
 market. This enlarges my opportunities some- 
 what, but beyond the village there was no cer- 
 tainty and regularity of demand. The hotels and 
 boarding-houses I have supplied with little save 
 fruit, and of this phase of my market I will speak 
 later. My gardener has made arrangements with 
 several neighboring families by which he sup- 
 plies them directly with the best and earliest 
 products at the best retail prices. These swell 
 the aggregate of receipts largely, but when you 
 estimate the time required in obtaining and 
 filling such small orders, and the interruptions 
 they cause in the routine of business, little is 
 gained. 
 
 In addition to the regular customers who be- 
 come dependent on my factotum, Thomas, for 
 part of their daily food, there was a still larger 
 
Io6 MARKETS. 
 
 class of " occasionals " who appeared all hours 
 and seasons, with all kinds of vessels and ve- 
 hicles, at the general salesroom, a wide-spread- 
 ing apple-tree in the centre of the garden. 
 There was no calculating on this class. Some 
 days they would come in shoals, and on others 
 would not come at all. It seemed that when a 
 cool, crisp head of lettuce presented itself to 
 their fancy, or the thought of relieving the 
 monotony of the day by the sharp biting radish, 
 or aromatic, emotional onion, occurred to them, 
 they immediately seized upon basket and 
 started, and that thus their visits had all the 
 irregularity ever known to belong to human im- 
 pulses. But Thomas, the head salesman, or 
 Charlie, the book-keeper, was either under the 
 apple-tree, or not far off, and their sudden long- 
 ings were satisfied 
 
 With my limited area of land. Blackcaps and 
 raspberries are the only fruits with which I 
 
MARKETS. 107 
 
 have been able to overstock the market, even 
 for a brief time. Nor could it be done with 
 these if they would only show a little consid- 
 eration in ripening. It may be misery to 
 them to be picked, and as " misery loves com- 
 pany," they all aim to meet their fate at once. 
 Some intensely hot day every berry on your 
 bushes will appear ripe. This occurs, too, at 
 the very worst time, just after the Fourth of 
 July, when people, having spent all their 
 money, and satiated themselves with good 
 things, have, in consequence, a little touch of 
 dyspepsia, cholcra-morbus, or economical re- 
 morse. There is a thinning out at the hotels 
 and boarding-houses, and a general contrac- 
 tion. But in the garden there is a general 
 expansion. Berries that were little green 
 knobs in the morning are red and ripe in the 
 evening, and the bushes suddenly become 
 purple and crimson all down the long rows. 
 
Io8 MARKETS. 
 
 Indeed, they are like the friends of the rich, 
 who are most prodigal of favors when most 
 unneeded. You can't get them all picked, 
 and such a sudden pressure on a dull village 
 market is apt to "break it down" utterly, as 
 they say in Wall Street. 
 
 At times like these Thomas is in a great 
 flutter, and talks "preserves" to his customers 
 with such zeal that you would imagine he was 
 to have an interest in every jar. He knows 
 that those wonderful little combinations of 
 sugar and water that cluster so temptingly on 
 the vines, if not disposed of in a few hours, 
 will disappear and vanish away like the dew 
 of a summer morning, and no trace be left in 
 pocket or day-book. With strawberries I 
 never was able to crowd the market but once, 
 and that was through bad management. On 
 one day we sold ten bushels ' at the rate of 
 thirty cents per quart, and yet the call for 
 
MARKETS. 109 
 
 them was not by any means satisfied. Indeed, 
 I think the world's capacity for strawberries 
 has never been fully met ; which is to me a 
 proof that the race is not as totally depraved 
 as some imagine. Any fruit containing so 
 much of Eden could scarcely be so universally 
 relished by an utterly fallen race. Some rigid 
 divine may object to this view on the ground 
 that the majority neglect the culture of the 
 strawberry. In reply I would say that they 
 do so on the principle that while all wish to go 
 to heaven, very many seemingly are unwilling 
 to make the effort necessary to get there. I 
 may be illogical as to the race, but as to the 
 strawberry my meaning is clear. 
 
 In regard to fruit, my chief markets are the 
 hotels and boarding-houses in the vicinit}-. 
 To these I probably dispose of four-fifths of 
 my entire crop. 
 
 If, from any cause, there are a few hundred 
 
no MARKETS. 
 
 around you who have httle to do save digest, 
 it can readily be seen what a market is 
 created; Society is growing refined and wise, 
 putting upon itself many restraints ; but it 
 will digest, whether in pain or pleasure. And 
 as a watering-place is one where people come 
 to recruit, that is, eat more than ever before, 
 it is an advantageous locality for a garden. 
 
 In closing, therefore, it may be said that 
 the reader contemplating a local market, 
 should, by observation and careful inquiry, 
 learn the nature and extent of the local. de- 
 mand, and first meet this. Then, in addition, 
 he may be able to develop a request for other 
 things that he finds can be raised with 
 profit. But if these hints are not complied 
 with, the sanguine gardener may find at the 
 end of the season that he alone has been 
 sold. 
 
VIII. 
 
 EXPENSES. 
 
 This is rather an ugly chapter to look forward 
 to. If the reader would only permit me to skip 
 this, I am satisfied I could render him desper- 
 ately in love with gardening, however naturally 
 averse. California, the diamond fields, and 
 Wall Street, would lose all attractions. Men in 
 haste to be rich would only have to start a gar- 
 den, and then with a pencil figure themselves in- 
 to a fortune. If the strawberries on fi\'c-eighths 
 of an acre sold for five hundred and eight}^-ninc 
 dollars, what would the strawberries on five 
 acres — fifty acres bring ? The result, on paper, 
 almost takes away one's breath. 
 
 " Two thousand from two acres ! " cries a san- 
 
EXPENSES. 
 
 guine reader. " I have twenty acres, and may, 
 therefore, have an income of twenty thousand 
 dollars." 
 
 Figure it out on land, my friend, and tell us 
 the result. It evidently is not good for us to 
 grow rich suddenly ; there are so few honest 
 ways of doing it, and gardening certainly is not 
 one of them. It is time, perhaps, that this 
 chapter on expenses should be put in as ballast. 
 One can build chateaux en Espagne at little 
 cost over a winter fire, but he cannot put up a 
 summer tool-house without a formidable bill. 
 
 Moreover, amateur and inexperienced garden- 
 ers are proverbially extravagant, and I have 
 proved no exception. In commencing, our 
 dealings are with a shrewd, practical class, who 
 detect greenness at a glance, and often profit by 
 it. Such worthy souls, doubtless, satisfy their 
 consciences by the thought that they are selling 
 us experience at the same time. The beginner 
 
EXPENSES. 113 
 
 also knows nothing of the short cuts and sleight- 
 of-hand by which a professional often accom- 
 plishes wonders. I do not mean tricky prac- 
 tices (Nature will not put up with these), but 
 those skilful touches which a gardener's genius 
 devises ; and, let me assure you, there is as 
 much scope for genius and skill in the garden as 
 elsewhere. Many a man who can write an epic 
 cannot raise strawberries, and takinsz the average 
 of epics, I think he who can do the latter is the 
 more to be commended and honored. But as I 
 went into gardening without genius, skill, or any 
 great experience, I lifted by the main strength 
 of money a great deal more than was necessary, 
 as the following figures will show. 
 
 Moreover, I was able to bestow little over an 
 hour a day on the garden. If I had given all 
 my time and thought, I could have saved on 
 every side. 
 
 During the four years previous I had merely 
 
114 EXPENSES. 
 
 made the garden pay its way, selling enough 
 annually to refund the cost of cultivation. In 
 addition, I had an abundant supply for my own 
 family, and this I regarded as my profit. Each 
 year, if we had bought at village prices all that 
 we used, it would have cost us not far from five 
 hundred dollars. In brief, we could have af- 
 forded no such supply. But when you go to 
 market among the dewy vegetable beds and 
 vines of your own garden, you return with your 
 basket full. 
 
 But in '71, after a larger expenditure than 
 will ever be required again on the same ground, 
 there was a very nice margin in cash, as well as 
 a prodigal supply of the home-market. 
 
 The first item of expense to which I will direct 
 attention is that for fertilizers. There is not the 
 shadow of a chance for success unless the ground 
 is thoroughly enriched and kept so. Here is 
 where the majority fail, A man might almost 
 
EXPENSES. 115 
 
 as well draw a check on a bank in which he has 
 made no deposit, as to plant seed and fruit in 
 poor ground. Yet multitudes are doing the lat- 
 ter every year and growling over the result. 
 Nature is very independent, and keeps on the 
 even tenor of her way with a sublime indifference 
 to those who disregard her laws. It should be 
 remembered also that land in very fair condi- 
 tion for farm-crops is in no state for a garden. 
 The soil must be deepened and thoroughly 
 warmed and mellowed by manure. During the 
 first year that my garden reached its present lim- 
 its, I expended not far from four hundred dol- 
 lars, in this way; and in '71 I laid out sixty- 
 eight dollars and fifty cents in maintaining the 
 necessary degree of fertility. This was not at 
 all extravagant, for Mr. Henderson (certainly an 
 indisputable authority on such subjects) states 
 that the market-gardens around New York re- 
 quire from fifty to one hundred tons of barn- 
 
Il6 EXPENSES. 
 
 yard manure annually ; or if concentrated fertil- 
 izers, such as bone-dust, guano, etc., are used, 
 they should be harrowed in at the rate of twelve 
 hundred to two thousand pounds to the acre. 
 But while this is true of land from which two or 
 three crops of vegetables are taken during the 
 season, it is also true that many kinds of fruit 
 would not bear such high stimulating. It seems 
 to me that my Clark and Philadelphia raspberry 
 and the blackberry vines would grow like "Jack's 
 bean " under such treatment. As it is, they are 
 prone to make too large a growth. But Ant- 
 werps, strawberries, and most vegetables require 
 high feeding, and every year the cost of enrich- 
 ing the ground must be considerable. In our 
 vicinity also we have to pay a good round sum 
 for manure — the prices varying from two dollars 
 to two and a half per load, and I have paid as 
 high as three dollars. For loads I must take 
 what is brought, and they have varied in weight 
 
EXPENSES. 117 
 
 from five hundred to two thousand pounds. 
 At first not a few of strawy stufl!" were dehv- 
 ered which, when well decayed, the neighbors 
 said might make a wheelbarrow full of manure. 
 But we have learned wisdom, and such loads are 
 now taken to some other market. Thomas keeps 
 a sharp eye out and often pounces down on a 
 quantity that has good solid weight and sub- 
 stance. 
 
 I would advise the reader to economize in 
 every possible way, but not to carry it too far 
 in the enriching of his ground. If he keeps do- 
 mestic animals, and will gather a large quantity 
 of leaves every fall, mingling with these the ref- 
 use of the house, he can soon have what is 
 justly termed the "farmer's bank" at home. 
 No gardener can prosper whose crops grow 
 w^eak and spindling from poverty of soil. 
 
 My next, and by far the largest item of ex- 
 pense, was for labor. I now see that it was 
 
Il8 EXPENSES. 
 
 much too large. Last year I reduced it consid- 
 erably, and hope to lessen it still more the coming 
 season. This expense has been nearly doubled 
 from the fact that I could not use the plough in 
 my garden, and that my entire two acres and a 
 quarter had to be dug over and cultivated by 
 hand. During the present season I mean to in- 
 troduce the plough wherever possible. Here- 
 tofore, not having a horse, and often being unable 
 to obtain one suitable, I resolved to be indepen- 
 dent and put on a force that could do everything 
 with the fork and hoe. Moreover, in the grad- 
 ual growth of my garden, and under the pecu- 
 liar management of an amateur, things have been 
 planted crosswise and sidewise, and so mixed 
 up generally that it was hard to cultivate one 
 crop with a horse without damaging another. 
 But I have learned to realize that, apart from the 
 great saving of expense, there is nothing equal 
 to a plough for the thorough deepening and pul- 
 
EXPENSES. 119 
 
 verization of the soil. It is almost impossible 
 to dig ground full of cobble-stones, as mine is, 
 sufficiently deep, and it is wholly so to find a 
 man who will do it. But the first dry spell of 
 summer will show you the folly of shallow cul- 
 tivation. 
 
 Thomas stays with me throughout the year, 
 and his wages in '71 amounted to two hundred 
 and eighty-nine dollars and twenty-four cents. 
 It is true that I could dispense with his services 
 three months out of the year, but it would be 
 very poor policy to lose a good gardener to 
 make this small saving. Charlie, who kept the 
 books, looked after the sales, picking of fruit, 
 etc., was with me that season five months and a 
 half, and he was paid one hundred and forty- 
 eight dollars and fifty cents. I also engaged a 
 general assistant at one dollar and fifty cents per 
 day, and one hundred and fifty-four dollars and 
 forty-five cents sum up his receipts. In addi- 
 
I20 EXPENSES. 
 
 tion, extra labor was employed to the amount of 
 one hundred and eighty-two dollars and sixty- 
 seven cents during the summer. In the berry 
 season boys picked the fruit at one and one-half 
 cents per quart, and thirty-four dollars and seven 
 cents was the total of their earnings. I also 
 paid ten dollars and thirty-nine cents for the use 
 of a team, and seven dollars and twenty-five 
 cents in an attempt to water my strawberry-beds 
 on a large scale during a very serious drought 
 in May. I am not sure but I did as much harm 
 as good, but of this more anon. I estimate the 
 board of help at three hundred and seventeen 
 dollars and fifty cents, and thus the total of my 
 labor bill amounts to one thousand one hun- 
 dred and thirty-eight dollars and seven cents. 
 
 Now I am satisfied that if I could have given 
 more time and thought to the garden, and if its 
 heavier labors could have been performed with 
 a plough, at least four hundred dollars could 
 
EXPENSES. 
 
 have been saved from this amount. I would 
 also add that the bulk of this labor was expended 
 on the vegetables that with me make nothing like 
 so large a return as fruit. Even where the latter 
 is cultivated by hand only, it does not seem with 
 me to require anything like the labor of a vege- 
 table garden. The strawberries are the most ex- 
 acting, but if they were kept rigidly in rows 
 they could be managed with comparatively small 
 outlay, and raspberries so shade the ground that 
 weeds have but little chance. Every kind of 
 fruit can be so planted that a plough running be- 
 tween them will leave little for hand work, and 
 therefore my labor bill is not so discouraging as 
 at first it might seem. 
 
 I write with the expectation that the majority 
 will greatly improve on my experience. Many 
 may not have as good a market as I have had, 
 but by more economical cultivation they can se- 
 cure as favorable a margin of profit. 
 
EXPENSES. 
 
 Then my seed bill was no bagatelle. I have 
 a weakness for seeds, and every year buy many 
 more than are needful. They are such sugges- 
 tive things, so full of promise, but, also, like 
 many things in this world, so often bringing dis- 
 appointment. You sometimes find yourself like 
 certain moral reformers who are apparently sow- 
 ing considerable good seed, which comes up 
 only as weeds ; or like some short-sighted phi- 
 losophers who scatter theories that produce a 
 very different crop from what they expected. 
 When you plant a thought or a seed you can- 
 not be perfectly sure what it will develop into. 
 But after dealing with R. H. Allen & Co., New 
 York, for about nine years, I find that the pros- 
 pect of vegetable heretics is very small, and that 
 they never try to improve their seed on the 
 principle of old wine. And when I receive one 
 of Mr. Vick's dainty packages of flower-seeds, 
 I have not so much faith and hope as knowledge 
 
EXPENSES. 123 
 
 of the results. This being true, how can one 
 look over their tempting catalogues and deny 
 himself the innumerable good dinners suggested, 
 or forbear the chance of robbing life of its mon- 
 otony by surrounding one's path by all the colors 
 of the rainbow. Mr. Vick can insure that every 
 breeze through your open windows shall be like 
 the " gales of Araby the blest." 
 
 Going into a seed store is like a ramble 
 through Dodd & Mead's, Randolph's, or Scrib- 
 ner's. The books you take up are so sugges- 
 tive of good things and good times. You know 
 you cannot read them all, but you look around 
 as the gourmand gloats over a sumptuous feast, 
 devouring with his eyes that which he sighingly 
 acknowledges as far too much for his capacity. 
 So the sample boxes and bins of seeds have for 
 the amateur gardener a strange fascination. He 
 stands over and daintily fingers them ; compares 
 one variety with another, wondering at the end- 
 
124 EXPENSES. 
 
 less differences. Then comes the temptation to 
 let Nature develop the diversity still more clearly 
 in a little serial story, of which every spring and 
 summer morning will give you a new chapter. 
 Invite your customers to your stores, and they 
 will double their orders ! 
 
 But this does not pay in the market-garden, 
 when you are seeking to raise what will yield 
 and sell the best ; and the practical man behind 
 the counter, knowing your purpose, will say 
 significantly, " That is what you want," point- 
 ing to some standard variety not half so expen- 
 sive or promising as others that may have taken 
 your eye. It is a good deal with seeds as peo- 
 ple, the most showy and taking at first sight are 
 not the best. In both cases the most showy 
 are the most costly. But I never could resist 
 the " novelties," though some of them turned 
 out to be old acquaintances dressed up in new 
 names, and more of them prove like many of 
 
EXPENSES. 125 
 
 the distingue people one meets at a watering- 
 place who will not bear investigation. Still I 
 expect I shall go on buying costly novelties to 
 the end of life. There is an innate passion for 
 speculation in human nature, and this is perhaps 
 so mild a form of its indulgence as to be permis- 
 sible to a minister. 
 
 Then it is well to sow seed thickly, as it 
 must run a gauntlet of late frosts, drought, cold 
 rains, and bugs innumerable, and it is much 
 more profitable to thin out than plant over 
 again. My seed bill was fifty-one dollars and 
 thirty-five cents, but I am satisfied that thirty 
 dollars would have bought all necessary. 
 
 For tools thirty-seven dollars and ninety-five 
 cents were expended, but three-fourths of this 
 sum went for a large water-barrel on wheels, 
 which saves the labor of carrying it by hand to 
 the hot-beds and cold frames. Three dollars 
 was expended for glass, and seventeen dollars 
 
126 EXPENSES. 
 
 and fifty cents for one thousand raspberry stakes, 
 and forty-one dollars and twenty-one cents for 
 crates and berry-baskets. My flowers cost me 
 eight dollars and ninety-five cents, and this was 
 the" best investment made, though the returns 
 do not appear on the cash account. Miscella- 
 neous items amount to fifteen dollars and six 
 cents, and I paid one hundred dollars rent for 
 the land. Summing up all these items of ex- 
 pense, we have a total of one thousand four 
 hundred and eighty-one dollars and fifty-nine 
 cents. 
 
 I also allowed the village merchants fifteen 
 per cent, on the retail price when they sold for 
 me on commission, and this was not always de- 
 ducted when the sales were entered on the day- 
 book. Some losses occurred, also, through 
 articles becoming stale and unsalable, and by 
 arrangement, were charged to me in settlement. 
 These, with the commission, I have liberally 
 
EXPENSES. 127 
 
 estimated at seventy-six dollars and thirty cents, 
 which, added to the above amount, makes the 
 entire expense of the season one thousand five 
 hundred and fifty-seven dollars and eighty-nine 
 cents, leaving four hundred and fifty-three dol- 
 lars and eighty cents as a margin of profit. 
 
 In addition, there was a most abundant home 
 supply of all the good things of the garden 
 throughout the year, and in view of this I sum 
 up my profits for '71 at one thousand dollars. 
 
IX. 
 
 GROUND FOR A GARDEN — WHAT KIND 
 SHALL I TAKE. 
 
 We would say in general, the best you can 
 get, adding, any that you can get rather than 
 not have a garden at all. Plants like to grow 
 and Nature likes to have them. The most 
 unpromising spots have been made quite Eden- 
 like, and there is a principle in our nature 
 that leads us to enjoy conquering and subdu- 
 ing. The civilized state of our society pre- 
 vents our doing this on the Caesar and Alex- 
 ander plan, and that phase which modern 
 belles often push to such extremes, is scarcely 
 a manly recreation. But the subduing of a 
 wild stony piece of land still affords true scope 
 
GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 1 29 
 
 for masculine energy, and surely there is a 
 keen satisfaction in taking a rough field, a 
 tangled thorny thicket, a jumble of rocks and 
 stumps, and by the dint of honest toil, like a 
 hard-fought battle, changing all into smooth, 
 yielding fertility. 
 
 I fear most of my readers are saying that 
 it would be a greater satisfaction to find such a 
 smooth piece of ground to begin with. Well, 
 that is not unwise, considering that the subdu- 
 ing process is a very expensive luxuiy. But 
 remember that even smooth land with an invit- 
 ing surface is not always the best. There is 
 just as much difference in the character of 
 ground as in that of people, and before enter- 
 ing into intimate relations with either, some 
 little investigation is necessary. It is said of 
 some persons that the more you do for them 
 the worse they treat you. There is the same 
 
 grain of truth in this remark when applied to 
 9 
 
130 GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 
 
 certain kinds of land. There are soils justly 
 termed "hungry, ungrateful." It is next to 
 impossible to make them rich, still more so to 
 keep them fertile. Manure goes through them 
 like a sieve, or money through a spendthrift's 
 hands. Enrich it as you please one season, 
 you get little advantage from the outlay the 
 following. That which should have given you 
 fatness year after year, has vanished, washed 
 down by the rains out of sight. It may 
 benefit land in China, but has little effect here. 
 And yet this sandy, gravelly ground, with a 
 leachy subsoil, is very abundant on our Atlan- 
 tic coast, and in many districts we can find no 
 other. It must be dealt with after its own char- 
 acter. We would advise the reader to shun 
 such land if possible, but if the fates decree 
 that he should cultivate land with a little more 
 of the curse on it than some other, the 
 following hints may be of use. If the soil is 
 
GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 13I 
 
 not utterly porous and leacliy, it may be some- 
 what permanently improved by the ploughing 
 in of green crops, as clover or buckwheat. 
 If clay can be obtained at no great distance, 
 and at moderate cost, it might pay well on a 
 small scale to topdress the garden thoroughly 
 and often, with this, thus giving the soil a greater 
 consistency and retaining power. Mr. Thomas 
 Skene, the accomplished gardener on Gov. 
 Fish's estate, which is just across the river from 
 us, described to me a very successful experi- 
 ment in the use of clay. In the grounds under 
 his care, there was a steep hill-side facing 
 the south-east. It was so dry, leachy, and 
 barren, that nothing would grow, and it was 
 impossible to keep a pretty green sod on the 
 place. The loose sand and gravel would not 
 retain manure long enough for any real benefit. 
 Mr. Skene remedied the evil in the following 
 simple way : Commencing at the bottom of 
 
GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 
 
 the hill, he had his men cut a trench two feet 
 deep, and in this he put in about six inches of 
 clay. Then a strip of soil on the upper side of 
 this trench was thrown into it, thus leaving 
 another trench, side by side, and of the same 
 depth of the first ; and clay was put in this 
 also. Thus the whole hill-side was regularly 
 trenched over, and an artificial clay subsoil 
 that would hold water and prevent manure 
 from leaching away, put under the dry bar- 
 ren place. The result was most favorable ; 
 the grass no longer dies out, but remains 
 green and growing throughout the summer. 
 But in the main such land is dealt with as we 
 do with the shiftless poor, giving a little at a 
 time, and making it go as far as possible. In 
 the first place, the manures used should contain 
 much vegetable matter, and not be light and 
 heating in their character. That from the cow 
 stable is specially valuable. Decayed leaves, 
 
GROUND FOR A GARDEN. I 33 
 
 sods, and muck sweetened and pulverized by 
 the action of frost, are all excellent. Horse 
 manure mixed with these ingredients is far bet- 
 ter than if used alone. In either case, the fer- 
 tilizer should be thoroughly rotted, so that the 
 plants can use it at once. This result can be se- 
 cured by preparing the manure one year for the 
 next. The heap should be cut down and turned 
 two or three times during the season, and if the 
 pile consists only of stable manure, much oftener 
 to prevent its heating and burning, and if pos- 
 sible, the process should be carried forward 
 under shelter from the sun and rain. Thus the 
 mass becomes well decayed, pulverized, and with 
 no heating properties, and so can be directly 
 applied in the hill or row with the seed or 
 around the plant. In this way you outgeneral 
 the leachy soil, for the manure concentrated 
 immediately around the plant so stimulates it 
 that its growth is made, and the crop secured 
 
134 GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 
 
 before the spring and summer rains can wash 
 the fertilizers away. 
 
 Such land is also greatly improved by mulch- 
 ing, that is, by a covering of coarse litter, 
 leaves, etc. This keeps the surface moist, 
 shields from the special enemy of such a soil, 
 drouth, and by its gradual decay keeps up 
 a certain degree of fertility. Even when 
 using manure broadcast on such land, I have 
 found it better to apply it to the surface, for 
 then it takes longer to wash through out of sight 
 and use. 
 
 Ground of this character has one great 
 advantage — it is usually quicker, earlier than 
 any other, which is, for a market garden, a 
 most important consideration. The moment 
 the frost is out you can work it, put in your 
 seed, and no amount of wet weather can pre- 
 vent the cultivation of the crops. While some 
 neighbor may be looking helplessly at his wet 
 
GROUND FOR A GARDEN. I35 
 
 clay or heavy loam, you are driving spring 
 operations with Napoleonic energy. But if 
 there comes a drouth in June or July, your 
 crops may be standing still or going back, 
 while your neighbor's are growing luxuriantly. 
 Still, the probabilities are, that you will 
 always be earliest in the market, and can 
 chuckle over the first green peas of the 
 season, though your crops will not be so heavy 
 as those on your neighbor's slower but surer 
 ground. 
 
 The next soil of which I shall speak is just 
 the opposite in character, and not much if at 
 all better — a heavy, adhesive clay, and a sub- 
 soil that will hold water like india rubber. 
 What shall we do with this ? Let it alone if 
 you can find any better. But if here again fate 
 is against you, and such ground must be cul- 
 tivated or none at all, then here, also, skill 
 and industry can wring from reluctant Nature 
 
136 GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 
 
 a fair return. This sour, cold, unyielding soil, 
 like a churlish disposition, can be greatly im- 
 proved by kindly treatment. It wants mellow- 
 ing up as so many people do. Though in both 
 cases we like to go into the improving business 
 where it can be done readily, and effort goes 
 a good ways ; still, when driven to it by con- 
 science or necessity, we find much improve- 
 ment possible, even under the most adverse 
 circumstances. 
 
 In no instance is the old adage more clearly 
 verified, "Too much of a good' thing," etc., 
 as with the soil in question. Water, moisture, 
 is the prime necessity of the garden, but this 
 kind of land retains it to such a degree that 
 there is always too much on hand. In the 
 heat of summer the ground is like a sun-dried 
 brick, while its roots are mouldering in a 
 sour, soggy soil. The first step is to drain 
 off the evil. Too much water in land is like 
 
GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 137 
 
 selfishness in character. There is no chance for 
 real improvement till selfishness is reduced to a 
 judicial regard for self-interest ; and the land 
 that persists in holding water, instead of giving 
 it to the air above and springs below, is past 
 praying for. Draining is a prime necessity, 
 and the owner must set about it at once, unless 
 he would have his garden a scene of disappoint- 
 ment and almost wasted labor. If there are 
 stones on the land, in no better way can he 
 dispose of them than in the formation of drains. 
 If the garden so slopes that one drain, five or six 
 feet deep, can be cut through near the centre, 
 all the better. If the soil is very stiff and wet, 
 then side drains, fifteen feet apart, and three 
 and a half feet deep, should be dug, leading 
 into the main ditch ; but if the subsoil is so 
 porous as to give the water some chance to get 
 through, then these laterals can be cut twenty- 
 five feet apart. The nearness and number of 
 
138 GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 
 
 drains Is a question of judgment that must be 
 decided on the ground ; and if the owner has 
 had no experience, it would be wise to call in 
 a few neighbors. Strike an average between 
 their advice, and you will probably hit on 
 the right course. Or, what would be still 
 more to the point, if you could find one prac- 
 tical man, who has, successfully and econom- 
 ically done the work, you had better follow his 
 example. 
 
 If there are cobble-stones on your land, then 
 the common rubber drain will answer. Throw 
 them into the main ditch to the depth of two 
 feet, and the depth of eighteen inches in the 
 three-and-a-half feet side drains. If the stones 
 are flat, they can be carefully laid on each other 
 in the bottom of the ditches in such a manner 
 that the water will flow readily through. In 
 each case the tops of the stones must be thor- 
 oughly covered with shavings, straw, or sod 
 
GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 1 39 
 
 with the grass side down, to prevent the soil 
 from washing in and filhng up the space 
 through which the water is to flow. 
 
 Tile undoubtedly make the best drains, and 
 are probably cheapest in the long run, even 
 where stone can be had. But we naturally 
 shrink from first cost ; and where stone is plenty, 
 its use has the additional advantage of clearing 
 the soil. In many places, however, tile must be 
 employed, and it does the business thoroughly. 
 Mr. Henderson prefers the ordinary horse-shoe 
 tile, and he is a safe man to follow. A good 
 descent must always be provided for, so that 
 the water can flow off" rapidly, and the joints 
 of the tile must be covered with sods, the grass 
 side down, or with some other material that will 
 prevent the soil from washing through the 
 slight openings. 
 
 Cheap drains can also be made by treading 
 in brush to the depth of two feet and covering 
 
' T40 GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 
 
 as before described. These will remain effective 
 for ten or twelve years, and can be constructed 
 on leased land where the lessee is unwilling to 
 go to great expense. It would be better though 
 to make some arrangement with the landlord, 
 by which both could share the cost of thorough 
 and lasting work. 
 
 But let no one say, because my land is leased, 
 or because I only bought to sell again in a few 
 years, it will not pay me to incur the expense of 
 drainage. My best argument on this point will 
 be to relate an incident told by Mr. Henderson 
 in his most excellent work, " Gardening for 
 Profit." He says : 
 
 " Every operator in the soil concedes the im- 
 portance of drainage, yet it is really astonishing 
 to observe how men will work wet lands year 
 after year, wasting annually, by loss of crops, 
 twice the amount required to thoroughly drain. 
 A most industrious German in this vicinity cul- 
 
GROUND FOR A GARDEN-. 14 1 
 
 tivated about eight acres for three years, barely- 
 making a hving ; his soil was an excellent loam, 
 but two-thirds of it was so ' spongy ' that he 
 could never get it ploughed till all the neighbors 
 had their crops planted. Driving past one day 
 I hailed him,, asking him why he was so late in 
 getting in his crop, when he explained that if 
 he had begun sooner his horses would have 
 'bogged' so, he might never have got them 
 out again. I suggested draining, but he re- 
 plied, that would not pay on a leased place ; 
 he had started on a leased place which 
 had only seven years more to run, and that he 
 would only be improving it for his landlord, who 
 would allow him nothing for such improvement. 
 After some further conversation, I asked him to 
 jump into my wagon, and in ten minutes we 
 alighted at a market-garden that had six years 
 before been just such a swamp hole as his own, 
 but now (the middle of May) was luxuriant 
 
142 GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 
 
 with vegetation. I explained to him what its 
 former condition had been, and that the invest- 
 ing of five hundred dollars in drain tiles would, 
 in twelve months, put his in the same condi- 
 tion. He, being a shrewd man, acted on the 
 advice, and at the termination of his lease, 
 purchased and paid for his eight acres twelve 
 thousand dollars, the savings of six years on 
 his drained garden. I honestly believe, that, 
 had he gone on without draining, he would not 
 have made twelve thousand dollars in twelve 
 years, far less twelve thousand dollars in six 
 years. My friend attributes his whole success 
 in life to our accidental meeting and conver- 
 sation that May morning, and consequently I 
 have no stancher friend on earth than he." 
 
 Thus it will be seen that soils naturally the 
 most favorable for gardening purposes, are often 
 so wet as to make draining indispensable. 
 Where this is the case let the cultivator realize 
 
GROUND FOR A GARDEN. I 43 
 
 it at once, and waste no time in fighting against 
 Nature. When a loamy piece of land or a muck 
 swamp can be drained, they make the finest gar- 
 den land existing, and the happy, enterprising 
 owner can be congratulated upon almost certain 
 success ; .for thorough drainage on one hand 
 avoids the danger of excessive moisture, and 
 the nature of his soil, on the other, enables him 
 to defy drouth. 
 
 But if the reader possesses or purchases a 
 loamy soil, that is, a natural mixture of sand 
 and clay, in such proportions that it turns up 
 mellow and friable instead of being sticky and 
 full of stumps, and this is underlaid by a yellow 
 loam subsoil which permits a natural drainage, 
 he may rest satisfied, and commence operations 
 with the first conditions of success in his favor. 
 For here is land of such consistency and com- 
 pactness that it can be thoroughly and per- 
 manently enriched. It is what is termed a 
 
144 GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 
 
 "grateful soil." You can bring it up to any 
 degree of fertility, for such portion of the manure 
 dug or ploughed in this year, that is not exhaust- 
 ed by the growth of crops, remains in the soil 
 for use the following season. 
 
 Such land is like a good investment that 
 yields its interest every year, and at the same 
 time is growing more valuable. Only by over- 
 cropping and weed-growing, and by under- 
 feeding can such land be impoverished. Yet 
 you will often find ground of this character 
 utterly run out, poor as the spendthrift sandy 
 soils first described, and this because there are 
 so many people, who, in accordance with the 
 old adage, will " ride a willing horse to death." 
 But even wheji so reduced, I would take such a 
 soil in preference to any other, in view of its 
 grateful character, its saving qualities, so to 
 speak, and its readiness to make liberal return 
 for liberal treatment. 
 
GROUND FOR A GARDEN. I 45 
 
 I have also observed that a soil resting on a 
 substratum of slate was peculiarly well adapted 
 to the growth of fruit. 
 
 Ordinary clay soils, with good drainage, can be 
 
 wonderfully and rapidly improved by the use of 
 
 light stimulating manure, such as the horse 
 
 stable furnishes, and so treated, are second to 
 
 none in their yield. 
 10 
 
X. 
 
 WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 
 
 " Why, in the spring, of course." 
 I beg to differ with you, my reader, fair or 
 otherwise. The autumn is the true practical 
 spring in which the gardener should commence 
 o'perations with the best hopes of success. 
 This may seem paradoxical and contrary to 
 Nature, and save to the comparatively few who 
 have learned by experience, it is at variance 
 with practice. But it is not contrary to Nature, 
 for in the cool dewy nights, and the rains of 
 late August and early September, we have 
 again weather suitable for the stirring of the 
 ground and the sowing and growth of seeds. 
 
WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. I47 
 
 Much of the garden can again be profitably 
 planted, as we hope to show. 
 
 When autumn winds first commence sighing 
 regretfully over the summer season fast depart- 
 ing, and the coming of sere winter, there is a 
 great falling off of interest in the garden on the 
 part of the majority. The spring, with its 
 excitement of hope and promise, the summer, 
 with its satiety of full return, or its disappoint- 
 ment at failure, are nearly past, and the mind is 
 turning to other pursuits and novelties. The 
 garden is neglected, and mainly because it 
 seems to require little attention, and to promise 
 little more for the year. The hardy fruits and 
 vegetables have got so far along that they will 
 mature any way, and not a few who were 
 enthusiastic in April, are now, as far as the 
 garden is concerned, like much in it, on the 
 decline. The number of amateurs who are like 
 what the Bible calls stony-ground hearers, is 
 
148 WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN, 
 
 marvellously large. During hot July their 
 interest dries up, exhales, and their gardens go 
 to the bad. 
 
 There is also this somewhat mean tendency in 
 human nature, that when we have got about all 
 out of a person or thing that can be hoped for 
 at present, or when persons are so committed, 
 like a crop nearly matured, that they will give 
 what is expected any way, we are apt to flag in 
 our attentions. Here is where the short-sighted 
 fail, for neither persons nor gardens will continue 
 to commit themselves in our favor under such 
 treatment. I have lost bushels of berries, not 
 in June, the strawberry month, but in August 
 and September, when the beds should have 
 been made and cared for. I have lost hundreds 
 of dollars, not in April and May, but in the 
 autumn, when the seeds of spring crops should 
 have been sown, and in the winter, when they 
 should have been properly protected. 
 
WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 149 
 
 So, then, instead of waiting for spring to com- 
 mence the campaign of the year, autumn is the 
 time of all others for the provident gardener to 
 enter upon the activities that secure success. 
 Therefore, the value of gardening as a source of 
 recreation or profit, for only about three months 
 of the year are you compelled to comparative 
 idleness. 
 
 Because in the strawberry-beds there is noth- 
 ing but leaves, and among the raspberries only 
 thorns seem to be left, do not neglect them. If 
 you are to have a crop another year, now is the 
 time for action. It is true the melons are on 
 the wane, the cucumbers yellow and dying, the 
 peas like their brush, and the succulent bush- 
 beans going to seed ; but is that a reason for 
 giving over these spaces to the dominion of 
 weeds, and leaving them unsightly blemishes 
 upon the garden ? God had a right to curse the 
 ground, but I doubt whether we have. And 
 
150 WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 
 
 yet I can assure the reader that one thriftless 
 gardener or amateur, whose enthusiasm July has 
 withered, can do more cursing or weed-seeding 
 than half a generation can eradicate. My con- 
 science troubles me not a little in this respect. 
 Apart from the profit there should be principle 
 in the case. Having put our hands to the 
 plough in April, we should not look back in 
 August, because many of our crops are gathered 
 and the thing is becoming an old story. 
 
 But having more faith in the profit argument 
 than any based on principle, we hasten to as- 
 sure the reader again, that if he hopes for con- 
 tinued crops and considerable cash, he must 
 make the most of autumn. 
 
 Not to be invidious, or intimate that any of 
 my readers are guilty of such shortcomings, 
 we will suppose a place bought of one of the 
 unregenerate, and the new and agriculturally 
 enlightened owner to be taking possession. 
 
WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 151 
 
 Let us go with him, take notes, and watch pro- 
 ceedings. He has wisely bought his place in 
 midsummer, for then in the matured growth of 
 everything he can judge better of the strength 
 and nature of the soil. If there is fruit on the 
 place, he can best learn its character, value, and 
 needs. 
 
 As we pass with him from the desert high- 
 road into his promised land, fruitful in great 
 hopes and expectation if nothing else, we ob- 
 serve that many fruit-trees need pruning, and 
 others heading back on account of too rapid 
 growth. Some have been planted closely and 
 are crowding each other ; others are suffering 
 from the shade of apparently worthless trees 
 that have grown up around them. On grafted 
 fruit, sprouts and boughs have started below 
 the graft, and are taking all the strength of the 
 root, leaving the good variety to dwindle. For 
 it must be remembered that natural and com- 
 
152 WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN, 
 
 paratively worthless fruit grown from the seed, 
 is like the natural man. The wild nature is 
 very apt to get the best of the most approved 
 foreign importation. Thus in the matter of 
 fruit-trees alone there is much to be done before 
 winter, and there is no time for such labors in 
 the rush of spring work 
 
 As we pass on, we observe that weeds and 
 bushes, not content with long possession of the 
 fences, are ever encroaching on the open 
 ground. Around the house the hardy peren- 
 nials and annual bulbs are nearly all past their 
 prime, and withering stalks and sprawling 
 bushes take the place of their early bloom. It 
 is indeed now too late to do much toward en- 
 livening this melancholy domain of flowers 
 with bright and varied annuals or perpetual 
 blooming bedding plants, but it is just the time 
 to see their need, and to commence preparing 
 for its supply another year. At once there 
 
WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 1 53 
 
 is much need . for pruning-knife, stake, and 
 twine, that neatness at least may gratify the 
 eye. 
 
 But we pass on to the garden. There is 
 scope for any amount of energy in remedying 
 the past and providing for the future. 
 
 The raspberries and blackberries are done 
 bearing, but the producing vines are left, draw- 
 ing their useless life from the strength of the 
 plants, and taking from the growth of the new 
 wood that must produce the following year. 
 Leaving these old vines after they have done 
 bearing, is like tying a horse after a journey, 
 on the side of a hill, where he must stand pull- 
 ing to no purpose. They will be cut out at 
 once, and not burned, but carried to the com- 
 post heap, where, covered with weeds and rub- 
 bish they will decay, so that they can be used 
 the following season. Rotted, they will be 
 worth more than their ashes, and the successful 
 
154 WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 
 
 gardener is ever looking keenly after fertilizers. 
 The sprawling Black-cap varieties are tied up 
 so that the wood may ripen before winter, and 
 if new plants are wanted, the tips of the vines 
 are slightly covered. 
 
 The strawberry-bed is weedy and matted ; 
 indeed, all run together. Yet it is worth 
 saving. It is but two years old, and another 
 crop may be had from it. So spaces eighteen 
 inches wide are cut through it, and v/eeds and 
 plants turned deeply under. By this process, 
 rows a foot in width are left between the spaces, 
 and these must be weeded by hand. Or, if 
 the bed is sufficiently extended, the same pro- 
 cess can be performed by a plough, a space of 
 three feet being turned under, and another of 
 plants eighteen inches wide left for fruiting. 
 If the bed has become very full of grass or white 
 clover, it will be turned under at once, and a 
 new one set out elsewhere. 
 
WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 155 
 
 There is a space that was planted in early- 
 peas. The vines are still sprawling about or 
 clinging to the old bush. Unless the latter are 
 of cedar, or of some good hard wood, the whole 
 rubbish is swept away to the compost heap . The 
 ground is then clear and can be prepared for 
 a fall or spring crop. If July has not passed, and 
 good strong celery plants can be had, these may 
 be set out at once. If it is about the lOth of 
 August, the early yellow-stone or strap-leaved 
 turnips can still be sown. But we will even 
 suppose August on the wane, and that our new 
 and eager purchaser can do little more with his 
 ground that can make any return this year. 
 
 Still, having read some better book than this, 
 or having had his eyes opened by experience, 
 his own or that of some one else, he does not 
 dream of waiting till the following spring, but 
 with hearty vigor, commences at once. 
 
 Those old withering cucumber-vines are swept 
 
156 WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 
 
 away, and the flourishing weeds with them. It 
 the ground is rich, sloping, with excellent drain- 
 age, he can sow onion seed there immediately, 
 and market the crop in April following. The 
 early potatoes are dug, or can be, and thus there 
 is a place to set out a new strawberry-bed. The 
 sweet corn will be out of the way this month. 
 He will not leave the earless stalks to wither, 
 and dry up where they stand. Here and there 
 one may be left with an exceedingly fine ear for 
 seed. But with the rest, as fast as the ears are 
 used, the stalks will go to the cows, or if he has 
 none, they will be buried in their green succulent 
 state, under the compost heap. Well buried 
 too ; or else, even though half the garden Avere 
 planted in mignonette, the decaying corn, so 
 sweet and wholesome in life, will now render 
 the region anything but savory. The land thus 
 cleared will no doubt be sown with spinach. 
 Then there is ground where early cabbage and 
 
WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 157 
 
 cauliflower were grown. The onions are dry- 
 enough to gather, the bush-beans are past their 
 prime, and if not desired for use in their dry 
 state, they also can be swept away. The late 
 and refuse pods that are left after the vines have 
 been picked over many times do not contain 
 seed fit for planting. 
 
 Thus here and there through the garden spaces 
 can be cleared which may be sown with spinach, 
 dwarf German greens, or " sprouts," or set out 
 with small refuse onions that will be fit for mar- 
 ket in their green state, in April and May follow- 
 ing. In early September lettuce can be sown 
 and wintered over as will hereafter be explained. 
 This last-named vegetable, properly managed, 
 can be made very profitable, if partially grown 
 in the fall. The same is true of cabbage and 
 cauliflower plants kept over through the winter 
 for early planting. No amount of effort and ex- 
 pense with hot-beds in February and March can 
 
158 WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN, 
 
 secure plants that will mature as early for mai^ket 
 as those preserved from the preceding season in 
 cold frames. 
 
 Thus we have seen the new and enlightened 
 possessor of a neglected place go to work in the 
 autumn as zealously as do the majority in spring, 
 and when spring comes he is two or three 
 months in advance of his neighbors. While 
 they are breaking up and planting their ground 
 at great expense, and are compelled to wait till 
 midsummer for returns, he is selling crops win- 
 tered over, thus meeting the heavy drafts upon 
 his purse entailed by the extra work and outlay 
 of the opening season. 
 
 When the dying leaves begin to fall in Octo- 
 ber, my garden is almost as green with growing 
 crops as in the following May, and usually I have 
 been able to winter them over without great 
 difficulty. Thus, instead of waiting till June and 
 July before receiving anything from my ground, 
 
WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 1 59 
 
 my sales on the last day of April amounted to 
 one hundred and seventeen dollars, and on the 
 last of May to two hundred and eighty dollars. 
 The heavy and unusual expenses of spring were 
 therefore partially met in the spring. 
 
 It is true that farther to the north and on cold, 
 wet soils the difficulty of wintering over crops 
 would be much greater ; but it is also true that 
 in light soils and sheltered locations farther 
 south, the facility of so doing would be much 
 greater than in our latitude. So much in favor 
 of an autumn rather than a spring commence- 
 ment of a garden already in a fair state of culti- 
 vation. 
 
 But if the reader has taken a new piece of 
 ground that must be broken in for the first time, 
 the argument for this course is doubly strong. 
 If he waits till spring he almost loses a year. If 
 there are stones, rocks, bushes, or stumps upon 
 it, he cannot clear it up in spring sui^ficicnily 
 
l6o WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 
 
 early to raise much that season, but in the long 
 autumn months he can work marvellous changes. 
 Even if we have nothing more to contend with 
 than a stiff sod on the land, great advantages are 
 secured by breaking it up in autumn. If this is 
 done in August, it will rot sufficiently by Novem- 
 ber to permit deep cross ploughing. The de- 
 cay of the sod can be greatly hastened by giving 
 it a coating of stable manure before it is turned 
 under, and at the same time it will go far toward 
 giving the land the necessary degree of fertility. 
 For it must be remembered that no field, how- 
 ever good its condition for farm crops, is rich 
 enough for the exactions of garden, nor can one 
 year's culture, nor the highest degree of fertiliz- 
 ing bring it into a proper state. Under the best 
 management it requires time. But we gain al- 
 most a year if we commence in autumn. In the 
 first place the heavy coat of manure upon the 
 sod assists greatly in its decay. By the edge of 
 
WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. l6l 
 
 winter both are ready to crumble into soil and 
 the ground can be thoroughly and deeply cross- 
 ploughed. This gives the frost a chance to 
 sweeten and pulverize it. In the spring it 
 should be again well enriched, ploughed deeply, 
 and planted in early potatoes, sweet corn, peas, 
 and similar summer crops that would secure good 
 cultivation. By July and August these crops 
 are gathered and your land is clear. Again ma- 
 nure it heavily, plough deeply, very deeply with 
 a " lifting subsoil plough," and now your ground 
 can be laid out as you desire, and in one short 
 year will be in as high a state of culture and fer- 
 tility as the majority of gardens around you. 
 
 Still if you are bent on grand success, you 
 will not be half satisfied, but by most liberal 
 cultivation will secure increasingly large returns 
 as the years roll on. 
 
 By the course described, however, you can 
 
 lay out your garden in accordance with your ap- 
 11 
 
l62 WHEN TO COMMENCE A GARDEN. 
 
 proved plan in the autumn following your com- 
 mencement, and the summer crops as described 
 will go far toward paying the expenses of the 
 first year. In August and September your 
 strawberry-beds can be set, spring crops 
 planted, and in October, cold frames made, 
 raspberries, blackberries, currants, trees, and 
 grape-vines set out, and you are fairly launched. 
 
XI. 
 
 WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 Perhaps we have talked long enough on 
 general principles, suggestions at large, and had 
 now better go practically to work and produce 
 that two thousand dollars announced in the 
 opening chapter. I will commence consistently 
 with my theory, in August of '70, but will speak 
 only of such operations as brought returns the 
 following year. 
 
 Our old-fashioned one o'clock dinner is over, 
 and books now mean dyspepsia, but gardening, 
 as I practise it, is health. In the first place, I 
 repair to the ancient central apple-tree to pro- 
 vide strategy. 
 
 Manufacturing it, as did the generals of the 
 
164 WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 old school, I sit down before the problem. It 
 is not necessary that my forces should assume 
 this contemplative attitude also. They can work 
 away at those Philistines, the weeds, wherever 
 they show themselves, M^iile I develop such def- 
 inite, decisive steps as are possible to one also 
 burdened with the duty of digesting a dinner. 
 The mid-day sun is still intense, and I progress 
 with my strategy with an eye to its westward 
 decline. But as the vertical rays cease, as the 
 cool shadows creep eastward, I step forth from 
 my retirement with the air of one resolved. I 
 determine, in the first place, upon making a 
 strawberry-bed that will astonish the natives. 
 Here is a suitable piece of ground from which 
 some early crop has been taken. It is in the 
 main a sandy loam, a little too light in some 
 places but fair throughout. Having had it 
 thoroughly cleared, leaving not a sprig of white 
 clover or sorrel, for however deep you bury 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 1 65 
 
 them they are apt to work out and grow (per- 
 haps they always do, on the China side, if not 
 this), I then directed Thomas to cover it with 
 four inches of the very best manure. This was 
 an exceedingly heavy coat, far more than is 
 usually necessary, but I was bent on producing 
 some extraordinary results. My genial land- 
 lord, Mr. David, and another neighbor happen- 
 ing to pass, indulged in some pleasantries as to 
 the flavor of strawberries raised under the cir- 
 cumstances, but I knew well that Nature, with 
 ten months to work in, was too skilful an al- 
 chemist to make any such mistakes. So the 
 limited piece of ground was dug very deeply 
 and made almost as rich as a hot-bed. Then 
 commenced the gradual setting of plants, grad- 
 ual, because it was a dry time, and the sun still 
 scorchingly hot at mid-day. Therefore I directed 
 that the plants should be set out only in the even- 
 ing, a few at a time, and well watered. Aflcr- 
 
1 66 WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 wards they were shaded during the heat of the 
 day till they became well rooted and could take 
 care of themselves. This shade can be provided 
 by leaning a board over a row supporting it by 
 a couple of stakes or small stones. If appear- 
 ances are not regarded, old raspberry bushes, 
 pea-vines, anything that will shade the young 
 plants without smothering them, will answer. 
 The relief given by a little shade is wonderful, 
 and plants will grow in the hottest weather when 
 so protected. Where the variety is valuable 
 and scarce, they should always be so treated 
 when set out in a warm, dry time. 
 
 Of course, if I could have made my bed just 
 before a good shower or a night's rain, no such 
 precautions would have been needed, and the 
 plants would have grown without further care. 
 
 " Why not wait then till the shower comes ? " 
 some may ask. 
 
 When will it come ? Yet many days perhaps. 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 167 
 
 Or it may be when I am away, and I, instead of 
 my plants, will be caught in it. Or it will beat 
 its musical tattoo on the roof after you are gone 
 to bed. What can you then do about it ? More 
 than likely it will come on Sunday, and even in 
 this lax: age of Sabbath keeping, setting out a 
 strawberry-bed would hardly be esteemed an 
 act of " necessity or mercy." " He that regard- 
 eth the clouds shall not reap," nor get his straw- 
 berry-bed made in due season. The earlier you 
 can set your plants in summer or fall the better 
 your crop the following season, and I determined 
 to lose not a day in starting mine and assisting 
 Nature through the " dry-spell." At the same 
 time, if the rain comes, the provident gardener 
 will do his best to make the most of it. If he 
 intends setting out plants he will have them 
 ready, and the ground also, and then when the 
 western horizon darkens, and the mutter of dis- 
 tant thunder is heard, or when the cast wind 
 
1 68 WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 comes sighing in from the ocean, the avant 
 courier of the coming storm, he makes every 
 moment tell in the putting out of plants, know- 
 ing that the refreshing rain-drops can do more 
 for them in one hour than can be done by days 
 of shading and watering. But with us the thun- 
 der gusts seem to hide behind the mountains till 
 all prepared, and then to swoop down so sud- 
 denly that we are flying for shelter from the big 
 drops before we realized that they were com- 
 ing. Only too often they raise their black 
 heads in the west, and seem coming right down 
 upon us with such abundant promise that hope 
 and expectation are raised to the highest pitch ; 
 then suddenly, as if attracted by some blue 
 Highland in the distance, they appear to change 
 their minds, and, like the Levite in the parable, 
 "pass by on the other side." If, beguiled by 
 hopes of a shower, you have set out plants 
 largely, then watering and shading is your only 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 1 69 
 
 chance of saving them. My plan, as I have 
 said, was to set out a few plants every night and 
 take care of them, to have plants and ground 
 ready, and then if there came rain to get out 
 beforehand as many as possible. When my 
 bed was half filled it did come, and by prompt 
 action the rest of the ground was covered in 
 time to catch the precious drops. But those 
 first set out were growing vigorously in spite of 
 dry weather, and after the rain they went for- 
 w^ard with a bound, far exceeding the others. 
 
 By the first of September, therefore, my bed 
 was filled Avith strong and thrifty plants of the 
 following varieties : Two rows of the Wilson, 
 two of Durand Seedhng, one of the Russell, one 
 of the Agriculturist, two of the Triomphe de 
 Gand, and one of the Jucunda. I thought by 
 placing the celebrated varieties side by side 
 under specially favorable culture, I might learn 
 which was the best. The result with all was 
 
I70 WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 astonishing. A soldier who saw a basket of 
 them thought they were tomatoes. The Wil- 
 sons of course bore the largest number, and the 
 berries also were very large, but many of the 
 other named varieties were simply monstrous, 
 and they all seemed nearly equal in this instance 
 in vigor and productiveness, except the Jucun- 
 das, and though these bore as large berries as 
 any, the vines were rather feeble and inclined 
 to die out. For large, showy berries, few, if any, 
 surpass the Jucundas, and with high culture on 
 a heavy soil, and kept rigorously in hills, they 
 will produce fruit that will stop a man running 
 for a train, should it meet his eye. At a fash- 
 ionable Broadway fruit store, they would bring 
 almost any price asked, but they would be like 
 many of their wealthy purchasers, rather insipid 
 and hollow. As grown in my grounds their 
 flavor is not to be mentioned in the same week 
 with the Russell and Triomphe. Still they are 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 171 
 
 growing in favor, especially as a market-berry, 
 and doubtless are just the thing grown in hills 
 on heavy land. 
 
 The Durand Seedling has not done as well 
 with me as it at first promised. Its foliage has 
 seemed somewhat delicate and unable to endure 
 the hot sun, and though producing some very 
 large fruit, many of the blossoms failed, and 
 in shade the berries would " damp off" and 
 decay. But with careful hill culture on light 
 soils, I should think it might prove one of the 
 best among the large varieties. The fruit of 
 the Agriculturist also tended somewhat to 
 scalding and decay, but with open row or hill 
 culture on a light soil it does wonders. As 
 grown upon the bed described, the Russell 
 would make one of the finest varieties in exist- 
 ence, if it were only a little fiiTner. Summing 
 up the results of the experiment, it may be said 
 that the Wilsons gave the largest yield, while in 
 
172 WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 view of their firmness, size, as well as the other 
 good qualities, the Triomphes perhaps bore 
 away the palm. 
 
 But I can emphatically assure the reader that 
 the first crop upon the bed, though made with 
 so much pains and cost, more than paid all ex- 
 penses. At the close of this chapter I will also 
 describe another crop raised upon the same 
 ground at the same time. 
 
 I give the issue of this little experiment in this 
 place in order that it may stand in direct connec- 
 tion with the rather elaborate preparation, and 
 satisfy the reader that unusual outlay will often 
 secure unusual return. But my special reason 
 for so doing is to show that strawberry-beds set 
 out in autumn will give a handsome crop the 
 following season, thus saving a year to the im- 
 patient gardener, and the gain of a year even in 
 the matter of strawberries is no trifling matter 
 in our transient life. I admit that on most soils, 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 1 73 
 
 and under most circumstances, the plants are 
 more certain to grow if set out in early spring. 
 If I had to buy my vines at a distance, or was 
 about to invest in some new and costly variety, 
 I should prefer spring by all means. But if I 
 had plenty of young plants in my own garden, 
 or could obtain them of a near neighbor, I should 
 be equally in favor of summer and fall planting. 
 Vines set out in spring will produce nothing 
 worth speaking of that season, and should not 
 be permitted to bear at all, whereas by early 
 summer planting, and the extra care possible in 
 a small garden, a large crop can be had the fol- 
 lowing June. For instance, my strong plants 
 commence throwing out runners rapidly even in 
 June while fruiting. If I were anxious to ob- 
 tain new runners, and made the ground rich 
 and mellow around the producing plants, there 
 would be plenty fit for transplanting in early 
 July. As we have before described, there are 
 
174 WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 many spaces throughout the garden that were 
 occupied by early potatoes, peas, etc., which 
 can now be cleared up and set out with straw- 
 berries. Two of my finest beds for '73 were set 
 out last July. Thus, from a small bed of good 
 strong plants, runners can be taken for trans- 
 planting from 4th of July till the middle of Oc- 
 tober, and as fast as crops mature in summer 
 they can be gathered, and the land, if desired, 
 can at once be occupied with this most delicious 
 small fruit. I had in '72 a small bed, fifteen 
 feet by thirty, of a very choice kind, one indeed 
 that promises better than any I ever raised (I 
 have tried at least twenty varieties), and from 
 this limited area I obtained plants enough, with- 
 out special effort, to set out a large portion of my 
 garden before October, besides many which were 
 given away. I made my rows two feet apart, 
 and early plantings were set out two and three 
 feet from each other in the row ; but those vines 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 1:75 
 
 put out in July and August also threw out run- 
 ners, and by October filled the rows close up 
 with plants. If I had not been anxious to pro- 
 duce new vines, I would not have permitted this, 
 as the young beds would have been much 
 stronger, and in better condition for bearing, if 
 all runners had been cut from them. It is true 
 that this variety is the most vigorous grown on 
 my soil that I have ever seen. Having once 
 marked its dark-green foliage, its red stocky 
 leaf-stems and runners, you would always recog- 
 nize it afterwards even at a distance. Much of 
 its fruit was immensely large, and even the last 
 pickings from my small bed were of good size. 
 I do not know its name with certainty, but 
 think it is a new berry, known as Boydan's No. 
 30. In the spring of '70 I obtained a few plants 
 of six new varieties, and put them out in rows 
 side by side. A man weeding them carelessly 
 carried off the labels, so I was able to distin- 
 
176 WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 guish only one kind, the Kentucky Seedling. 
 In '71 they all fruited finely, but none proved 
 so satisfactory as this unknown friend who had 
 lost his name. But true worth will assert itself 
 under all circumstances, while the utmost flour- 
 ish in title will not long shield the unworthy or 
 common-place. I promoted the stranger by 
 digging up all the others save the Kentucky, 
 and giving him a chance to " spread himself," 
 which he immediately did, proving that, like the 
 successful men of the world, he only wanted half 
 a chance. In the summer of '7 1 , I set out a small 
 bed of. this variety, and in '72 obtained a won- 
 derful yield from the same. The berry is grown 
 on tall fruit stalks, but which are unable to sus- 
 tain the weight of the enormous berries. There- 
 fore they should be mulched, that is, straw, 
 leaves, or green grass cut in summer, should be 
 placed around the plants. This keeps the 
 ground around them moist, greatly enhances the 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 1 77 
 
 crop, and also prevents the fruit from lying on 
 the ground, thus becoming covered with earth 
 and grit. The berries have a long neck, making 
 the hulling process easy ; they are firm, solid, 
 with a rich crimson flush throughout. 
 
 As I have said, I was so pleased with this 
 variety, that in the summer and fall of '72 I set 
 out a large portion of my garden with it, and 
 should it turn out as well another season, one 
 need not ask a more profitable business than 
 raising them. Mr. Thomas Skene is trying this 
 variety in the greenhouse this winter, and so 
 by spring we will know its value for forcing. 
 
 As before intimated, another crop equally 
 
 fragrant, and perhaps taking the world at large 
 
 almost an equal favorite, was raised at the same 
 
 time on the strawberry-bed described above. 
 
 I refer to the aromatic onion. As soon as the 
 
 rows were filled with plants in '70, the little 
 
 black seed of the large red, and the yellow 
 13 
 
178 WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 Danvers varieties were sown between them. At 
 that warm season it was but a few days before 
 the little onions were pricking through the soil 
 thick as hair. I had ordered plenty of seed 
 sown, knowing that the plants would have to 
 run the gauntlet of the winter frosts. Indeed, 
 the whole thing was an experiment, for I never 
 knew of its being done in our latitude, and could 
 find no instruction in the books on the subject. 
 Nevertheless, the presumptuous onions grew 
 sturdily on, without the countenance of any 
 " authority " or known precedent, and in winter 
 they varied in height from six inches to one 
 foot. The same covering put over the straw- 
 berry-bed also protected them, and in spring 
 they nearly all came out as bright as if they had 
 only had a good nap, and were just wakened. 
 Then a spirit of emulation seemed to spring up 
 between them and the strawberry vines. Side 
 by side, " neck and neck," they went forward 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 1 79 
 
 together. Many laughed to see these rather 
 dissimilar products of nature growing so amica- 
 bly in company. But the strawberry, with an 
 inherent, not a borrowed nobility, " put on no 
 airs " towards its useful and humble neighbor. 
 The same warm winter covering sheltered both. 
 They both drew from one enriched soil the 
 elements of prosperity. In brief, the condi- 
 tions that were favorable for one were also for 
 both, and side by side they went on and 
 developed in accordance with their own laws 
 and nature, thus setting an excellent example to 
 the wealthy and working classes. Indeed, that 
 intermingled strawberry and onion bed was a 
 profound essay on political economy, teaching 
 that all classes can prosper together, not by be- 
 coming alike, and reducing society to dreary 
 monotony, but by each one carrying out with- 
 out hindrance or prejudice its own germinal 
 character in the most pronounced diversity. 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 That is a wretched soil that only suits one 
 genus of plants. In an equally miserable con- 
 dition is that society where only one class pros- 
 pers, even though in its conceit it calls itself 
 the " best class." 
 
 In imagination I see some pseudo-political 
 economist, some champion of the development 
 of the upper-class, at the expense of all the 
 others, bristling with indignation, and perhaps 
 purple with offended pride. 
 
 " I don't believe in such associations," he ex- 
 claims haughtily. " Your plebeian onions will 
 affect the flavor of the patrician strawberry, just 
 as the upper classes tone down and deteriorate 
 as they mingle with inferiors. Separation, sir, 
 separation — Chinese walls — these are the hope 
 of blue blood." 
 
 "Your premise is false, sir, as it usually is, 
 and therefore your conclusion is wrong. The 
 onion growing by the strawberry has no influ- 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 ence on its flavor whatever. Your artificial 
 noblemen no doubt need careful nursing and 
 ' Chinese walls ; ' but those who have received 
 their patent from Heaven will develop as noble- 
 men and live as such under all circumstances, 
 even as my Triomphes produced the most lus- 
 cious vinous-flavored fruit, though a thrifty 
 onion grew a few inches away." 
 
 But I am wandering. The garden is so sug- 
 gestive of all kinds of truth that one can hardly 
 help it. I suppose that is the reason the first 
 man was placed in one, since in learning 
 gardening he would learn almost everything 
 else. 
 
 I will immediately descend from political 
 economy and social science to onions, a long de- 
 scent some may think, and yet in sU'cngtJi this 
 theme will o\.\{.raiik most others. 
 
 I will close with a few practical sentences be- 
 fitting this useful but much abused vegetable. 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 It was my expectation that the onions between 
 the strawberry rows would be out of the way 
 long before the fruit was ripe, and so they were, 
 save a few I left purposely to see what they 
 would come to. Even in March my gardener 
 commenced pulling and selling them in their 
 green state, and by May ist nearly all were gone, 
 realizing the snug sum of forty dollars. This 
 is a phase of the subject at which even the most 
 aristocratic will not elevate their noses. The 
 space occupied by them was exceedingly small. 
 It was their earliness, their large green succulent 
 tops, and tendency to make good-sized bulbs, 
 that secured such prompt sale at high prices. 
 They stood very thickly in the rows, and as the 
 largest were daily culled out, those remaining 
 grew rapidly, and filled their places. 
 
 Those that I left to mature went to seed, just 
 as a large bulb set out in the spring will, and 
 when dry the strength of the bulbs had gone into 
 
WE WILL GO TO WORK. 1 83 
 
 the seed, and the former were large but useless. 
 If, however, the seed-stalk had been cut away 
 and the bulbs used in their green state, they 
 would have been most excellent. I was thus 
 satisfied that a very early and profitable crop of 
 onions could be raised from seed sown in Au- 
 gust. 
 
 My next experiment was to sow the seed late 
 in September, so that the plants would not be 
 large enough in spring to run up to seed, but 
 develop large bulbs, as in the case with seed 
 sown in April. If the plants would winter over, 
 no matter how small they were, the crop would 
 be far earlier than any that could be started with 
 the opening season, unless it be from what are 
 termed " sets " or little onions put out as soon 
 as the frost is gone. But I found it would not 
 answer. Unless the seed was sown in August, 
 the plants did not gain size, vigor, and root- 
 power enough to resist the winter. Farther to 
 
184 WE WILL GO TO WORK. 
 
 the south though, on warm light soils, I should 
 think this might be done to great advantage. 
 But after so much onion the reader is probably 
 ready to take a tearful farewell of this chapter. 
 
XII. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 There are few months in the year more 
 attractive than September. It reminds you of 
 that alHterative description of the matured lady, 
 "fair, fat, and forty ; " and he is but a shallow- 
 brained man who has not found this class one 
 of the most attractive in society. There is a 
 beauty of autumn as well as of spring, of age, 
 as of youth. I have great hopes of that boy 
 who is enamored by a lady " old enough to be 
 his mother." He has an aspiring soul that 
 dimly recognizes something far beyond itself 
 and will never sink satisfied into mediocrity. 
 When such a woman grows old gracefully, 
 sweetened and ripened in character by the ac- 
 
1 86 THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 tion of time, she is a most charming companion 
 for all. The infirmities of age have not come, 
 but she knows that they are near, and her sym- 
 pathies instinctively go out to those who are (as 
 she soon will be) bending under the burden of 
 years. Her memory of youth is still strong, 
 and she turns to it, and to those in its enjoy- 
 ment, with a remorseful tenderness, as the emi- 
 grant looks back to a loved familiar, but fading 
 shore. The fitful waywardness, the April skies 
 of youth, the intense feelings and passions of 
 midsummer life, are passing into the calm and 
 content of early autumn. She is, like the 
 season, in a border land between two dissimilar 
 states, and having some of the characteristics of 
 both. 
 
 Flecks of gray in the "bonny brown hair" 
 may awaken regretful thoughts of the approach- 
 ing frostiness of age, just as in early September 
 there comes sighing through the trees a wind 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 187 
 
 that speaks so plainly of the fading year, that 
 we are saddened in spite of ourselves. But 
 when through all experiences she has kept a 
 young heart, it will often show itself in a spright- 
 liness, a spring-like, youthful manner, just as 
 many days in September remind you of May. 
 Thus the lady past her prime, that in the ordi- 
 nary stock novel is so generally sneered at, may 
 be a most gracious, lovely personage. The 
 memory of her trials and temptations in youth, 
 the struggles and burdens of middle age on one 
 hand, give her the broadest, deepest charity for 
 those still passing through these ordeals ; while 
 on the other, with strength undiminished, as 
 yet, she can stay the tottering steps of age with 
 a peculiar and sympathetic tenderness. The 
 graces of her mind and character are like the 
 flowers of autumn. There is no longer the 
 growth of immature foliage and wood, but all 
 the strength of the plant goes into rich and 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 varied bloom. The garden is spring-like again 
 with all its abundant blossoms, but the flowers 
 are larger, deeper, and richer in their coloring, 
 more perfect in their form than ever before. 
 The drooping annuals make a sudden rapid 
 growth, all the "bedding-plants" cover them- 
 selves with renewed beauty. Pansies, that in 
 hot August were wee "johnny-jumpers," be- 
 come pansies again, with great staring, human- 
 like faces. The turf grows greener and more 
 velvety, and all nature seems to say. Let us 
 have one more blessed thrill of life before the 
 frosts of death fall. Make the most of Septem- 
 ber, for you will have nothing like it till May 
 comes round again. Alas! May comes but 
 once in human life, and even to the bravest and 
 most beautiful, autumn must grow sere and sad 
 painfully fast, when there is no hope of the 
 " glory that fadeth not away." Such may well 
 cling to September. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 1 89 
 
 " Bother all this ! " growls some practical 
 reader, "I want you to tell me how to plant 
 spinach." 
 
 And so my sentiment becomes sandwiched 
 between an onion and spinach-bed. The inter- 
 ruption has thoroughly clipped my wings, and 
 the rest of the chapter shall be satisfactory even 
 to old Money Bags himself. 
 
 Spinach should be sown from the 1st to the 
 15th of this month, and in our latitude I should 
 have the best expectations from seed put in the 
 ground during the first week. Plants that have 
 had time to attain good size, with strong long 
 roots, winter over the best ; and where you can 
 commence selling a good crop in April it is very 
 profitable. No great skill is required to raise 
 spinach. Richness of soil is the main necessity 
 for either a summer or winter crop. Like all 
 vegetables grown for their foliage, it must make 
 a rapid growth to be good. Therefore it sue- 
 
I go THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 ceeds best on a deep, moist soil, but one thor- 
 oughly drained, where no water or ice stands 
 during the winter. I sow my seed about an 
 inch deep, and find great advantage in covering 
 it with a half-inch or more of well-rotted 
 manure. This gives it a fine start, and seems 
 to prevent in some degree the unfavorable 
 action of frost. I have used the Round-leaved 
 variety, and believe it is regarded as the best 
 both for fall and spring sowing. If there is 
 any moisture in the ground, the seed comes up 
 quickly, and, as with all vegetables, the use of 
 the hoe hastens the growth. 
 
 I plant my rows a foot apart and the seed 
 quite thickly in the row. Then in spring you 
 cut for use in such a way as to thin out, and the 
 remaining plants by their rapid growth will fill 
 up the space as fast as it is made, so that the 
 bed seems like the '^ widow's cruse of oil," con- 
 stantly drawn upon, but not diminishing. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. I9I 
 
 But I seldom make a spinach-bed by itself, 
 using instead the intervening spaces between 
 other things. I put a row or two between my 
 hardy raspberries, blackcaps, and blackberries. 
 Where I make a new strawberry-bed in summer, 
 I sow spinach in September between the rows. 
 The same covering and manure answers for 
 both, and as the rows are two feet apart, and 
 the spinach is marketed in April, they do not 
 interfere with each other. This should only be 
 done the first fall, and on highly enriched land : 
 after that the strawberries should have all to 
 themselves. But in the fall and spring of '70- 
 71, I raised fine crops in this way, and by the 
 time winter commenced in '72 there must have 
 been ten or fifteen barrels of spinach growing on 
 my new strawberry-beds. The heavy body of 
 snow has protected it so far, and if the spring is 
 favorable, it will all be marketed by the end of 
 the first week in May. 
 
192 THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 In addition to what was used in the family in 
 the spring of '71, there were thirty-one and one- 
 fourth bushels sold, realizing forty-six dollars 
 and sixty-four cents. In the following fall, little 
 seed was sown, and that was nearly all killed out 
 by the hard open winter. But the fall of '72 
 promised a crop double in amount to any I have 
 raised before. 
 
 The seed of another vegetable belonging to 
 the Kale family is also sown in September, and 
 its culture and treatment is the same as that of 
 spinach. Dwarf German greens or " sprouts " 
 is the variety that succeeds best, and has the 
 readiest sale. Its foliage resembles that of the 
 Ruta-baga Turnip, and it is cut and used in the 
 spring precisely as spinach. Its flavor is like 
 that •^f the cabbage, but more delicate, and 
 coming when vegetables are scarce, it adds to 
 the variety, and is welcome. Wherever there 
 are Germans there is no difficulty in selling it, 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 1 93 
 
 and Mr. Henderson states that sometimes in the 
 vicinity of New York it yields a crop worth five 
 hundred dollars per acre. Sometimes I succeed 
 in wintering it over very nicely ; then again it 
 dies out. It requires a light soil and a covering 
 of very coarse litter during the coldest weather. 
 In the spring of '71, nine and a half bushels were 
 sold for twelve dollars — I mention the sales of 
 spinach and kale, in connection with their de- 
 scription and mode of cultivation, as space will 
 permit me to refer to them but briefly hereafter. 
 It will be seen that the prices were high, com- 
 pared with New York market, but my gardener 
 sold the bulk at retail, or in small quantities, and 
 so received the sum named. 
 
 I think most gardeners would find it very 
 profitable to raise these vegetables, especially 
 spinach. If their ground were light, sloping", 
 and very rich, their success would be almost cer- 
 tain and at little cost. And yet, even fLirmers 
 13 
 
194 THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 do not raise these crops to any extent, and in 
 April, when vegetables are so few, a prompt re- 
 munerative sale might be counted upon in any 
 locality. 
 
 The next vegetable started in the fall to 
 which I shall refer, is Lettuce, and with me it has 
 been one of the most important of the entire 
 season. I have sown the seed with the best 
 success from the loth to the 20th of September. 
 Any fair garden ground will answer, as it must 
 be taken" up and protected in cold frames the 
 latter part of October. This process will be 
 described in the next chapter. Therefore the 
 fall operation consists only in raising the small 
 plants, and this does not require much ground. 
 The rows can be sown eight inches apart, and 
 the only cultivation needed is to keep the 
 ground loose and free from weeds. But the 
 selection of the right varieties is very important ; 
 and as Burr describes fifty-three kinds, including 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 1 95 
 
 the Cos species, and as the seed catalogues are 
 not so far behind him in their bewildering pro- 
 fusion of candidates for favor, it will be seen 
 that the choice is not " Hobson's." And yet 
 success depends upon selecting rightly. Mr. 
 Henderson tells us how he lost his entire crop 
 of early lettuce (a very important one) by sow- 
 ing, through mistake, the best summer, instead 
 of the best spring variety. 
 
 As the favorite kind for wintering over in 
 cold frames, the Early Curled Simpson may be 
 named. It does not make a head, but forms 
 a large, close, compact mass of leaves, and is de- 
 lightfully crisp and delicate in flavor after its 
 rapid spring growth. It is very hardy, and I 
 have succeeded well in wintering it over in the 
 open ground with a slight covering. This 
 should be the main crop for fall sowing. I 
 have also used three other varieties to great ad- 
 vantage. First, the Green Winter, which is 
 
196 THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 very hardy, and will generally stand the sever- 
 est cold. It makes a fine head early in spring, 
 but soon runs up to seed. The Tennis Ball is 
 a small but most excellent variety, and makes a 
 very compact head. For home use it is unsur- 
 passed, and it is one of the best for forcing in 
 cold frames, as it takes up so little room. The 
 heads can be grown six inches apart each way. 
 For a second crop in the spring I find great 
 advantage in wintering over a large number of 
 the Black Seeded Butter variety. Strong 
 plants grown the previous fall attain large size 
 in May in the open ground. Nothing started 
 in hot-beds in February or March can compete 
 with them. By the first week of June, this 
 kind makes a head almost as large as a cabbage, 
 white and very tender and delicate. 
 
 It is always well to try to winter some plants 
 over out of doors. If they die, the loss is 
 slight, as the seed and labor cost nothing worth 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 1 97 
 
 mentioning. Select a warm sheltered place in 
 the garden where no ice or water will stand, 
 and sow about September lOth some seed of 
 each of the four varieties named, especially of 
 the Green Winter. When the ground begins to 
 freeze hard, cover with cedar boughs or some 
 very coarse litter. Anything that will settle 
 down closely on the plants will cause them to de- 
 cay. They may come out in the spring almost 
 equal to those in the cold frames. As soon as 
 the frost is out, they can be taken up and forced 
 under glass, or set in the open ground, where, 
 from their hardiness, they will soon mature for 
 market. 
 
 In the same manner as lettuce the seed of 
 cabbage or cauliflower can be sown in the fall. 
 In our latitude it should not be planted earlier 
 than the 5th of September, or the plants will 
 run up to seed in the spring instead of making 
 heads ; nor later than the 20th, for then they 
 
ipS THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 will be too small to stand the winter. Like let- 
 tuce, they can be started in a small bed any- 
 where in the garden, and left to grow to the 
 middle or latter part of October, when they 
 must be removed to cold frames, as will be here- 
 after described. I would advise that a good 
 sprinkling of lime be raked into the land on 
 which the seed is to be sown, and that the cul- 
 tivator see to it that none of the Cabbage fam- 
 ily, and also that neither turnips nor radishes 
 have grown on the ground of his seed-bed for 
 a year or two previous. Where this has been 
 the case, his plants will be very apt to contract 
 a disease known as club-root, and though lime 
 is a preventative, he would have no certainty 
 against failure. His only safety is to use lime 
 or bone-dust freely, and to sow his seed where 
 nothing has been grown for two or three years 
 that seems to draw the insect so fatal to the 
 Cabbage tribe. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 1 99 
 
 As to the best varieties for wintering over, the 
 Jersey Wakefield is the favorite around New 
 York. I have had very good success with 
 it. The head is of fair size, and the outer 
 leaves are so few that it requires but little room, 
 and can be set two feet apart each way, or even 
 a little closer if ground is scarce. The Early 
 York matures as quickly, but is nothing like 
 as large, and the Wakefield, if abundant, would 
 drive it from the market. When the Early Ox 
 Heart heads well, it is superior in quality to 
 the others. As a succession coming into 
 market two or three weeks later than the 
 kinds named, the early Flat Dutch and the 
 Winningstadt can be recommended. The lat- 
 ter is a very large, solid cabbage, and one 
 that can be depended on in good soil. For a 
 village or local market, Ave would not advise 
 the gardener to go largely into cauliflower, for 
 the majority in the country will not pay much 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 more for this delicious vegetable than for a 
 coarse head of cabbage, and as a crop it is very 
 uncertain. If one has soil suitable for it, and 
 can develop a demand at high prices, it will pay 
 well. Early Erfurt and Early Parris are perhaps 
 the best for Avintering over. 
 
 I have also tried the experiment of sowing 
 beet seed in the fall, but without much success. 
 Noticing that some small beets left In the old bed 
 during the winter developed into large roots very 
 early in the season, it occurred to me that by 
 sowing the seed in September they might live 
 till the following spring, and would then be fit 
 for market in May, when they would bring a 
 large price. A few survived, but the majority 
 died under the severe frost. I do not think my 
 plants attained sufficient size before winter, and 
 perhaps with greater care In covering more 
 would have lived. At any rate, I was not 
 satisfied with the experiment, and shall try It 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 again. Farther south I should think it might 
 be done with great success. 
 
 It is natural that I should come round again 
 to the globular onion. Is there not a weakness 
 in fallen humanity for this ancient vegetable ? 
 The "Chosen People" loathed the "light 
 bread," the manna from Heaven, but "wept" 
 regretfully at the thought of the "onion." 
 Some fair theologians may regard this as proof 
 that there has been a sad breaking down in 
 human nature. (I wonder if they never eat 
 onions sliced in vinegar on the sly, when no 
 callers are expected. The cynical world is so 
 suspicious of the indignant disgust at onions.) 
 Did they grow in Eden ? Could they have 
 been the forbidden fruit ? Certainly no mod- 
 ern garden of fallen man is regarded as com- 
 plete without them. How strong must have 
 been those of Egypt when a whole nation wept 
 at the very thought of them ! 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 Despise not the onion, Miss Angelica, It is 
 classical, nay, more, it is sacred. Behold the 
 most venerable nation of the world in tears — 
 " the people weeping throughout their families, 
 every man in the door of his tent." What was 
 the touching cause. Memory — memory of the 
 past — past " leeks, onions, and garlic." 
 
 Through the leeks, Hebrew patriotism, forti- 
 tude, and faith oozed out, and unmanned, they 
 wept aloud. Thus the associations of mystery, 
 antiquity, and sentiment, as well as deepest 
 emotion, centre in this odorous bulb. Cease, 
 then, Angelica — cease, artificial society, thy un- 
 just and too often assumed contempt for the 
 onion. Let us be true. 
 
 Braced by these historical memories, and the 
 record of sales on my cash-book, I shall boldly 
 refer to the onion whenever occasion requires ; 
 and I now proceed to state I have found great 
 advantage in putting many of my " sets " (small 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 203 
 
 onions) in the ground during September and at 
 any time when convenient. I use the largest of 
 my sets in this manner— those that would go to 
 seed in the spring any way, and also any refuse 
 onions that I have or can buy at slight cost. 
 Occasionally rows of this vegetable attaining but 
 little size have not been used, and I have sim- 
 ply let them stand during the season. In Au- 
 gust their tops die down, but in the moist, cool 
 weather of September they start and grow 
 again, and even go ahead of those set out, and 
 by winter are strong plants. I then have the 
 ground betiveen them covered with light and 
 partly decayed manure, and this keeps the frost 
 from heaving them out. The plants themselves 
 should not be covered deeply with anything, 
 or they will decay. A little very coarse litter 
 in the coldest weather is all that is necessary. 
 From beds so treated the onions were fit for 
 
204 THE CAMPAIGN IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 market in their green state by the 25th of March 
 in '71- 
 
 Let the practical reader smack his lips over 
 the closing flavor of this chapter, and forget the 
 sentiment in the opening pages. 
 
XIII. 
 
 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 October has come, bringing labors abundant 
 in the garden. Every day now may be made 
 to tell, not only on the success of the coming 
 summ.ers, but of coming years. But work 
 is play in the cool, brilliant days of this 
 most beautiful month, and every inhalation 
 of the bracing air over the fresh-turned earth 
 means health and longer life. If ministers 
 and brain-workers generally could manage to 
 spend October in the varied labors now required 
 in their own gardens, they would not break 
 down much under a century. I say their own, 
 for I doubt whether the exercise would be as 
 beneficial in some one else's crarden. The work 
 
2o6 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 might be the same, but a certain zest would be 
 wanting, just as a glass of cider is rather flat 
 without its sparkle and carbonic acid gas. Even 
 ministers have not reached that point of dis- 
 interestedness which would enable them to work 
 in a neighbor's garden with the same zeal and 
 pleasure, and therefore the same benefit, as in 
 their own. Exercise that is taken m.echanically 
 with no heart or enjoyment, does a man no 
 more good than the running of a machine does 
 it. It simply tends to wear out. I have seen 
 good men solemnly sawing wood before break- 
 fast to strengthen their constitution. I fear 
 only iron constitutions can bear such tonics. I 
 once tried it myself in student days, and the result 
 was backache, headache, and general prostra- 
 tion. Exercise in the way of recreation must 
 give employment to the mind as well as the 
 body, and must be of a kind that, as the children 
 say, is "fun" to us. It should be performed 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 207 
 
 con amore. Otherwise it becomes but another 
 phase of wearing work. I am satisfied that the 
 Good Father meant that His children should 
 play not a little all through their earthly lives, 
 and if grave men and women played more, they 
 could do more and better work. Why should 
 not men play ? Don't old apple-trees blossom 
 as well as the daisies ? Wearing toil was never 
 meant for unfallen man, and yet Adam and Eve 
 were gardeners from the first. (For I am satis- 
 fied that Eve did not sit in a bower and read 
 novels all day while Adam "delved," and we 
 know she did not spend her time in dressing.) 
 Therefore, on our cursed thistle-growing earth, 
 may we not find in the garden hints of that 
 labor that rests body and soul — labor having 
 more enjoyment than wanton frolic ? Come 
 with me into my garden and sec, even when 
 preparing for winter, instead of spring with its 
 promise, and summer with its ripe fulfilment. 
 
2o8 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 We will first mow the asparagus bed and 
 burn the dying tops, for if the seeds of this 
 most delicious vegetable (in its place) become 
 scattered, they make a troublesome weed. 
 Now cover the bed with two or three inches of 
 stable manure, and it is done for till the follow- 
 ing spring. 
 
 No frosts have fallen yet, but they are nightly 
 expected, therefore we must be ready. The 
 beets had better be gathered in at once and 
 placed in a cool cellar, as frost injures them. I 
 have found that by putting my roots in a barrel 
 and covering them with six inches of fresh 
 earth, it prevented them from wilting. It has 
 been my custom to plant bush-beans in early 
 August, in odd places, where early crops have 
 matured. By the last of September and the 
 first week of October, the vines are full of green 
 tender pods. These put away in pickle will 
 keep till beans come again, and when properly 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 2 09 
 
 freshened and prepared for the table, you can 
 scarcely tell them in February and March from 
 those just picked. 
 
 In some places they would also find a ready 
 sale in the fall; though out of season. We find 
 the limas full of green but well-filled pods. 
 One slight frost would spoil them all, but if 
 picked before it, and spread thin on the garret 
 floor, they will make one of our best winter 
 vegetables. We will give the late cabbage and 
 cauliflower one more good hoeing, and pull out 
 any that are diseased. The carrots should be 
 taken up before the ground begins to freeze, 
 and the squashes gathered before the frost 
 touches them. The celery is growing fast now, 
 the cool weather just suiting it, and therefore 
 every few days it should be well earthed up so 
 that the blanching process may go on Avith the 
 growth. Select a few well-loaded tomato- 
 vines and egg-plants in some sheltered place, 
 14 
 
2IO PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 if possible, and be prepared to cover them 
 well in case of a cold night. I have known 
 all the vines to be killed by one frost in early 
 October, and then there was no frost till quite 
 late in November. If a few vines could have 
 been protected through theit one cold snap, they 
 would have supplied the family with tomatoes 
 a month longer. The late supply can also' be 
 eked out by hanging up a few well-filled vines 
 in a dry, sunny place, in some out-building 
 or attic, and they will gradually ripen their 
 fruit. Turnips will make their chief growth 
 in this month, and it is always better to 
 have them in rows, so that they can be often 
 hoed. Keep the spinach, kale, and onions 
 growing rapidly by frequent cultivation. 
 
 And now we come to the main and special 
 work of the season, preparation for the future. 
 First we will remember those sweet friends that 
 have brightened our eyes all summer. Flower 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 211 
 
 seeds will be gathered and labelled, plants that 
 we wish to preserve will now be put in pots, 
 tender bulbs, such as the tube rose and gladio- 
 lus, taken up and stowed in a cool, dry place. 
 Then, that spring may be doubly welcomed, we 
 will make our crocus, tulip, and hyacinth beds. 
 The two last named should be planted four 
 inches deep, and the smaller bulbs about half 
 the distance. When severe frosts commence, 
 some coarse litter should be thrown over the 
 beds. Space will not permit me to go into the 
 subject of flowers to that degree that inclination 
 prompts. Moreover, the mercenary phase of 
 these papers rather forbids it, as my play has 
 been so closely linked with profit. But I can 
 refer the reader to a charming practical little 
 book, by Miss Warner, and published by Ran- 
 dolph &: Co. If one can read that without 
 sending to Mr. Vick, or some one, for flower 
 seeds and bulbs, it may be doubted whether he 
 
212 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 (or she) is descended from Adam. We will, 
 therefore, return to those products of the garden 
 that appeal to the grosser sense of taste. 
 
 Currant and gooseberry bushes should now 
 be pruned ; that is, old, half-dead wood cut out, 
 and all trimmed into shape. If more plants are 
 desired, cuttings from the new wood, grown 
 during the past summer, can be made and set 
 out about a foot apart in the row. The cuttings 
 may be from five to eight inches in length, and 
 should be put in the ground about four inches, 
 and the soil made firm around them. They 
 then may be left to grow one or two seasons, 
 according to convenience, and afterwards put 
 where they are to fruit. Good soil, freedom 
 from weeds, and liberal use of pruning knife, are 
 all that the currant and gooseberry ask in order 
 to make regular and full returns. Strong plants 
 may also be had by bending the bushes down 
 and covering them partially with earth, or bet- 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 213 
 
 ter still, heaping the soil up around them in the 
 fall, and then every stalk will not only bear 
 fruit, but will throw out roots, and the whole 
 bush may be divided in the following October 
 into a half a dozen or more vigorous new plants. 
 Now is the time, also, to put out the bushes 
 where they are expected to grow for years to 
 come ; and as they can be had at no great cost, 
 it would be well for those who have none to get 
 their first supply at the nursery. It is true, as 
 we have said, that currants will grow in neglect- 
 ed corners, along fences, anywhere that its roots 
 can get half a hold upon the soil, but it is also 
 true that it will make double return in thor- 
 oughly enriched garden soil. It is a fruit that 
 a slovenly cultivator can depend upon, but also 
 one that the careful gardener can do wonders 
 with. The currant worm is proving a formida- 
 ble enemy in some districts, but Mr. Skene has 
 fought them successfully by thoroughly syring- 
 
2 14 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 ing the bushes with suds of carbolic-acid soap. 
 In the open garden the bushes may be set in 
 rows five feet apart, and four feet distant in the 
 row. In obtaining gooseberries, ask for those 
 varieties that do not mildew, such as Hough- 
 ton's Seedling. 
 
 All kinds of fruit-trees and grape-vines may 
 now be set out, even to better advantage than 
 in the spring ; and there is now no such pressure 
 for time as will prevent its being done carefully. 
 It may be safer farther north to put out stone 
 fruits in spring, but that is a question for 
 local authorities to decide. We are sufficiently 
 utilitarian to advise the owners of small places 
 to put out fruit-trees in the main, rather 
 than those which are merely ornamental. If 
 properly pruned and trained, fruit-trees are 
 ornamental as well as useful. They are great 
 fragrant bouquets in spring, and their laden 
 boughs throughout the season suggest moral 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 215 
 
 and religious lessons, good dinners, and spend- 
 ing money. Why should not all these things 
 go together, good Doctor Theologicus ? 
 
 As to varieties, if we are planting for home 
 use, there should be a succession in time of 
 ripening, with the main crop coming late, so 
 that it will keep into the fall and Avinter. If 
 we have the market mainly in view, then it is 
 well to select more in view of the popular 
 demand, learned from the market. We must 
 also remember, that the list of highly recom- 
 mended varieties is very large, and that some 
 succeed admirably in one place, and not in 
 another. We must therefore learn, by inquiry 
 and observation, what kinds are best adapted 
 to our locality. 
 
 We will see to it that we obtain only fair, 
 straight, vigorous trees. No nursery-man shall 
 palm off on us any others. Trees arc like peo- 
 ple. Each one has its own constitution, and 
 
2l6 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 some are dwarfed and weakly from the start. 
 Sickly babies should have the tenderest care, 
 but to feeble trees in their infancy, the Spartan 
 law should apply. They should be destroyed. 
 Having obtained the trees, we will not put 
 them in the ground like posts, but dig a fair 
 round hole, twice as large and twice as deep as 
 the roots seem to require. Many a sagacious 
 man saves ten or fifteen minutes in setting out 
 a tree, but loses half a dozen years in growth or 
 bearing. Slip-shod work is usually economical 
 after this style. In digging the hole, we will 
 put all the good surface earth on one side, and 
 the poor yellow subsoil on the other. The bot- 
 tom of the hole will be filled up with good black 
 soil, mixed with compost or zvell-rottcd manure. 
 If a lot of bones can be thrown in also, their 
 gradual decay will be of great benefit. Set the 
 tree in the ground with roots well spread out, 
 just as deeply as it stood before it was taken up. 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 217 
 
 Sprinkle fine rich earth (never coarse ma- 
 nure) among and over the roots, so that they 
 may have good ready material to draw on at 
 once. Over the surface, the poor yellow soil 
 from the bottom of the hole may be spread, 
 and this covered with coarse manure as a mulch. 
 Pour a pail of water around the tree, to settle 
 the earth about its roots, and it is started like a 
 boy with a good education. If it don't do well, 
 it is its own fault. Of course, it wants looking 
 after, from time to time, as we all do. 
 
 Grape-vines can be treated in the same gen- 
 eral way, but we think that even the most hardy 
 varieties had better be covered with earth the 
 first winter, as a vine just set out cannot resist 
 the cold like one long established. In choosing 
 a spot for grape-vines, take one that is rather 
 warm, dry, and with thorough drainage. Trees 
 should have stakes at once, otherwise Novem- 
 ber winds will whip them to death ; and three 
 
2l8 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 strong stakes should be driven over the httle 
 vine, or otherwise some careless foot may crush 
 off the one or two buds on which your hopes 
 may depend. 
 
 I have great faith in the raspberry as a profit- 
 able crop, and with me it has been next to the 
 strawberry in value. The latter part of October 
 is the best time to set them out. In spring 
 there is apt to be delay, and the buds just above 
 the roots that make the new canes are often so 
 far started, that it is next to impossible to get 
 the plants in the ground Avithout breaking them 
 off. If your plants are to consist of the Hudson 
 River Antwerp, or some other tender and for- 
 eign variety, you can scarcely get your ground 
 in too fine order. Not only must it be thoroughly 
 enriched, but deep ploughing and careful cultiva- 
 tion is also required. If we are expecting to 
 buy plants, it would be well, during the bearing 
 season, to look around among those who have 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 219 
 
 them for sale, and make our purchase of him 
 whose vines show a tendency to great vigor and 
 productiveness. For the same variety will look 
 very differently, and really have marked diversi- 
 ties in different localities, and under varied 
 treatment ; and some growers' plants, from 
 something unfavorable in soil or culture, become 
 feeble in their constitution, and no amount of 
 care can make them do so well as those from a 
 thrifty stock. One great point of success is 
 the continued selection of the strong and pro- 
 lific. If the Clark and Philadelphia varieties are 
 employed, the same high degree of fertility is 
 not required, as they are naturally much more 
 vigorous in their growth. But the same clean, 
 careful culture should be practised with all 
 kinds. Hard-baked soil, grass and weeds, will 
 discourage the hardiest native varieties, and the 
 cultivator will deserve nothing from his bushes 
 but thorns. 
 
2 20 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 We cannot recommend the Philadelphia vari- 
 ety, when better can be raised. It is true they 
 are very hardy, and immense bearers, but the 
 fruit is small, soft, and nearly all ripens at once, 
 and if not all picked promptly, drops off. Still, 
 on many soils other varieties do not succeed 
 well, and on poor sandy ground this kind will 
 do remarkably well. But put them in Wash- 
 ington Market alongside of the Antwerp, and 
 they make a sorry show. For a local market, 
 and when they can be sent to a city quickly 
 without rough handling, the Clark is a very fine 
 variety. The only trouble is, that they are very 
 soft, and apt to mash down in carriage. But it 
 is a hardy, kind, vigorous grower, and very 
 prolific. They do not all ripen together either, 
 and one has some leeway in getting them 
 picked. Mine continue in bearing almost a 
 month. There are some new varieties that are 
 promising well. 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 221 
 
 It would be well to make careful inquiries be- 
 fore setting out largely of any one kind, but for 
 the home supply and a local market the Clark 
 may be depended on ; and if the Hudson River 
 Antwerp does well in your locality, you need 
 ask no better variety. My experience with the 
 white varieties is, that they are too soft even for 
 the local market, but they make a pretty change 
 in the home garden. The Franconia (red) has 
 proved an excellent berry with me, firm and 
 productive. A new red variety called the Na- 
 omi is very highly spoken of. For field cult- 
 ure, raspberries should be set out four feet each 
 way, so that the plough and cultivator can run 
 between them. 
 
 The Philadelphia, Purple Cane, and Black- 
 cap varieties need no protection in winter, and 
 the same is also said of the Naomi. But even 
 though it is claimed that the Clark and Franco- 
 nia are perfectly hardy, I found it to pay to lay 
 
222 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 them down and cover with earth the same as the 
 Antwerps. In the winter of '71-2 even the 
 Philadelphias were badly killed, and it is my 
 custom to bury this variety also. Last summer 
 I visited a gentleman who had ten times as much 
 ground in the Clark and Philadelphia varieties 
 as I had, but my crop was ten times as large, I 
 should think. Simply because my vines had 
 been buried. Ten or twenty dollars spent in 
 covering his vines would have given him five 
 hundred dollars more in fruit. 
 
 In setting out your plants, cut them back to 
 about six inches, so that all the strength of the 
 root may go in producing new growth. Far 
 more is lost than is gained by trying to get a 
 crop the first year. 
 
 Blackberries may now be set out also. Their 
 stronger habit of growth requires more space 
 than raspberries, and, therefore, the rows should 
 be at least six feet apart, and the plants stand 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 223 
 
 four feet from each other in the row. The canes 
 should be cut off about six inches above the 
 ground, and the second season you may hope 
 for a good crop. They do not by any means 
 require as rich ground as the raspberry, and too 
 high feeding would only injure them by stimu- 
 lating too large a growth of immature wood. 
 In our latitude the blackberry is so apt to 
 winter-kill, that their cultivation is rather dis- 
 couraging. If some perfectly hardy variety 
 could be originated, it would be a great desider- 
 atum. The three varieties that I have tried, the 
 Wilson, Lawton, and Kittatinny, all kill badly. 
 The last two varieties are usually too strong and 
 stocky to lay clown and cover with earth as we 
 do raspberries, but the more slender, trailing 
 Wilson variety might be so treated without 
 great difficulty. It has been my experience 
 that blackberries require a light, thoroughly 
 drained soil, so that the wood may ripen 
 
2 24 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 well before winter, while raspberries do better 
 on a moist loam. A little shade is to the 
 advantage of the latter also, and therefore it is 
 well to set out standard pear-trees among them. 
 The thorough cultivation required by the rasp- 
 berries will greatly stimulate the growth of the 
 trees, and their partial shade will be a benefit. 
 
 Cold frames should be ready the latter part 
 of this month. Mine are made in the following 
 simple, inexpensive way. A dry piece of ground 
 is selected, which will be in no danger from 
 melting snow and water, during the winter. 
 The location should be sheltered from the north 
 and west if possible. I sometimes excavate the 
 soil two feet, throwing the good surface earth in 
 one place, and the subsoil in another ; then fill- 
 ing up the pit again, to the depth of one foot, 
 with the best soil. Around the edge of this pit 
 boards are placed, so as to form a simple box 
 according in size to my sash. This box is made 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 225 
 
 by nailing a wide board on the north side to 
 firmly driven stakes, and a narrower one is 
 arranged in the same way on the south side. 
 Boards across the ends complete the rude, but 
 effective appliance. The sash facing the south 
 can now be laid on the boards when required, 
 and the difference in width of the boards will 
 give an inclination sufficient to carry off the 
 water. When hurried, I have simply driven 
 stakes in level ground, nailed the boards to 
 them, and the work was done. But it is an ad- 
 ditional protection to the plants to be twelve or 
 eighteen inches below the surface of the ground. 
 As I have picked up in our village old windows 
 and sash of different sizes, I have made my 
 boxes accordingly. 
 
 During the last ten days of October, I fill up 
 these cold frames with lettuce, cabbage, and 
 cauliflower plants, setting the last two named 
 
 well in the ground — down to the leaves, so that 
 15 
 
2 26 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 no part of the stem is exposed. If the cabbage 
 plants are rather small, they can be set from half 
 to an inch apart in the rows, and the rows tvv^o 
 inches apart ; for growth is not aimed at now, 
 but simply their preservation till spring. 
 
 I have always had the best success with let- 
 tuce, and seldom lose many plants. I put them 
 as close as they can stand in rows three inches 
 apart. Thus a small frame Avill winter over a 
 great many. The ground must be pressed very 
 firm about the roots, and kept so. Where it has 
 tended to freeze and thaw during the winter and 
 throw the roots out, I have found much advan- 
 tage in filling up the spaces between the plants 
 with dry sand. 
 
 At first these almost hardy vegetables will re- 
 quire no protection in the cold frames, but as 
 freezing nights come on, the sash should be 
 placed over them, and taken off during the day, 
 and even during the winter they should be thor- 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 227 
 
 oughly aired in mild weather. As spring ap- 
 proaches the sash must be pushed down or taken 
 off when the sun shines warmly, or the plants 
 will be rendered tender, and premature growth 
 induced. The earth should be heaped up 
 around the outside of the boxes, as this renders 
 them warmer and tighter. It is not necessary 
 that the earth in these frames should be very 
 rich, since they are used for storing rather than 
 growing purposes. Still, I make the most of 
 mine so, since early in spring I thin my lettuce- 
 plants out by setting them in the open ground, 
 or in frames prepared for forcing them. These 
 are cold frames made in the fall, like those de- 
 scribed above ; but the earth in them is very 
 rich, and designed to promote rapid growth. 
 No plants are put in them in fall, and as 
 winter approaches they are filled up with leaves, 
 so that no frost can reach the soil. By the first 
 of March the leaves can be thrown out, and you 
 
2 28 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 have rich, mellow ground in which lettuce-plants 
 from the cold frames can be set out. They are 
 then covered with glass, and by the end of the 
 month are fit for market, while many of your 
 neighbors have not as yet sown their seed. 
 
 All through the fall season, till the ground is 
 frozen, much can be done in the way of im- 
 provement, and preparation for the following 
 year, in the way of picking off stone, drainage, 
 etc. Sometimes during the winter the water 
 collects in parts of a field or garden, and does 
 much harm. This can often be prevented by 
 opening a small surface drain, from such locali- 
 ties, in November. All loam and clay lands are 
 greatly benefited by deep ploughing, spading, 
 or trenching in the fall. This very important 
 work can often be continued even into Decem- 
 ber, and the gardener will find it greatly to his 
 advantage to turn up every foot of land possible 
 to the action of frost. 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 229 
 
 As winter approaches, we prune our tender 
 raspberries, Wilson blackberries, and grape- 
 vines, then lay them down and cover with 
 earth. Bury them well, or heavy rains will 
 wash them out. Our strawberries should be 
 tucked away under a good warm covering. I 
 have usually employed stable manure, raking 
 off only the coarsest part in the spring. In 
 this way the plants are greatly stimulated as 
 well as protected. But leaves, straw, or any 
 litter will answer. Fruit trees may be carefully 
 pruned at our leisure, by cutting back the too 
 exuberant growth of new wood, and by trim- 
 ming them into shapely appearance. 
 
 The closing scenes have come, and we are 
 about ready to go into winter quarters. But 
 after all this careful preparation for another 
 season, we know that winter does not mean 
 death to our earden. From the first white 
 
230 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 hoar-frost forward , autumn only brings to 
 Nature rest and sleep. 
 
 In truth, Nature teaches man how to die, 
 or rather how to provide for another life. 
 There is much sentimental sighing over the 
 falling leaves, fading flowers, and "winter's 
 deadly breath." 
 
 "All that I see speaks to me of death," 
 lamented a lachrymose moralist standing in a 
 frost-bitten garden on a crisp, brilliant October 
 day. This remark had been suggested by a 
 shower of maple leaves, dropped around him 
 by a sudden gust, that went ruthlessly through 
 the grove, stripping the trees of their summer 
 glory. And half the world sighs with him. 
 
 Why do they not note that the leaves are so 
 rich and gay in coloring that they seem like 
 rainbows falling in fragments. Why do they 
 not see that every point where a leaf has 
 parted from its spray, a bud has formed 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 23 1 
 
 that will develop into other leaves, as large, 
 green, and beautiful as were ever those now 
 dropping away. Why should they not fall ? 
 Their work is done. They have reached their 
 perfection. So far from assuming the sombre 
 leaden hue of death before they change into 
 other forms, they blush with joy, they crown 
 themselves with gold, as if exulting over fin- 
 ished achievement. They are invested in the 
 royal purple of victors, rather than the sad- 
 colored hues of the vanquished. 
 
 But how about these frosted flowers that are 
 in such sad contrast with their appearance a 
 week ago ? Even here death is more seeming 
 than real. The frost did not fall till innu- 
 merable seeds were ripened, and this plant 
 that looks so forlorn and dying, has a sturdy 
 root, that, like a true, but unobtrusive friend, 
 will see it through the " tight times" of frozen 
 ground and icy nights. 
 
232 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 While flourishing, blooming, fruiting, and 
 having a good time generally in the summer 
 sunshine, every plant in this garden, every 
 shrub and tree on lawn or in grove, has at the 
 same time been providing that it may live 
 again. All the strength has not gone into one 
 summer's growth. All the richness of ground 
 and sap has not been expended in making a 
 show for one brief season. In some wise, 
 successful way, they have all the time been 
 carrying forward the vital principle, that it 
 might again be established under new and if 
 possible more favorable auspices. 
 
 Shame on you, therefore, men and women of 
 the world, who expend your whole strength on 
 the passing hour on this first stage of the 
 journey, this first crude phase of life, with no 
 thought or provision for what is coming. Is 
 this all your boasted reason — your high en- 
 dowment does for you ? Even the weeds of my 
 
PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 233 
 
 garden do better, and while flourishing one 
 season, at the same time see to it that their poor 
 hfe may have a chance of flaunting under the 
 blue skies and sunshine of another summer. 
 Sad indeed would autumn be if your death 
 took the place of Nature's change and sleep. 
 Every bud on the leafless trees, every seed and 
 root hiding in the snow-mantled earth, is a 
 reproach to your narrow, earth-bounded life. 
 
 Were your gardens any the less luxuriant, 
 beautiful, fruitful, last summer, because at the 
 same time they developed the means of continu- 
 ing so for all the future ? And why should it 
 take from the bloom of our lives, as we provide 
 for their blossoming in a happier clime ? 
 
 Every purple-tipped strawberry runner, every 
 bud forming at the stem of the leaf, every 
 ripening seed, should teach us that it is God's 
 will that we should live and be happy in the 
 future as well as in the present. 
 
234 PREPARING FOR WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 The frosts of autumn therefore do not mean 
 death. They merely put Nature to rest when 
 her proper bedtime comes, and winter soon 
 after tucks her away under a fleecy blanket till 
 the call of spring awakens. 
 
 But when disease attacks tree or plant, they 
 may die even in the midst of spring showers 
 and summer sunshine. It is sin, not death, that 
 destroys man. All that death need mean is 
 sleep, and a change for the better. 
 
 Sleep then, my garden ! I know you will 
 awaken, like some dear friends Avhose eyes I 
 have seen closed, and their bodies, like the 
 precious seed, covered deeply in the grave. 
 
XIV. 
 
 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 The holidays are past, and Santa Claus has 
 either remembered us, or we were obhged to 
 remember that Ave were Santa Claus. Snow 
 and sleigh-riding have lost their novelty. We 
 have been to town, read the new books, had 
 the influenza, nearly finished our lecture course, 
 and in brief have almost exhausted the proper 
 things of the winter season. The days are 
 growing longer, and often, something in their 
 sunnier light and warmer breath reminds us of 
 the friends in the garden, who are sleeping in 
 their winter graves, still deep under the snow ; 
 but we know the time of resurrection is com- 
 ing, when in robes new and rainbow-hucd, they 
 Avill rise from the earth into beautiful life. 
 
236 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 The first hints of spring are subtle, delicate, 
 but wonderfully suggestive. As you step out 
 of your door some sunny morning the last of 
 February, no matter how bleak and wintry the 
 landscape may still appear, you feel in a vague, 
 pleasurable way the influences of the opening 
 season. There is a peculiar fragrance in the 
 air, coming not from blossoms, for there are 
 none, uncaused by budding vegetation, for as 
 yet sleep rests on the pallid face of Nature. 
 Not a bud has stirred, and the withered herb- 
 age is still buried deeply under the snow. And 
 yet, by some strange alchemy, from some un- 
 known source is this delicate perfume distilled. 
 Do not the old farmers account for it when, on 
 going out on such a morning, they snuff the 
 air, and say : 
 
 " It smells like spring." 
 
 It is then spring's own peculiar and appro- 
 priate odor; and when we recognize it, we 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 237 
 
 know that this most welcome season is near ; 
 just a certain fragrance assures us that a bunch 
 of violets is not far off. The organization of 
 the natural gardener is very susceptible to these 
 influences, and when this impalpable aroma of 
 spring first greets him, he has a solid satisfac- 
 tion such as a stock dividend inspires in most 
 men. He is allured by it to draw on his rubber 
 boots and wade out into the snow-clad garden. 
 But, after floundering around for a time with 
 his pruning-knife, and having peeped into his 
 cold frames^ — somewhat as the anxious mother 
 occasionally looks into her crib and trundle- 
 bed, where exuberant life is under the paralysis 
 of sleep — he at last, chilled and shivering, gladly 
 takes refuge in the warmest corner by the ruddy 
 fire. 
 
 But the awakened garden spirit is strong 
 upon him, and he cannot and will not resist its 
 spells. Old numbers of the American Agri- 
 
238 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 culturist or Moore s Rural New Yorker are 
 dragged from some dusty hiding-place, and 
 pored over with an interest that no plot in a 
 novel can awaken. His limited library bearing 
 on the garden will be drawn upon as he reads 
 up on certain points, or seeks to learn the opin- 
 ion of others as to the culture and value of 
 certain crops. 
 
 And this leads us to say that a gardener's 
 labors (if such you can call them) over a winter 
 fire, are the most profitable in the year. 
 
 But little confidence does that campaign in- 
 spire which is carried forward on the hap-hazard 
 principle ; and strategy provided after dinner 
 on hot afternoons will not answer for the main 
 operations of the year. Therefore draw your 
 desk or table to the easy-chair by the fireside, 
 and with pen and paper elaborate your plans, so 
 that when the season opens you will have 
 nothing to do but carry them out with the ut- 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 239 
 
 most vigor. If taste and time permit, it is well 
 to make maps of the garden, and indeed of 
 one's entire place upon a certain scale, so that 
 all may be accurately before the eye, rather 
 than indefinitely present to memory. Then 
 every tree will have its proper location, and it 
 can be seen where others might be located. 
 Ground already occupied can be so described, 
 and you can carefully decide how you will plant 
 the still open spaces. From garden manuals 
 and papers, you can learn what crops are best 
 suited to your soils, what modes of culture can 
 be followed to greatest advantage. All now can 
 be settled definitely for the best, but such wise 
 deliberation would be impossible in the hurry of 
 the opening season. 
 
 A clear, well-arranged plan always saves 
 much time in all operations, but especially in a 
 garden. In regard to culture and crops, there 
 are such diversities of opinion and conflicting 
 
240 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 claims, that it is well to have something settled 
 beforehand. Having resolved on some good 
 methods, on selections that seem the best, push 
 these right through, and if you have made 
 mistakes and can see room for improvements, 
 mark well just where, and make the changes for 
 the better the following season. The man who 
 in April or May is following the impulses of his 
 own mind, bewildered by the variety of things 
 that all need to be done at once seemingly, or 
 who listens to a neighbor who leans over the 
 fence and suggests, will probably have a strange 
 jumble of a garden. 
 
 Then, in addition to the saving of time by 
 having a plan, is the still greater saving of 
 worry. A man who has a definite course 
 marked out works with almost twice the ease 
 and rapidity of one who does not know exactly 
 what to do next. Worry wears much faster 
 than work. It is like a shutter slamming back 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 24I 
 
 and forth to no purpose on a gusty day. Every 
 spiteful bang is a jar and a wrench. Work is 
 Hke well-oiled machinery running quietly in its 
 grooves. Therefore, by careful plotting, careful 
 reading and thought, and a well-digested plan, 
 let us be prepared to work, not worry in our 
 gardens, when spring opens. All this makes a 
 pretty pastime for winter evenings, besides be- 
 ing eminently useful employment. 
 
 Agriculture offers scope for almost unlimited 
 improvement. In no calling can skill and 
 knowledge be made more effectual. 
 
 This knowledge is obtained, like that of any 
 other subject, by thoughtful, judicious reading 
 and observation, and by the most careful com- 
 parison of theories and broad generalizations of 
 the facts of the garden. It will never do to 
 apply to the garden the ancient mode of phi- 
 losophy : that of first finding a theory that suits 
 
 you, and then insisting that Nature shall con- 
 16 
 
242 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 form to it. Tiie good dame will probably do 
 nothing of the kind, and then what is your 
 theory worth ? The Baconian system of facts 
 first, and deductions afterwards, must apply 
 here as elsewhere. But the gardener who re- 
 mains ignorant of facts and makes no deduc- 
 tions, Nature justly frowns upon, and makes 
 abundant deductions for him in the annual 
 yield of his ground. I know that advocates of 
 agricultural ignorance point to what they term 
 " illiterate gardeners," and say : 
 
 " Look at what they accomplish without any 
 reading, scientific or otherwise ! " 
 
 Do they accomplish their success without 
 knowledge ? So many broad-minded persons 
 (as they deem themselves) in good society, 
 imagine that people must be well dressed, and 
 read, in order to have knowledge. Tliere are 
 two ways of acquiring this : one from books, 
 the other from things about which the books are 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 243 
 
 written ; and the latter is by far the best source 
 of information, only it is school that "keeps in " 
 a long time, and requires patient learners. It 
 is in this that the " illiterate gardener," as you 
 term him, has studied ; but when you come to 
 talk to him on his specialty, you may find that 
 the illiteracy belongs to the questioner. If the 
 kid-gloved theorist will go to work practically 
 under Nature's instructions for a dozen years or 
 more, he may find that though attending what 
 may be termed a "dame's school," he will 
 learn more than volumes can teach. Books 
 aim to give, in brief, the slow teachings of ex- 
 perience, and as life is short, we avail ourselves 
 of" short-cuts, and quick methods." 
 
 But the best knowledge is best gained by 
 putting books and experience together, and let- 
 ting one help the other. Books broaden and 
 liberalize, remove prejudices, and stimulate to 
 higher attainment. Facts, experience in the gar- 
 
244 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 den itself, corrects crude theories, and winnows 
 out the chaff. But when it comes to skill, the 
 "prentice hand" must acquire it mainly by 
 practice. All the medical reading in the world 
 would not make a good physician, though most 
 essential in preparation ; he must not only read 
 about disease, but see it, treat it, and have ex- 
 perience in regard to it. But experience gives 
 skill doubly fast, when careful reading and good 
 abstract knowledge has prepared the way ; and 
 this preparation can best be made over the 
 winter fire. 
 
 Then again, the spring catalogues are now 
 arriving, and they are enough to give one a per- 
 fect fever over gardening. Lying before me is 
 one that is a marvel of good taste and beauty, 
 sent out by Mr. James Vick, of Rochester. In 
 it advertising becomes a fine art. So sugges- 
 tive and accurate are the engraving of vegetables, 
 and especially the flowers, that we recognize 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 245 
 
 old friends at a glance, and the latter stand out 
 so clearly on the page, that it would seem that 
 we could gather them into a bouquet. In send- 
 ing out thousands of such catalogues, or rather 
 pretty little volumes of one hundred and thirty- 
 two pages, Mr. Vick may justly be regarded as 
 a public benefactor, for they cannot fail to 
 greatly increase the love for rural life ; and they 
 certainly impart much practical instruction in 
 regard to it, while at the same time offering for 
 sale the varied contents of the largest seed store 
 in the world. 
 
 Looking as if it " meant business," R. H. 
 Allen & Co.'s Catalogue, with its sober, solid 
 appearance, catches my eye. It is an old friend, 
 and has laid on my table every spring for ten 
 years or more. Direct, simple, plainly indicat- 
 ing the best varieties among the many candi- 
 dates for favor, it always inspires confidence. 
 How often in the wane of winter I have looked 
 
246 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 through its pages, and marked the kinds I de- 
 cided upon raising. 
 
 I can assure the ladies that the bHss of look- 
 ing through the fashion-plates and ordering the 
 spring styles, is not to be compared with the 
 deliberation on the seeds you intend raising. 
 Then only less welcome, because less familiar, 
 are the catalogues of Peter Henderson, B. K. 
 Bhss & Sons, Thorburn & Co., Bridgeman, 
 Flemming, Landreth, Briggs & Brother, and 
 others ; and between them you are like a gour- 
 mand, who, instead of being invited to sit 
 down to one feast, has placed before him a 
 dozen banquets at the same time, and is bewil- 
 dered how to choose. 
 
 As by a winter fire we turn over these dainty 
 pages, what visions they conjure up to the im- 
 aginative amateur ! " Conover's Colossal As- 
 paragus ! " How that sounds ! but from brief 
 trial I am comins: to the conclusion that it does 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 247 
 
 not sound too large. Farther on the eye is 
 
 startled by ''Egyptian Blood .^ " oh! 
 
 " Egyptian blood turnip Beet, the earliest va- 
 riety grown," and we breathe freer. What 
 names they give these innocent useful vegeta- 
 bles ! Why " Egyptian Blood " ? Who wants 
 so sanguinary an association while weeding his 
 early beets ? Now here is something sensible : 
 "Large Flat Dutch Cabbage." That is very 
 appropriate. The carrot list commences badly. 
 "The Early Horn!" I hope none of my 
 readers take it, early or late. Then here is 
 " Carter's Incomparable Dwarf Dark Crimson 
 Celery." Such a name as that certainly re- 
 quires a carter. " Early Russian " or "Rush- 
 in," as it is generally pronounced, is a good 
 name for a fast cucumber, but I protest against 
 " Blue Peter Pea." I told you the onion was 
 irrepressible and supreme in every age ; for see, 
 they have named the last variety discovered, 
 
248 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 " New Queen," and I promise you she will 
 maintain her rank when so many of her degen- 
 erate sisters are losing theirs. Other queens 
 may frantically sway their sceptres in vain, but a 
 breath from her will cause many to grow sick 
 and faint. Long live the new Queen — onion. 
 For the sake of our Democratic friends, I will 
 add that she is described as having a " white 
 skin." Here is something called Scorzonera. 
 The idea of asking your youngest child if he 
 would take some of that for dinner ! We com.e 
 next to a squash called " Hubbard," probably 
 in honor of the good old lady of that name, in 
 hopes that her "cupboard" will never be 
 "bare" of the delicious pies it makes. 
 Strange ! here is one called the " Boston Mar- 
 row." The profanity of suggesting in faintest 
 allusion that the marrow of Boston enters in a 
 squash ! We hardly know what we are coming 
 to in the way of Tomatoes. Every year there 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 249 
 
 are several novelties so far superior (according 
 to the catalogues) to anything else known, that 
 it would seem perfection might be reached in 
 this vegetable, if nothing else earthy. Two or 
 three years ago, we had a variety named Gen- 
 eral Grant, indicating that all competitors were 
 vanquished. We bought General Grant, sowed 
 it, hoed it, and ate it, and w^ere satisfied. Gen- 
 eral Grant didn't disappoint us — never. It was 
 a good tomato, solid all the w^ay through ; and 
 though not so large as some others, was very 
 prolific. We hoped to "have peace" on the 
 tomato question. But so far from being satis- 
 fied, like the people, w^ith the great namesake 
 for eight years, the seed-growers all proved 
 Liberal Republicans on the tomato question, 
 and every spring new candidates arc pressed 
 upon us. And now, Mr. " Smith " has sent 
 out a novelty that renders it almost impossible 
 to wait till next July before seeing the wonder 
 
25© GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 in fruit. The only thing that can be done at 
 present is to buy the seeds at twenty-five cents 
 per half dozen or so. 
 
 But as far as names are concerned, the vege- 
 tables get off very well. It is when we turn to 
 the flowers that our deepest sympathies are 
 aroused. Here is a poor little plant, six inches 
 high at the best, overwhelmed with " Kaulfussia 
 amelloides atroviolacea." What a wrong is 
 done to the pretty modest little flower ! I would 
 not put this name on a label over the seed, for 
 it would never dare come tip. Imagine a lisp- 
 ing young lady asking a bashful young man to 
 go into the garden and make her a bouquet of 
 " Agrostemma," " Asperula azurea setosa," 
 " Dianthus Heddewigii flore pleno atropurpure- 
 us," "Phlox Drummondii Radowitzii Kerme- 
 sina striata," " Helichrysum brachyrrhinchum," 
 and a few more pretty little blossoms. And 
 yet, Mr. Vick and others gravely offer these 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE, 25 1 
 
 varieties, and a host of other unpronounceables, 
 for our modest flower-borders, stating that they 
 are "desirable for cutting." Their names are 
 certainly, and might be cut back indefinitely. 
 The winter fire w'ould burn out, and spring 
 come and go, before we could master the cabala 
 of the floral catalogues. I pounce down on the . 
 Pansies, Asters, and like old friends, who have 
 not put on such airs in the way of names, that 
 one does not know them. But they, too, have 
 caught the infection, and are coming on like 
 some boys I used to know, w^ho are getting " D, 
 D." and "Esq." to their names, and are no 
 longer known as " Tom" or "Hal." 
 
 But the evening wanes, our eyes grow weary, 
 our minds confused between the conflicting 
 claims of seeds, each one with a stronger or 
 longer title to attention than its fellow. We 
 wish we had a hundred acres, and a dozen gar- 
 deners, and could plant each kind in rows as 
 
252 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 long as their names, and thus find out for cer- 
 tain which were really the best. 
 
 At last we sweep books and seductive cata- 
 logues aside, lift our feet on the fender, and lean 
 back in our easy-chair. Falling into a dreamy 
 state, we conjure up some sort of an ideal Eden 
 in which fancy is head gardener, and wishes 
 wait to do its bidding. Having reached the 
 strawberry-bed in our imaginary scene, we rest 
 satisfied, and drop off into a doze — to awake an 
 hour later, chilled and shivering. The winter 
 fire has gone out, and we find a feather, rather 
 than a strawberry-bed, is the proper thing. 
 
 " The time of the singing of birds is come." 
 
 A brass band banging away after bedtime, 
 or in ancient times the voice of a Troubadour 
 twanging a guitar under a window at some un- 
 seasonable hour — often mistaken on first awak- 
 ening no doubt for a cat — these are perhaps the 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 253 
 
 traditional ideas of a serenade. But what lan- 
 guage can portray your feelings when you are 
 awakened some mild morning in March by the 
 wild minstrelsy of a party of robins and blue- 
 birds that, coming from you know not where, 
 have taken possession of your garden. The 
 long oppressive silence of winter is broken, and 
 now we shall have trills, solos, duetts, and 
 choruses that can only be imitated in the 
 Academy of Music. 
 
 Song is the first crop I obtain from my gar- 
 den, and one of the best. The robins know I 
 am a friend of theirs in spite of their taste for 
 early strawberries and cherries, and when I am 
 at work they are very sociable and familiar. 
 One or two Avill light on raspberry stakes near, 
 and sing and twitter almost as incessantly and 
 intelligently as the children in their play-house 
 under the great oak tree. And yet the robin's 
 
2 54 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 first mellow whistle in spring is a clarion call to 
 duty, the opening note of the campaign. 
 
 The making of a hot-bed may perhaps be re- 
 garded as the first labor to be performed. Its 
 size will depend somewhat on that of your gar- 
 den, and whether you intend raising plants for 
 sale. 
 
 The frame or box on which your sash are to 
 rest should be made more carefully than that 
 of the mere cold frame, for the hot-bed is de- 
 signed for growth instead of storage. The sash 
 should run in grooves, and the boards overlap, 
 so that no cold air can find access when it is 
 closed. Light pine shutters, straw mats, or old 
 carpet should be provided to render it still more 
 secure from the cold. The pits over which the 
 frames and sash are placed should be made in 
 the fall, and filled up with leaves as before de- 
 scribed. At any time from the first to the 
 middle of March, these leaves can be thrown 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 255 
 
 out, but kept dry as possible, and fresh manure 
 from the horse stable mixed with them in equal 
 proportions, a'nd all well shaken together in a 
 compact conical heap. In a few days it will 
 commence heating, as can be seen from the 
 vapor thrown off. It should then be shaken 
 out and piled up again, and after two or three 
 days a second fermentation will take place, and 
 now it can be placed evenly and tramped down in 
 the bottom of the pit to the depth of two and a 
 half feet, and seven inches of soil spread over it. 
 This brings the surface about two feet from the 
 glass. Before sowing the seeds it is better to 
 wait three or four days, as the manure may 
 heat so violently that it would destroy the ten- 
 der germs. When a thermometer placed in the 
 soil would recede to eighty-five, then seed can 
 be sown. The earth in the beds should be very 
 fine and rich, and may be kept in some cellar, 
 or more conveniently in a cold frame covered 
 
256 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 with leaves. Early cabbage, cauliflower, and 
 lettuce should be sown first. The seed of pan- 
 sies, petunias, phlox, asters, ten weeks' stock, 
 and all the Dianthus tribe can be sov/n also. 
 I do not think it well, usually, to plant toma- 
 toes, pepper, and egg-plant seed before the 
 20th of March, as they are so impatient of cold. 
 And these last should be planted in one end of 
 the hot-bed by themselves, as they need less 
 airing, and more covering than their hardier 
 neighbors. Great care must be exercised in 
 preventing the plants from becoming chilled 
 cold nights and wintry days, and even more 
 vigilance is required in seeing that they are 
 properly aired and hardened in their growth. 
 By leaving the sash closed with a hot morning 
 sun shining on them, I have seen an entire bed 
 ruined in an hour. And from want of proper 
 airing and hardening, the plants in very many 
 hot-beds are so tender and spindling as to be 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 257 
 
 almost worthless. When set in the open 
 ground they wilt right down. In the hands 
 of a careful gardener who can give it his 
 own supervision, and who carefully transfers 
 the tender plants from it to a cold frame, and 
 from thence to the open ground, a hot-bed is 
 very useful. But in our March weather it 
 requires considerable judgment and constant 
 watchfulness. To tell the truth, I make little 
 use of them, save for forcing lettuce in March. 
 For this purpose I find them excellent, and 
 have lettuce growing nicely now, the last of 
 February, though the thermometer has marked 
 six below zero during the present week. 
 
 As I have shown, I winter over in cold frames 
 hardy vegetables ; and even for raising the ten- 
 der ones in spring, I prefer the ordinary cold 
 frame, with ground made fine and very rich, 
 sowing the seed of hardy plants early in March, 
 
 and of the tender ones the first of April, and 
 17 
 
258 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 having no other heat than that of the sun on 
 the glass. My tomato plants so raised may not 
 be so large as those from a hot-bed, but they 
 are hardy, stocky, and go right ahead, vi^hen 
 set in the open ground. My friend Mr. Skene 
 often supplements my home supply most liber- 
 ally, he being furnished the means and possess- 
 ing the skill to do everything in the best possi- 
 ble vv^ay. 
 
 In many localities the gardeners can dispose 
 of a large number of surplus plants if carefully 
 grown, and of varieties that they can recom- 
 mend. I have not done very much in this way, as 
 I have not had the conveniences ; but in '71, one 
 thousand five hundred and twenty-eight tomato 
 plants were sold for sixteen dollars and seventy- 
 three cents ; while thirteen dollars and twenty 
 cents were received for cabbage and cauliflower 
 plants, and a much larger sum for the same in 
 72. 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 259 
 
 With the first of March commences the ut- 
 most activity with the cold frames. The sun 
 has now gained such power, that so hardy a 
 vegetable as lettuce will commence growing 
 under glass. The leaves are therefore thrown 
 out of the frames, and the soil, made very rich 
 and fine last fall, is now heated up by keeping 
 the sash on tightly a few days, and then set 
 out in plants which we have been keeping in 
 the storage frames. As soon as these are thus 
 emptied, they are forked over, enriched, and 
 filled with plants for heading also. By the 
 middle of the month the sash can be taken off 
 the storage frames altogether, and all your glass, 
 save that used in starting new seeds, employed 
 in forcing lettuce and radishes for market. 
 Even in this winter o^ '73, the severest we have 
 ever known, I expect to carry safely through 
 eight thousand plants, and by March 15th to 
 have at least two thousand set out for heading 
 
2 6o GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE, 
 
 in cold frames. On the 22d of February I had 
 two hundred and fifty growing finely. As soon 
 as the frost is out, a warm, sheltered place in 
 the open garden can be filled with the hardy 
 lettuce plants from the cold frames, and I have 
 had these mature for market in May. Cabbage 
 and cauliflower wintered over can also be set 
 out in the open garden as soon as the ground 
 can be worked. In forcing lettuce, great 
 watchfulness is required. Of course, you want 
 to keep up the utmost degree of heat without 
 injuring the plants, as this brings them into 
 market sooner. But too great heat may dam- 
 age if not spoil your crop. The danger in- 
 creases as the leaves in their growth approach 
 the glass. Whenever the sun shines, it is safer 
 to push the sash down a little, even early in the 
 morning, and give an increasing amount of 
 outer air as the sun grows higher. In the 
 afternoon gradually push the sash up, and be- 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 26 1 
 
 fore there is any chill close up tightly. On 
 cold, cloudy, windy days the sash need not be 
 touched. If there should come warm rains, 
 strip the sash off altogether ; and if not, sprinkle 
 often tepid water, as this greatly hastens the 
 growth. 
 
 The spring of '71 was very mild and open, 
 and I had lettuce under glass fit for use the 
 17th of March. It was not full grown by any 
 means, but pretty fairly so, and by the 24th it 
 was selling rapidly. My sales for that season 
 amounted to sixty-one dollars — averaging 
 about four cents a head. In the spring of '72 
 my lettuce sold for ninety-one dollars and 
 eighty-two cents. I have a third more glass 
 in '73 than ever before, and hope for corre- 
 spondingly large receipts. After the first of 
 June the demand for this vegetable is not 
 worth mentioning, and the main crop is forced 
 under glass. 
 
262 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 To a limited extent I have found parsnips 
 and salsify or oyster plant profitable crops. 
 The earlier the seed is sown after the frost is 
 out of the ground, the better ; the salsify 
 in rows one foot apart, and plants three inches 
 in the row ; parsnips in rows fifteen inches 
 apart, and thinned out so as to stand four inches 
 from each other. The soil where they are grown 
 should be made rich and deep, and good clean 
 cultivation will insure a large crop. In No- 
 vember, what are needed for winter can be dug, 
 put in barrels, and covered with damp earth, to 
 keep them from wilting ; then stored in a cool 
 cellar. But the majority of the roots can be 
 left in the open ground till spring, for freezing 
 does them good. As soon as frost is out, they 
 can be dug as required ; and as vegetables 
 are so scarce in March and April, they 
 usually find a ready sale. In the spring of 
 '71 I had three and a quarter bushels of 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 263 
 
 parsnips to dispose of, but for these, sold in 
 small quantities, Thomas received six dollars 
 and eighty-eight cents. The salsify was sold 
 in bunches, ten or twelve roots in a bunch, 
 and seven dollars and eighteen cents were ob- 
 tained for seventy-seven bunches. Where the 
 latter vegetable is appreciated and meets with 
 ready sale, it can be made very profitable. 
 The bulk of the crop should be so stored 
 that it can be sold during the winter. If 
 placed in a cellar, it is very apt to wilt and 
 become worthless, and therefore should be 
 stored out of doors. One simple way of doing 
 this is to cut a trench one foot in depth and 
 width, through some dry, well-drained ground, 
 and then pack the roots in this, standing as 
 they grew. The earth may be gathered slightly 
 over them, so that the green tops will partially 
 show through it. They should not be so stored 
 till just before severe freezing weather com- 
 
264 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 mences, and they can be so covered with leaves 
 and straw as to be accessible any time during 
 the winter. If parsnips or other roots are 
 raised in large quantities, they had better be 
 stored in pits out of doors, as most cellars, 
 either from heat or dryness, cause them to 
 decay or wilt. 
 
 Once more I will return to the onion, and then 
 its delicate aroma shall no longer breathe through 
 these pages. But since it is one of the most 
 profitable crops of the garden, and can be put 
 in the ground even before the frost is out in the 
 spring, it must find mention here again. The 
 beds that have been wintered over should be 
 gradually but early uncovered. The plants are 
 hardy to the cold, but the tops are apt to 
 smother and decay if anything rests closely on 
 them when the weather grows mild. They will 
 commence growing as soon as the frost gives 
 them the slightest chance, and in '71 I had them 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 265 
 
 fit for market by March 25th. When I have 
 not a sufficient number started the previous fall, 
 I obtain a very early supply for market by put- 
 ting out refuse and sprouted onions, purchased 
 for a trifle at the stores. No matter how large 
 or how far gone they are, if the germ is sound. 
 If the sprouts are long and spindling, cut them 
 off, about an inch above the bulb. Set them 
 out in very rich ground, as soon as you have 
 even three inches of soil above the frost. I 
 have them put in rows, six inches apart, and 
 close enough to touch each other. They will 
 commence growing at once, and in about four 
 weeks will be ready for market. Their large 
 green tops, while young and tender, are highly 
 valued by those who are not much in the kissing 
 line. Thomas says that he does not sell many 
 to young ladies. But from the demand, I should 
 judge that kissing is but a limited source of hap- 
 piness, while onions arc quite the reverse ; so 
 
266 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 wishing to add as largely as possible to the en- 
 joyment of the world, I plant much of my gar- 
 den in this secret of human joy. A very emi- 
 nent Divine once told me, that this sacred vege- 
 table contributed greatly to the increase and 
 nourishment of the brain. May not this ac- 
 count for the general demand for it ? People 
 oppressed by the need of brains instinctively 
 turn to a source of supply. But I can assure 
 the prospective gardener, whether he has need of 
 brains or not, if he has need of cash, here is a 
 good way of supplying it. The earlier in spring 
 he puts out his '' sets," and " top onions," or 
 sows the seed, the better ; for those started first 
 seem to do the best. In '71, one thousand 
 eight hundred and sixty-five bunches were sold 
 in their green state for ninety-two dollars and 
 forty-four cents. Also six bushels and eleven 
 quarts, realizing sixteen dollars and ninety cents. 
 In addition, four and one-half bushels of sets, or 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 267 
 
 little onions for seed, were sold for twenty-three 
 dollars and sixty-two cents. In summing up, 
 therefore, even if the onion has not done much 
 for me in the way of brains, I cannot complain. 
 Radishes, also, demand attention as early as 
 possible in the market garden. I find them a 
 profitable crop in the cold frame, and expect to 
 sow quite a large space in this way, while the 
 snow averages two feet in depth over the gar- 
 den. By the loth of April, they ought to be 
 ready for market. They can be sown under 
 glass in rows five inches apart, and the ground 
 should be very fine and rich. I also aim to sow 
 my main crop out of doors, in March if possible, 
 on warm, light soil ; and I find that it pays to 
 fill up the shallow drills in which the seed is 
 sown, with some black, well-rotted manure. 
 This draws the sun, and stimulates rapid growth ; 
 and unless a radish grows quickly, it is worth- 
 less. It is rather an uncertain crop, as it has 
 
268 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 serious enemies to contend with. In the first 
 place, as soon as it shows itself above the 
 ground, a little black beetle or flea attacks it, 
 and will often destroy first plantings in a few 
 hours. I have tried soot and other things, but 
 have found no remedy so effective as little 
 chickens. Put a coop on each side of your rad- 
 ish bed, and let the little chicks run over it, and 
 they will soon clean it thoroughly of the pest. 
 This same black flea will attack early turnips, 
 cabbage, and indeed almost anything green 
 early in the season ; and where I have but one 
 or two flocks of chickens, I have Thomas move 
 them every night, to some point where the 
 "wicked flea" is specially destructive, and in 
 the morning the devourers are themselves de- 
 voured. This is in accordance with Nature's 
 theory, that one thing should eat another thing, 
 and so keep the ratio of existence nicely ad- 
 justed. That the theory may be proved correct 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 269 
 
 in its last analysis, men and women in America 
 do not need cannibals, for care and worry do 
 the work much more effectually. 
 
 Another and still more formidable difficulty, 
 in radish cultivation, is a little white worm that 
 attacks the growing root. The only remedy 
 seems to be to employ new or different soil every 
 year, making it so rich as to secure such a rapid 
 growth that the worm has no time for its dep- 
 redations. But I lose a great many in this way 
 every season. Besides, there is a great differ- 
 ence in radish seed, especially that of the " Long 
 Scarlet Short Tpp," which often proves all top. 
 I have found great differences in seed of the 
 same name, some tending to produce large 
 roots promptly, and some tending never to pro- 
 duce them. I do not think that seedsmen can 
 always know of these differences themselves. I 
 buy my seed in small packages of several deal- 
 ers, and when I have a package producing the 
 
2 70 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 best and earliest, purchase largely of that. If 
 kept in a cool, dry place, the seed will remain 
 good for several seasons, as it retains its vitality 
 for five years. 
 
 My sales in '71 were not as large as usual, 
 but amounted to nine hundred and sixteen 
 bunches, realizing thirty-five dollars and nine 
 cents, I have grown them between beets and 
 other vegetables, but find that, unless you 
 have a prompt sale for them the day they are 
 ready, they are apt, by remaining a few days, 
 to so injure the crops they are grown with as 
 to be unprofitable. In a small local market 
 you cannot sell out at once. With your best 
 management, a week or so after j^ou have rad- 
 ishes every one with a small garden has them 
 also, and the demand drops off rapidly. I sow 
 my earhest beds where I shall put egg-plants, 
 tomatoes, and such late tender vegetables, and 
 they are out of the way in time for these to be 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 2 "J I 
 
 set out in May. The first week in April I also 
 have hills for melons, cucumbers, etc., formed 
 about four feet apart, by mixing a shovel or 
 two of light well-rotted manure with the soil and 
 rounding it up for the sun to warm and dry out. 
 The seed for the hills is not planted till from 
 fifth to the tenth of May, but the ground between 
 the hills can be sown thickly with radishes, and 
 long before the melon or other vines want the 
 space, they are out of the way. The earliest, 
 and those grown in cold frames, will bring five 
 cents per bunch ; but when they fall below two 
 cents, they do not pay, sold in small quantities. 
 
 March brings many and varied labors in the 
 garden. Grape-vines should be trimmed if they 
 were not last fall, and the pruning-knife should be 
 busy generally. Tools, seeds, plants, trees, 
 should be ready, or ordered, so that when good 
 weather fairly opens, not a moment need be lost. 
 
 When we shall get to work in the open ground 
 
272 GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 
 
 March, ''jy, it is hard to say. Now, at the open- 
 ing of the month, snow covers the ground to the 
 depth of two feet, and the title of one of Bul- 
 wer's novels, slightly changed, might well be ad- 
 dressed to Nature. "Whatzf///" she "do with 
 it" between now and April ist ? March prom- 
 ises to maintain its proverbial bad character ; and 
 yet this month, so universally inveighed against, 
 is to me one of the most fascinating. Its darkest 
 days are full of hope and the knowledge of the 
 near approach of spring. We laugh at winter's 
 gloomiest frowns, since the old tyrant cannot 
 long maintain them, and must soon abdicate in 
 favor of a gentler sovereign. Already spring, 
 like a young queen consort, tempers his harsh- 
 ness, and soon she will occupy the throne alone. 
 Increasingly often there are bright, warm, sug- 
 gestive days when the decrepit tyrant cannot 
 appear, and she, unchecked, sways the sceptre, 
 all sweetness, grace, and benignity. 
 
GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 273 
 
 Or to change the figure, this season, so un- 
 certain and variable, now smihng and gentle, 
 now harsh and forbidding, reminds one of coy, 
 cold beauty about to yield to love's suit in spite 
 of herself. She tries, but cannot maintain her 
 frowns, for love softens her heart like the subtle 
 south wind relaxing the frozen earth. Though 
 her moods are abrupt and trying in their changes 
 they are followed by remorseful tears, just as rain 
 one day seeks to banish the frost and snow of 
 the preceding. Her temper is often high and 
 uncertain, her words a little sharp and blustering, 
 like March winds ; but wait patiently till all has 
 blown over, and see how softly and sweetly she 
 will smile on you. But don't presume ; don't 
 felicitate yourself too highly ; there will proba- 
 bly be a change. Patient wooing and wait- 
 ing shall be well rewarded by the tearful peni- 
 tence and sunny smiles of April, and warmer 
 
 affection of May and June. 
 18 
 
XV. 
 
 APRIL 
 
 "Bestir, bestir." 
 
 No time for sentiment now, for Nature is not 
 only thoroughly awake, but up and busy, and 
 we shall do well if we keep pace with her. 
 Seemingly, there are a dozen things to be done 
 at once, these mild April days, but one thing at 
 a time is the secret of progress, with some 
 modification. Where you have several in help, 
 one or two can often work to better advantage 
 at a certain task than half a dozen, and if you 
 employ boys, the less they help each other the 
 more they accomplish. 
 
 In the first place, tie up your grape-vines ; 
 don't leave them sprawling on the ground till 
 
APRIL. 275 
 
 the buds start. In this respect my words have 
 all the authority belonging to those of a certain 
 temperance lecturer, who, in order to be graphic 
 and forcible, occasionally got drunk, that he 
 might speak from experience. 
 
 Fruit-trees and grape-vines can now again be 
 set out, and the earlier it is done the better. 
 This is specially true in regard to raspberries, or 
 else the buds or germs that are to make the bear- 
 ing canes for another season will be so far started 
 as to render it impossible to prevent their break- 
 ing off. If a full supply of all kinds of fruit were 
 not put out the preceding fall, we would urge that 
 it be done in spring, and if done early and care- 
 fully, and the ground kept mulched and moist 
 around the plants and trees during the hot dry 
 weather, the gardener will have no cause to 
 complain. 
 
 For certainty of success there is no time for 
 putting out strawberry plants like April. If 
 
276 APRIL. 
 
 done early in the month, with ordinary care, 
 they are sure to grow. I aim to set out one or 
 two new beds every spring. When you are 
 buying new and expensive varieties this is the 
 time, by all means. 
 
 It is a pleasure and often a source of profit to 
 try a few of the novelties, and some extraordi- 
 nary ones (on paper) are offered for '73 (vide 
 catalogues and advertisements). Certain new 
 kinds are offered at the modest sum of fifty 
 cents each, and one or two of these I shall try. 
 A single plant is all you want. From that you 
 can obtain fifty that will bear the following sea- 
 son, and so in a small way can thoroughly test 
 the value of the variety. If it is what you want, 
 you can raise enough new plants from the fifty 
 during the second summer to set out all you 
 wish, and have many to spare. It is therefore 
 interesting to try in this inexpensive manner 
 some of the large, new, highly recommended 
 
APRIL. 277 
 
 kinds, as among them you may find something 
 just adapted to your soil and locality. But in 
 setting out largely, obtain some well-known 
 variety, that your neighbors recommend from 
 trial. Prepare and enrich your ground 
 thoroughly, and if pressed for room, the spaces 
 of two feet between the strawberry rows can be 
 occupied by radishes, lettuce, onion sets, or 
 spring-sown spinach. Last spring I had early 
 beets sown between the rows of a strawberry- 
 bed. The beets were marketed in June and July, 
 and by fall the strawberry rows were closely 
 filled with new strong plants, which promise a 
 very large crop this year. Still, where ground 
 is plenty, cultivation is more easy and rapid 
 when everything is grown by itself, with wide 
 spaces between, and only very rich soil, with 
 careful culture, will bear crowding. 
 
 Asparagus and rhubarb roots should also be 
 set out as early as possible in April. As the 
 
278 APRIL. 
 
 former may remain in bearing on the same 
 ground for twenty-five or thirty years, the most 
 careful preparation is required, and yet we do 
 not think there is any need of going to the 
 great expense that many indulge in. If a small 
 bed is to be made in a garden, let it be trenched 
 and enriched to the depth of two feet. In the 
 spring of '72 I put out quite a large bed of Con- 
 over's colossal asparagus. I obtained the roots 
 of R. H. Allen & Co., and do not remember 
 whether they were one or two years old, but 
 they were of fair size and in good order. I put 
 them out in some of my best ground, in the fol- 
 lowing simple way : Commencing at one end of 
 the bed that had been well prepared, my gar- 
 dener opened a trench about fourteen inches 
 deep and slightly slanting on one side. The 
 plants were then leaned against the slanting 
 side, one foot apart from each other, and 
 enough good soil thrown around to partially 
 
APRIL. 279 
 
 cover and keep them in their place, and a small 
 shovel of rotted manure given to each plant. 
 Stepping back two feet, another trench was 
 opened, and the plants treated in the same man- 
 ner, and in this way the entire bed was soon 
 planted, and the soil over the plants (which 
 were covered about four inches) was left smooth 
 and untramped. Although a fine crop of beets 
 was raised between these rows, the asparagus 
 made a very vigorous growth, and if I should 
 decide to cut it the second year from planting 
 (as I probably shall, since it is on leased land), 
 there wnll be a fair crop. When the very best 
 results are aimed at, and the purpose is to main- 
 tain the bed in good productiveness as long 
 as possible, it is best not to cut the young 
 asparagus shoots till the third year. 
 
 All the cultivation required is to keep the 
 ground clean and mellow during the summer. 
 In field culture the rows had better be three feet 
 
2 50 APRIL. 
 
 apart, so that a cultivator can run between them. 
 In the fall the bed should be mowed off, and 
 those tops that are not full of seed make an 
 excellent covering for such hardy plants as 
 require but slight protection. Cover the bed if 
 small, or the rows if large, with three inches of 
 manure, before hard freezing weather com- 
 mences in fall, and your asparagus so treated 
 will not fail to give good satisfaction. It is a 
 vegetable that always sells, and I doubt if the 
 market ever will be overstocked. 
 
 Perhaps there is no crop that the possessor of 
 a garden near a small local market could grow 
 with greater prospects of success than this, if he 
 has the patience to put it out in the right way 
 and take good care of it. Being in itself such a 
 favorite, and coming when there is so little 
 variety for the table, it always sells high. It 
 will adapt itself to any soil that is well enriched 
 and kept so, and when treated in accordance 
 
APRIL. 251 
 
 with its nature — that is, given ground where it 
 grows with its native vigor — it makes a large 
 return. In its wild state it flourishes along the 
 coast in certain regions of Europe and Asia, and 
 since its introduction to this country, has found 
 its way in some instances to the beaches and 
 marshes of our own shores. Hints from its 
 history and taste should be taken, and we 
 should seek to give it a soil suited to its peculiar 
 habit. If we have on our places a sandy alluvial 
 piece of ground and will deepen and enrich it, 
 we would have no trouble in raising large 
 paying crops of asparagus. A swamp that can 
 be thoroughly drained so that no water would 
 stand at any time of the year, would also make a 
 fine place for a late crop. Indeed, great ad- 
 vantage would be secured by such variety of 
 soil as would give a succession. Some very 
 warm location with a light sandy soil might be 
 selected for the early growth, and a cooler. 
 
APRIL. 
 
 moister soil for the main crop. Of course the 
 earliest would bring, in most places, by far the 
 largest price. But I find that in my local 
 market the fluctuations of price are not very 
 great. I cannot, to any extent, reach the New 
 York fancy retail mark, even for articles sold 
 in this way, nor do they often fall below a fair 
 paying return. I am well satisfied that a large 
 bed of asparagus v/ould give a profitable crop 
 that could be depended on every year. One 
 naturally hesitates in putting out a crop of 
 this character on leased ground. It is the same 
 as setting out grape-vines, and you cannot 
 expect much return before the third year. And 
 yet I have done this, believing that but one or 
 two crops of so fine a vegetable avouM repay all 
 trouble. But if one has bought a place to sell 
 again, and therefore their stay may be transient 
 or at least uncertain, we would advise them to 
 put out a bed by all means. One good crop 
 
APRIL. 283 
 
 would nearly if not quite compensate for outlay, 
 and an asparagus bed ought to be regarded as 
 a permanent improvement like an orchard, and 
 should add to the value of a place. 
 
 Those of us whose gardens are not near the 
 coast, will find salt very beneficial to our aspar- 
 agus. Two pounds to the square yard can 
 be scattered over the ground very early in 
 spring, as soon as the ground is forked over, 
 and the rain will wash it down. While helping 
 the vegetable, it will disgust the bugs, worms, 
 and weeds generally, they having no sympathy 
 with the "salt of the earth." 
 
 But with rhubarb a small local market can 
 easily be more than supplied. I have about 
 twice as much as we need, but as it takes up 
 but little room, and requires not a great deal of 
 attention, I let it grow, intending to try to in- 
 crease the demand by selling it cheaply. 
 
 As this vecretable also stands a number of 
 
284 APRIL. 
 
 years on the same ground, thorough prepara- 
 tion should be made for it. The soil cannot be 
 made too rich, and every spring it must be 
 abundantly stimulated ; and this, with keeping 
 it free from weeds, is all that is required. I 
 have Thomas put a good shovel of manure on 
 the crown of every plant in November, and 
 this keeps them warm, and starts them early in 
 spring. The ground should be dug around 
 them as soon as the frost is out. 
 
 The earlier new plants are set out the better. 
 They can be procured at any seed store, and, 
 for a local market, it is best to order the largest 
 variety, even if it is a little later. The plants 
 should be set so that the crown, or bud, is 
 barely under ground. Make the rows four feet 
 apart, and let the roots stand three feet from 
 each other in the row. Its time of readiness 
 for market will vary with the season. In 
 '71 my sales commenced April 28th, and for 
 
. APRIL. 285 
 
 two hundred and seventeen bunches, twenty 
 dollars and fifty cents were received ; while 
 in '72, it was May 8th before any were sold ; 
 but the crop was larger and better. If 
 speculators in sugar would only send all 
 families in the country a dozen or more rhu- 
 barb plants, there is no telling what fortunes 
 might be made. I make this saccharine sug- 
 gestion to avert any charge of acidity of style ; 
 but if this hint is followed, and fortunes are 
 made, I shall expect my share, and no investi- 
 gations. 
 
 Quinces can now be set out also to good 
 advantage. Instead of letting them grow into 
 scraggly bushes, it is much better to prune 
 them into shapely pyramidal trees (but please 
 do not inquire into my practice). Currant and 
 gooseberry cuttings can still be put out, as 
 directed, in the fall, or the earth heaped up 
 
286 APRIL. 
 
 about those designed for division into new 
 plants, but it must be done early. 
 
 Those who live in Virginia, and South, 
 should set out their fig-trees now. When 
 chaplain at Fortress Monroe, I raised them 
 with the same ease that we do currants here ; 
 and the fruit is such a favorite one with me, 
 that I shall try them in our latitude this spring, 
 laying them down and burying them like rasp- 
 berries in the fall. 
 
 I raise mainly the dwarf varieties of peas, and 
 having tried several, I have at last settled doAvn 
 on two varieties — the "Tom Thumb " for earliest 
 crop, and McLean's Little Gem for second. 
 The first is very hardy, and can be planted as 
 soon as the frost is out of the ground — the earlier 
 the better. It grows about eight inches high, 
 and if not planted too closely in the row is very 
 prolific. I have had them and the tall Marrow- 
 fat growing at the same time in my garden, and 
 
APRIL. 287 
 
 found that a vine of the Tom Thumb produced 
 as many pods as a vine of the tall variety stand- 
 ing between four and five feet high. The rows 
 of Tom Thumb can be planted one foot apart, 
 the others four feet, and require brush at that. 
 But to get a paying crop from the dwarfs they 
 must be planted early on very rich soil. I find 
 it pays well to drill in well-rotted manure with 
 the seed. McLean's Little Gems are not quite 
 so hardy, and should not be planted till after the 
 soil becomes a little warmer and drier. When 
 ground is scarce and valuable, as with me, I find 
 these dwarf varieties pay much the best, as I 
 can plant them between other crops, such as 
 raspberries, sweet corn, lima beans, cucumbers, 
 etc. The Tom Thumb, if sown very early, will 
 mature about the 20th of June in our region, 
 and as the pods all fill out at once the vines can 
 be pulled up as they are picked, and thus they 
 are out of the way of the crops they were grow- 
 
ing between. I always fill up my tomato ground 
 this way the last of March or first of April. 
 One of the simplest methods is to open a double 
 row three and a half feet apart. This double 
 row consists of two shallow trenches three or 
 four inches deep and five inches apart. In these 
 the peas are sown so as to stand about an inch 
 from each other, and slightly covered. If then 
 black, well-rotted manure is scattered over them, 
 it will draw the sun and greatly stimulate their 
 growth. By the loth of May, tomato plants 
 can be set out between these double rovv^s, and 
 one crop will not interfere with the other, for 
 long before the tomatoes cover the ground, the 
 peas will be gathered and sold. Of course this 
 will only pay in small gardens where cultivation 
 with a plough is not practised. I also aimed by 
 planting McLean's Little Gems, and some later 
 kinds, to have a succession of crops ; and as 
 they were mostly sold in small quantities to 
 
APRIL. 289 
 
 those who valued quahty, eighteen bushels and 
 fourteen quarts brought the large sum of forty- 
 three dollars and sixty cents. For field culture, 
 where ground is plenty, and not very rich, the 
 tall kinds, like Dan O'Burk, McLean's Advan- 
 cer, and Champion of England, are doubtless the 
 best. But don't hire your men to pick them by 
 the day. I gave an Irishman twelve shillings 
 last summer to pick about fifty cents' worth of 
 peas. 
 
 He would be little better than a heathen (agri- 
 culturally) who raised no peas for home supply ; 
 but we have strong doubts as to the profitableness 
 of this vegetable for market. I think you can 
 raise more strawberries to the acre than you can 
 peas. You can pick a bushel of the fruit as soon, 
 and the latter will bring from six to ten dollars a 
 bushel, while for the former you often cannot 
 get one dollar. For a small local market it will 
 
 pay well to plant the dwarfs between other 
 19 
 
290 APRIL. 
 
 crops, thus making your ground do double 
 duty. Or growing the best and largest kinds, 
 like the Champion of England, giving them 
 brush and extra care, will compensate the gar- 
 dener, if he is not limited in land, and can ob- 
 tain a fair price through the season. For the 
 choice wrinkled varieties, picked young and de- 
 liciously fresh, people ought to be willing to pay 
 double price. With the majority who buy at 
 market, however, a peck of peas is a peck of 
 peas, whether it came from Long Island or 
 Norfolk a week ago, or that morning from a 
 neighboring garden, and price . alone is con- 
 sidered. 
 
 There is no use of tiying to grow this vege- 
 table on a large scale, unless you are near some 
 village, and can employ a dozen pickers or more, 
 the day it is ready. The pods will become un- 
 salable almost as soon as small fruit if left on 
 the vines, and the difference of one day in the 
 
APRIL, 
 
 291 
 
 market price may be that of utter loss instead of 
 good profit. In our region very early and very 
 late crops sell for the largest sums. 
 
 For further pea-ticulars, see Mr. Burr's valu- 
 able book, in which he reduces one hundred and 
 sixty-two varieties named to only seventy-three, 
 and these he describes. 
 
XVI. 
 
 GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 
 
 During the first warm still days of this month, 
 as soon as the buds begin to swell, grafting 
 should be performed. The operation is neither 
 so agreeable nor successful on cold, windy days. 
 This simple but very useful labor of spring can 
 be learned by once witnessing it, better than 
 from any description ; and in every locality there 
 are adepts in the art, who will either do the work 
 or show the amateur how to perform it himself, 
 which is better. On almost every place there 
 are vigorous young trees grown from chance 
 seed, but this wild or natural fruit is of but lit- 
 tle value. By a few grafts we can put all this 
 native vigor of growth into some of the most 
 
GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 293 
 
 approved luscious varieties. Why cannot re- 
 formers and teachers work more on this princi- 
 ple ? With multitudes, repression seems the 
 favorite method of getting the world right. 
 "Thou shalt not" enact government. "It is 
 not proper," cries society with elevated eye- 
 brows. "You mustn't do this, don't do that," 
 constantly falls on the little children's ears ; and 
 preaching consists more largely in telling men 
 what they ought not to do, than in what they 
 may and should do. Nice little boys and girls, 
 that were started rightly from the first, and had 
 grace "budded in " with their mother's milk, 
 get along very well. They go out into the world 
 like trees from the rows in the nursery, straight, 
 pruned, labelled, and warranted, though often a 
 little weakly. Still they have much to be thank- 
 ful for, and all they have to do is to grow as 
 they have been directed. But society is full of 
 boys and girls that have come up on " their own 
 
2 94 GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 
 
 hook," to use their own vernacular; just as we 
 find wild apple, cherry, and pear trees growing 
 along fences, in thickets and all sorts of unex- 
 pected places. 
 
 As a general thing, these fortuitous youth are 
 morally not elected or highly favored, and when 
 mature enough to bear the fruit of characteristic 
 deeds, we say : 
 
 The less of that kind the better. 
 
 But what shall we do with them ? Repression, 
 cutting back, only increases their wild growth. 
 To be sure we can dig them out, root and 
 branch, and destroy them ; and this was society's 
 ancient course with those unruly members who 
 would not grow morally, mentally, and religi- 
 ously in the narrow little mould of the times. 
 But this will not answer now, much as some 
 good people would like to try it. 
 
 But what shall we do ? Nature teaches us. 
 
 A few feet away from my parsonage-door, a 
 
GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 295 
 
 young cherry sapling took a notion to grow. 
 Nobody planted it, nobody wanted it there. 
 It was rather in the way, and how it managed 
 to escape being trampled down or cut down, is 
 a mystery akin to that of the life and vigor of 
 some children against whom everything seems 
 to conspire. Before I realized it, there was 
 flourishing right before my door a tall, shapely 
 sapling, but in a state of nature rather than one 
 of grace, and commencing to bear villanously 
 small and bitter fruit. 
 
 Something must be done. To let it grow on 
 its rampant style, and destroy with its baneful 
 shade two saintly little pear-trees standing near, 
 would not answer. To dig it out would be a 
 mean, cowardly way of meeting the question, 
 besides being unscriptural. Indeed, my reputa- 
 tion as a clergyman was at stake. If I could 
 not convert this little horticultural sinner grow- 
 ing right under my nose, what impression could 
 
296 GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 
 
 I hope to make on the unregenerate world at 
 large ? 
 
 Not far off, there was a tree of large, splendid 
 ox-hearts. Cutting a scion or twig, four inches 
 long, of the preceding summer's growth, from 
 this, I carefully grafted the main stem of the 
 child of nature ; but made it a point to leave a 
 few little branches on which the young blood 
 (sap, I should say) could expend some of its 
 superabundant vitality. 
 
 Here is another point where reformers bring 
 in their everlasting repression. Even when they 
 give some irrepressible young sinner good 
 wholesome work to do, they insist on his doing 
 that and nothing else. It is the same as if they 
 required that the old life of the tree should cease 
 at once, and every drop of sap go into the graft. 
 It can't do it, and it won't. Leave some little 
 branches to grow with the graft a year or so, 
 gradually pruning them out, and throwing the 
 
GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 297 
 
 whole strength into the increasing graft. The 
 tree will submit kindly to this considerate treat- 
 ment, though it will not stand a square cut from 
 sinner to saint, but right through its bark, every- 
 where will throw out buds of the old stock with 
 resentful frequency and power. I do not know 
 how it is with my brethren, but I find the same 
 principle holds good in the parish. 
 
 At any rate, this treatment was most successful 
 on the subject described, and I gradually in- 
 duced all its abounding vigor to go into the 
 graft alone, and last summer it bore some of the 
 largest, finest cherries I ever saw. 
 
 This suggests a very serious blunder I once 
 made, while seeking to bring about a certain 
 horticultural reformation. In this case the tree 
 was past the sapling stage, and might be de- 
 scribed in its early prime, reminding one of a 
 young man at the age of twenty-five. 
 
 Indeed, it did remind me of several young 
 
298 GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 
 
 men, and young ladies too, that I knew of, who 
 Avere well educated, abounding in health and 
 strength, but whose lives bid fair to be as use- 
 less as that of my cherry-tree. Those of us who 
 regard present existence as something more than 
 a " play spell," often look very wistfully and re- 
 gretfully on the waste of human vitality around 
 us. The world seems to us like a garden that 
 might be abundantly productive of fruits so 
 precious, that angels would store them in heav- 
 enly garners ; and yet it is ready to perish for 
 lack of weeding and cultivation. 
 
 So it appeared to the Divine Husbandman, 
 and He commands all to labor in His vineyard. 
 
 With what just pride ladies have shown me 
 some rose-bush, geranium, or calla lily, that 
 they have nursed through the cold winter, till in 
 early spring they were rewarded by a fragrant 
 bloom of floral gratitude ! How often I have 
 gone with a happy amateur, to witness some 
 
GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTUKAL CONVERSION. 299 
 
 unusual success achieved in his garden ! If we 
 were all amateurs in the vineyard of the Lord, 
 throwing our hearts into the work of stimulat- 
 ing and training character into symmetrical, 
 fruitful, deathless life, how this wilderness world 
 would blossom ! Too often we are like the hire- 
 ling, whose aim seems merely to " put in the 
 day" and get his "penny." But plants and 
 human souls are alike in this, that they feel 
 and recognize the touch of love ; and the mysti- 
 cal and material garden both thrive doubly well 
 under the care of those who work con aviore^ 
 rather than officially. 
 
 But the saddest part of it all is, that the ma- 
 jority will not work at all in the way of pro- 
 ducing anything of real value. They are like 
 my cherry-tree, and all their native vigor and 
 activity results in that which adds nothing to 
 the well-being of the world. 
 
 What would I not give for the physical 
 
300 GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 
 
 strength and health of some of the young men 
 above referred to, whose days are spent in 
 smoking, reading questionable novels, dressing, 
 dancing, flirting, driving, card-playing, etc. 
 
 With the exception of smoking (perhaps), the 
 same occupations fill the days of multitudes of 
 ladies. The result of their lives, put in a mathe- 
 matical form, would be something as follows : 
 
 Mr. Augustus Le Grand = froth. 
 
 Miss Laura De Flirte = froth. 
 
 The world — both = to a garden with two 
 weeds pulled out. 
 
 The parties themselves, if honest 2ind educated, 
 would admit this summing of their lives to be 
 correct. It's rather strange that they are so 
 contented, in view of the truth. 
 
 In the above light the cynical philosopher 
 may justly regard those who, in a world so full 
 of work, and in such need of work of all kinds, 
 aim to be only idlers. On the Lycurgan prin- 
 
GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 30I 
 
 ciple of anything for the good of the state, 
 they would be quietly strangled. 
 
 But the spirit of Christianity is opposite to all 
 this, and leads us to look at this class as I did 
 at my thrifty but worse than useless cherry- 
 tree, whose fruit was only a large pit with a bit- 
 ter skin drawn over it. If its abundant vitality, 
 however, could be turned into useful channels 
 — that is, into grafts of some excellent variety, — 
 how much better thus to utilize life by conver- 
 sion to noble ends, than to destroy it ? 
 
 Early in April, therefore, every branch of 
 sufficient size, from the top down, was grafted ; 
 and in due time they were nearly all growing 
 finely, and I felt that I should now have a 
 practical convert standing before my house, that 
 would tend to inspire general confidence in my 
 ministry. 
 
 But now comes in my irrational blunder, and 
 one that I fear is too common on the part of 
 
302 GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 
 
 reformers, as before stated. I had left a good 
 many small branches scattered about the tree, 
 but when the grafts commenced growing, I 
 resolved that all the strength should go into 
 them, that the old wild life should cease at once, 
 and that I should have a cherry-tree saint from 
 the start. Just as we often say to people that 
 we are trying to lead to better things : 
 
 "You must do everything that is right, and 
 nothing that is wrong." 
 
 So I said to my great rampant young tree, 
 you must put all your power into those little 
 scions five inches long, and develop those. All 
 branches of your former doings must be stopped. 
 
 And what the result ? Why, the shock was 
 too great ; the transition too sharp and short ; 
 and the tree, utterly discouraged seemingly, 
 gave up in despair and died. 
 
 We read Paul's exhortation to " Grow in 
 grace" as if it were "Jump into grace." 
 
GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 303 
 
 Nature, human and horticultural, improves by 
 growth, and synods, councils, and reformers 
 cannot change this Divine law. I am now satis- 
 fied that my wild young blade of a tree might 
 have been converted into a most fruitful mem- 
 ber of the garden ; but it stood a long time a 
 blasted monument of my blundering zeal, for I 
 let it remain as a warning. 
 
 This subject of grafting, or horticultural con- 
 version, is very suggestive, and has many analo- 
 gies to moral experience. The earlier in life it 
 takes place, the readier the growth and the 
 better the chances, is a truism in both cases. 
 Still, trees quite advanced in life can often be 
 grafted to great advantage, and where space is 
 limited, and trees of necessity must be few, quite 
 a variety can soon be secured by putting in 
 scions of different kinds. For instance, on the 
 south side of an apple-trcc, some good early or 
 "harvest" variety might be grafted in the 
 
304 GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 
 
 branches, a fall apple on the west side, and a 
 late winter apple on the remaining boughs ; 
 gradually, as we have shown, the whole strength 
 of the tree could be thrown into these grafts, and 
 the different kinds would grow amicably from 
 one stem ; indicating that a good man can be 
 useful in more ways than one. 
 
 The same is true of a pear or a cherry tree ; 
 so that by judicious grafting we can bring all 
 the fruit on our places up to a high standard. 
 
 Whenever we observe any unusually fine fruit, 
 we can no doubt obtain permission from the 
 possessor to cut a few scions. This should be 
 done in March, before the buds swell ; and the 
 grafts should be kept in the cellar packed in 
 moist sand or earth till we wish to use them, so 
 that they may not shrivel. When the buds on 
 the trees begin to show that the sap is flowing 
 freely, then graft in the scions, and in a strong 
 
GRAFTING, OR HORTICULTURAL CONVERSION. 305 
 
 tree you probably have a little fruit in the third 
 year. 
 
 But on one hand do not try to convert too 
 fast by cutting back everything save the grafts ; 
 and on the other, convert as fast as you can 
 safely, by gradually putting the whole strength 
 of the tree into the grafts ; for if but one branch 
 of the old stock is left to have its own way for 
 all time, it will crowd out and kill the approved 
 varieties with certainty. 
 
 I am astonished that there is not a chair on 
 grafting in our theological seminaries. 
 
 20 
 
XVII. 
 
 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. — (SUCCOTASH.) 
 
 I LEAN to the Epicurean rather than to the 
 Stoic philosophy. Indeed, as far as I am ac- 
 quainted with the traditions of my childhood, 
 I never was much of a Stoic in silent endurance 
 of " outrageous fortune " armed (justly, I fear) 
 with a rod, and I am satisfied that I was any- 
 thing but nonchalant when her smiles meant 
 mince-pie and jelly-cake. I suppose the man 
 is wrapped up in the boy, just as the oak in 
 the acorn. At any rate, I imagine that my 
 heart will ever yearn over the place that min- 
 isters so much to every sense as the garden. 
 Mine, as I have shown, furnishes me with mu- 
 sic ; and I have heard nothing at the academy 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 307 
 
 in New York equal to the concerts given in the 
 trees around our ivy-covered porch. 
 
 Why should I speak of the sense of sight ! 
 It seems like proving the self-evident and en- 
 larging on an axiom. The genuine gardener 
 enjoys seeing even a pumpkin grow, though 
 the word " sprawl " is most characteristic of 
 its existence. How great and varied are the 
 pleasures that Nature provides when, in addition 
 to being bountiful in exquisite flowers, she also 
 gives to every fruit and vegetable some peculiar 
 touch of grace and beauty. 
 
 Then there is the sense of smelling, which we 
 do not half appreciate enough, perhaps because 
 so often it is a misfortune. When we consider 
 the millions who live in cities, and through 
 whose open windows the zephyr blows direct 
 from the gutter instead of a bed of mignonette, 
 and the millions in the country who have a pig- 
 sty near the house instead of a rose-arbor, it 
 
3o8 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 may be questioned whether the world would 
 not be better off with four senses instead of 
 five. It would seem, though, that to the latter 
 class the choice of the two odors was a matter 
 of taste, and that the near proximity of the 
 sty and the absence of the roses indicated their 
 preference. 
 
 But a man with a cultivated, indeed we may 
 say broadly, a civilized nose, is blessed in a gar- 
 den. We have all noticed how a drop or two of 
 some powerful perfume falling on a book, table, 
 or garment will distil its faint deliciousness for 
 weeks and months. Not a little of the essence 
 of Eden has fallen on the modern garden, and 
 lingers there from early spring till winter. I do 
 not refer to a cabbage patch on the wane, or 
 anything else on the wane, which slovenly gar- 
 deners leave around ; and it is not for me to 
 irreverently dispute the voice of antiquity in re- 
 gard to the onion. I must admire here as in 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 309 
 
 some other cases that I cannot understand, the 
 ancient wisdom of the world. Only great or 
 rash souls willingly become heretics and trample 
 on the authority of ages. 
 
 But my garden in the main is to my modern 
 unsophisticated nose like the Spice Islands of 
 the Pacific Ocean. Even the fresh-turned soil 
 in spring, before a seed has germinated or a 
 bud swollen, has a wholesome, grateful odor ; 
 and soon the reviving grass in the lawn, the 
 opening of fragrant buds, and modest violets 
 like timid blue eyes shyly watching you, the 
 glowing crocus and wax-like hyacinths, and 
 many others, all combine to fill Nature's censer 
 that April winds swing to and fro. And if 
 there is a piney grove near by, from which 
 motherwort, anemones, and trailing arbutus 
 can breathe their spirit into the floral service, 
 with which the praise of the season opens, 
 may I be there to worship also ! 
 
3IO CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 I have often asked myself, could anything 
 in Paradise have surpassed some of our spring 
 days, when the peach, plum, and cherry, and 
 then the pear and apple trees, become huge 
 bouquets ? May and June are Nature's fairy 
 festival — not the luxurious richness of mid- 
 summer, nor solid abundance of autumn, is 
 then served up ; but she spreads a dainty, del- 
 icate repast of dews and perfumes, of honey 
 such as flowers distil, and all the glancing, 
 airy creatures of the wing are invited. From 
 every flowering tree comes the hum of small talk 
 as innumerable honey-bees and yellow-jackets 
 sip and gossip ; while ever and anon some great 
 humble-bee goes blundering and booming 
 around, like some important and blustering 
 master of ceremonies. 
 
 But the birds are the wassailers par excellence. 
 They eat and drink, sing, fight, and make love 
 with an abandon that is quite human. 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 3II 
 
 You need not tell me that they don't get 
 *' high," and that their extravagances may re- 
 sult only from their bird nature. I know very 
 well that the bobolink who lived on the edge of 
 my garden last summer was more than slightly 
 inebriated several times when the apples were 
 in blossom. In language more forcible than 
 elegant, I maintain from what he said and did 
 (the test we apply to our neighbors) that he was 
 " tight," and if he was not, then I don't know 
 the world and have never seen any one drink 
 anything stronger than cambric tea. If he had 
 belonged to any temperance organization he 
 ought to have been disciplined. The truth was, 
 he had been hanging around a large apple-tree 
 in full bloom, all day, and when evening came, 
 he could not sing straight, fly straight, or do 
 anything decorously, but was the most jubilant, 
 incoherent, rollicking little blade that ever went 
 on a spree, and in the twilight tumbled into a 
 
312 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 cloverrfield to bed in a manner simply scandal- 
 ous. Mr. Gough should turn his attention to 
 the bobolinks. 
 
 What a chemist ISTature is ! How in the 
 name of all that is wonderful can she manage to 
 give every kind of flower and vegetable a 
 different perfume ? Some of the most homely 
 and useful products of the garden give out 
 odors that are as grateful as those of choice 
 flowers, just as some human lives that are busi- 
 est and fullest of care have still the aroma of 
 peace and rest about them. 
 
 " Well, well," growls some impatient reader, 
 " what has the garden to do with the sense of 
 touch ?" 
 
 If you had blistered your hands with a hoe 
 handle, I think you would know, my captious 
 reader. It will give you a man's hand instead 
 of a woman's. (Now I have disgusted scores 
 of the white-kid gentry.) I know modern 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 313 
 
 society produces multitudes of women who like 
 to be taken to the altar by men whose hands, 
 incased in Jouvain's latest style, are almost as 
 diminutive as their own. They may soon see 
 the day, however, when they will wish that the 
 man who offered his hand had offered little more 
 in that line. But let her put him in the garden a 
 while, and the lily fingers will soon grow more 
 capable of wielding the weapons of life's battle. 
 But it was not with the Spartan idea of dis- 
 cipline and manly development that I first re- 
 ferred my garden as ministering to the sense of 
 touch. It can do this as delicately and pleas- 
 urably as the viewless perfume. Pick off the 
 opening leaves from a lilac bush, and their 
 silken softness is as exquisite as their perfume. 
 Varied foliage is as different to the sense of 
 touch as to the eye. What sensation is more 
 delicious than that of pressing your lips into 
 the cool velvety centre of a double rose ! It is 
 
314 CORN AND EEANS, ETC. 
 
 the perfection of kissing, and without the shght- 
 est danger of scandal. 
 
 But after all our poetry and sentiment, it is 
 when we come to the sense of taste, what we 
 put in our mouths, that we realize what the gar- 
 den does for us. The most practical souls can 
 appreciate this phase of the subject. All want 
 what comes from the garden, and so the gar- 
 dener thrives. He need never starve whose 
 business is to supply a universal need, nor does 
 a man work with less unction when, in helping 
 to supply the world in general, he is also sup- 
 plying himself in particular. Basing my belief 
 on the sense of taste, I know that the reader 
 will enter into my feelings as I set about the 
 labors of later spring, the time when we pre- 
 pare to secure some of the chief delicacies of 
 the garden. 
 
 We will suppose that all the fruits of the 
 garden and orchard are properly set out and 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 315 
 
 cared for, as they ought to be by this time, 
 and will turn our attention to those annual 
 vegetables not yet specially mentioned, that 
 mature in the summer and fall. 
 
 I have found early beets a profitable crop in 
 my locality, and in '71 sold three hundred and 
 eight bunches for thirty dollars and twenty- 
 two cents. Having tried several varieties, I 
 prefer the "Extra Early Bassano " for market 
 purpose. The " Egyptian Blood " is an excel- 
 lent variety, did its name not make one's flesh 
 creep, and cause you to feel something like a 
 cannibal. The Bassano variety may be sown 
 even till the end of July, and will make good 
 roots by October, but the best crops are se- 
 cured from early sowings. I prefer to plant 
 as early in April as the ground is dry enough. 
 By putting the seed at this time in a- warm 
 light soil, and covering it with old black rotted 
 manure, a very early crop can be secured. 
 
3l6 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 Any one following this course will be in advance 
 of his neighbors, and will obtain excellent 
 prices. I have often sown radishes with my 
 beets, but have come to the conclusion, that it 
 does not pay, since the former retard the latter 
 to such a degree that no gain is secured. Fre- 
 quent stirring of the ground around the young 
 plants greatly stimulates their growth. When 
 they are about four inches high, thin them out, 
 so that they will stand three or four inches from 
 each other in the row, and let the rows be one 
 foot apart. These thinnings make excellent 
 spinach, and many will buy them for that pur- 
 pose. So do not be too economical of seed, as 
 it is far better to thin out, than plant over. 
 When it is desired to raise the largest and latest 
 crop, the soil should be cooler and moister in 
 its nature, and in every case should be very rich. 
 Cabbages and cauliflowers wintered over in 
 cold frames should, of course, be set out in 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 317 
 
 the open ground as soon as it can be nicely 
 worked, and by the first of May they should 
 be growing finely. But those grown under 
 glass from seed sown in the spring, should not 
 be put out till the weather is quite warm and 
 settled, and all danger of severe frost is over. 
 Though naturally hardy plants, they are not so 
 when forced in hot-beds or even cold frames. 
 After being placed in the open ground, nothing 
 does more good than frequent stirrings of the 
 soil around them. Be careful also never to 
 set them, if it can be helped, where any of the 
 cabbage family, or even turnips or radishes, 
 have been grown the year before ; for if you 
 do, you Avill very likely lose your crop with that 
 pest of the garden, the " club-foot," which ren- 
 ders the root a diseased solid mass. This evil 
 is so great in my grounds, that I have almost 
 given up contending with it; and in '71 my 
 sales of cabbage and cauliflowers unitedly only 
 
3l8 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 amounted to seven dollars and eighty-nine 
 cents. But where one has plenty of good 
 strong land, and can put the cabbage on new 
 ground every year, he will find it one of the 
 most profitable of crops. The tastes of fallen 
 man lean toward cabbage almost as universally 
 as toward the onion, and there is a large de- 
 mand for it in every market. 
 
 Carrots, though more truly a farm crop, de- 
 serve a place in the garden. The Long Orange 
 is the best variety. I give a little space to it 
 every year, arid find that it pays well. During 
 the summer there is a demand for carrots 
 bunched like beets or radishes, and to meet this 
 it is perhaps best to plant the Early Horn 
 variety. The seed of the last-named kind 
 should be sown as soon as the frost is out. 
 But even for early use I would rather employ 
 the Long Orange, and if planted as soon as 
 possible in spring, it will meet the summer de- 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 319 
 
 mand in a local market, and what remain make 
 large fine roots for winter. A good deal of 
 latitude in time is allowed in sowing this seed, 
 and the farmers (who are enterprising enough 
 to raise them) put in their main crop in June. 
 Any one in the country keeping a cow or even 
 a horse ought to raise a large quantity, as they 
 would in this way cheaply provide one of the 
 best kinds of feed, and one that would make 
 all other kinds of fodder more beneficial. 
 Even if there were but a limited market for this 
 vegetable it would pay to raise it, for a com- 
 paratively small piece of ground will yield so 
 largely as to reduce the expenses of keeping a 
 cow and horse nearly one half. 
 
 Celery seed should be sown as soon in April 
 as the ground becomes light and warm. Make 
 the rows seven or eight inches apart, and cover 
 the seed very lightly. The only further care 
 required till July is to keep tlic ground clear of 
 
320 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 weeds, and not to let the plants grow too 
 thickly, and therefore weak and spindling. 
 Thin out, and the last of June mow off the tops 
 of the young plants in the seed-bed. This 
 makes them strong and stocky, and much more 
 apt to live when set out in the trenches or open 
 ground. 
 
 About the last of April or first of May, seed 
 for late or winter cabbage should be sown, re- 
 membering the precautions that we have before 
 urged. About the last of June the young 
 plants will be large enough for transferral to the 
 place where they are to head. 
 
 A little lettuce seed of the Neapolitan, Malta, 
 or large Indian varieties may be sown also for 
 the summer supply. These kinds make very 
 large heads, and are best adapted for hot 
 weather. Then set out in rich soil; the plants 
 standing fifteen inches apart. After the first of 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 32 1 
 
 June there is no call for lettuce worth mention- 
 ing in my market. 
 
 I rarely sow spinach in the spring, expecting 
 a full supply from that started in the fall. In 
 many localities, it might pay well to raise a 
 summer crop of this. The gardener who has 
 strong, heavy land, in which this vegetable 
 would not winter over well, might find it very 
 profitable to sow the seed in the spring. He 
 certainly would, if he could find a good market 
 in June, and then he would have his ground 
 clear for celery or some late crop. 
 
 Early turnips have never payed in my garden, 
 though I have tried them several times. Expe- 
 rience in other localities might reverse this. 
 The seed should be sown as soon as the frost is 
 out, and sown thickly, for the black fly will 
 want his share. Thin out, so that the roots 
 will be at least six inches apart in the row. 
 
 Lime dusted over the young plants is said to 
 21 
 
32 2 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 keep off the insects, but I find nothing hke httle 
 chickens. 
 
 For the last two or three years, I have only 
 raised a few very early potatoes for home use. 
 They are a farm crop, and as I can raise a 
 bushel of strawberries almost as easily as the 
 potatoes, I prefer to take the nine dollars that 
 the latter will bring, and buy nine bushels of 
 potatoes. And yet, if one had plenty of land 
 adapted to the growth of this "corner-stone" 
 vegetable, and kept a horse, so that nearly all 
 the work could be done with a plough, it would 
 no doubt pay well to raise the Early Rose. I 
 have known them to sell as high as three dollars 
 a bushel, and a good crop at one dollar and 
 fifty cents would be very satisfactory. If it is 
 possible that I have a reader who dOes not 
 know how to cultivate the potato, let him ask 
 the first Irishman he meets, and he will get an 
 answer not far out of the way. At the same 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 323 
 
 time, there is scarcely a vegetable, with which 
 soil, locality, and culture make a greater differ- 
 ence ; and those raised on a sandy loam are 
 often as much better than those from wet land, 
 as light bread than dough. 
 
 I have always found, that a small space 
 devoted to cucumbers paid well, and of course 
 the home market must be supplied with this 
 vegetable. A crisp young cucumber, picked 
 with the dew on it, and sliced for breakfast, is 
 as different from the wilted article often found 
 in city markets, as sweet sixteen from sixty. 
 
 As I have said before, it is best to make the 
 hills quite early in the season. This can be 
 done by opening small round holes, four feet 
 apart each way, and filling them with mingled 
 soil and old rotted manure, heaping all up into 
 little mounds for the sun to warm and mellow. 
 Then, some time from the first to the tenth of 
 May, these can be levelled down and the seed 
 
324 CORN AND BEANS, ETC 
 
 planted. . It is best to plant from fifteen to 
 twenty seeds in each hill, so that the bugs may 
 have their share and still leave some for the 
 grower. They are not at all considerate, but 
 take all they can, and my plan is to have more 
 than they can destroy ; just as your cool generals 
 calculate they can carry a point, and still lose 
 three-fourths of the men they start with. At 
 the same time, like the generals, you must kill 
 all the opposing bugs you can. 
 
 Musk and water melons require similar treat- 
 ment. If the ground is light and inclined to 
 drouth, the hills should be made level with 
 ground around; but if heavy and damp, a rise 
 of six inches would be of benefit. 
 
 I also make cold frames very useful in growing 
 cucumbers. About the first of May, the lettuce 
 and radish crops in them are all sold, and the 
 large English varieties of " cues," as the truck- 
 men call them, or if preferred, the good old 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 325 
 
 standard kind, the "Improved White Spined," 
 can be planted and covered with glass. With 
 this artificial heat they will come forward very 
 rapidly, and if kept well aired and watered, will 
 give a fine and early yield. Some hasten the 
 crop very much, by placing a small box covered 
 with four panes of glass over the hills in the 
 open garden. Plants so protected can be started 
 by the middle of April. 
 
 The curious reader has doubtless failed to see, 
 thus far, the bearing of these pages on the sug- 
 gestive Indian word " Succotash," with which I 
 commenced this chapter. This has been on the 
 good old principle, that we try to save the best 
 till the last. It is probably known, that this 
 savory dish which crowns our dinner tables in 
 July and August, is a relic of the red-man ; and 
 it is the one Indian antiquity that I am specially 
 interested in. The vanished tribes will never be 
 forgotten while corn and beans grow, and this 
 
326 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 happy combination, which they taught to the 
 pale face, quite comforts us for their absence. 
 Succotash may not be quite so romantic as war- 
 whoops and scalpings, but then we belong to a 
 practical age. 
 
 But before we revel in this heathen dainty, 
 we must, like the mythical Hiawatha, wrestle 
 with Mondamin, "conquer and overcome" 
 him, 
 
 " Make a bed for him to lie in 
 
 Where the rain may fall upon him, 
 Where the smi may come and warm him." 
 
 In other words, we must first plant our corn. 
 
 Happily, the raising of this delicious vegetable 
 is no great mystery. The Indian squaws suc- 
 ceeded well with it, and in view of this fact no 
 manly and civilized gardener would like to ad- 
 mit of failure. A rich light soil and good cult- 
 ure rarely fail in giving a good crop year after 
 year. There is almost a universal demand for 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 327 
 
 it in every market, and by planting the diffj.-cnt 
 kinds, and by successive plantings from the first 
 of May till the last of June, a good supply can 
 be maintained a long time. A little well-rotted 
 manure in the hill with the seed greatly hastens 
 and strengthens its growth. I have found the 
 " Early Crosby, Early Eight Rowed, and Stow- 
 ell's Late Evergreen," the best varieties. 
 
 Where the corn is grown some distance from 
 the house, the crows are often troublesome. 
 They are said to be a very sagacious bird, and 
 having once found a row, will go up and down 
 it, seemingly knowing just where to look for the 
 hills. My father once had an old colored gar- 
 dener, who made the rows so crooked that the 
 crows could not find them, for having never 
 been to Congress they expected things to be on 
 the square. 
 
 I also recall a story that I have heard which 
 suggests another remedy. I can vouch for the 
 
328 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 fact that this story has really been told, and by 
 an ancient man, not woman, and this is more 
 than can be said of many stories. If the result 
 was more favorable to crow nature than to hu- 
 man nature, that is a fault of the facts. 
 
 Once upon a time a man planted corn, and 
 the crows dug it up. The aforesaid man had 
 great faith in whiskey ; but the aforesaid crows 
 knew nothing about whiskey. The man 
 thought that if he soaked some corn in the " fu- 
 sel," and put it in the field, the crows might be- 
 come so thoroughly corned that he could catch, 
 preserve, and hang them up as warnings, so that 
 their companions might shun the place where 
 there was danger of getting into a like pickle. 
 The experiment turned out differently, but 
 even better than he expected. For a crow soon 
 appeared and gorged himself with the spirit- 
 soaked corn. The consequences were quite hu- 
 man. From his crop it went to his head, which 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 329 
 
 soon felt " queer," then dizzy. He tried to step 
 off in his wonted stately manner, but tumbled 
 into a furrow. He staggered up a corn-hill, and 
 stood there, in bewildered, helpless imbecility, 
 blinking at the trees and fences that seemed 
 dancing a hornpipe in the spring sunshine. 
 
 Just at this inopportune moment a dozen or 
 more crows came sailing toward the field, bent 
 on a good square meal from their accustomed 
 "pickings and stealings," as a politician would 
 express himself, when something in the peculiar 
 appearance of their "discouraged" companion 
 arrested their attention, and they gathered round 
 him with no slight cazvs for wonder. The san- 
 guine man that had soaked the corn, that had 
 " corned " the crow, expected to see i\\\ the rest 
 follow suit, like so many of his neighbors. He 
 hardly expected to find a higher standard of vir- 
 tue in his corn-field than in that social centre, 
 the village tavern. But for once, at least, it was 
 
^^O CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 proved that there Is honor among thieves, for 
 the robbers stood around their staggering fellow, 
 grave and remonstrative, and seemingly much 
 scandalized. Then from being stupidly drunk, 
 the crow became pugnaciously drunk, and 
 wanted to fight them all around for nothing, d 
 la " Sixth Ward." From this he passed on to 
 the maudlin and sentimental stage, and offered 
 some uncouth gallantries to the oldest and most 
 sedate crow of the party. 
 
 This was past endurance. There was a brief 
 clamorous council, and with an expression of 
 unmlngled disgust resting on their usually 
 solemn and sanctimonious faces, they took wing 
 and were seen no more. 
 
 " Consider the ravens," O ye children of 
 men ! It only remains to be said that the in- 
 ebriated crow thus socially "cut' and ostra- 
 cized, not having a gutter to lie In, like lordly 
 man, did the next best thing possible, and tum- 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 33 1 
 
 bled head first into a furrow ; from whence the 
 man, the Mephistopheles of the plot, took him, 
 and hung him up in black, as warning to other 
 crows — would that I could add, to other men. 
 
 Happy termination. The corn grew and 
 prospered, and became the first ingredient of the 
 delicious Indian compound. 
 
 There is no occasion to enlarge greatly on 
 beans. People of average intelligence are ex- 
 pected to know this vegetable. 
 
 The two varieties that I have found most 
 profitable are the " Dwarf German Wax," as a 
 bush bean, and the " Large Lima," for poles. 
 Of the former twcnty-thrcc and one-fourth bush- 
 els were sold for fifty-one dollars ; of the latter, 
 nineteen and one-eighth bushels, for thirty-six 
 dollars and seventy-seyen cents. 
 
 The Dwarf German Wax can be planted very 
 early, and they seem quite hardy. I have suc- 
 ceeded well with those put in light warm ground, 
 
332 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 quite early in April. This variety needs rich 
 soil, and rotted manure drilled in with the seed 
 is of great advantage. The limas should not 
 be planted till about the tenth of May in our 
 latitude, as they cannot endure cold or wet 
 weather. Unless the ground of the garden is 
 rich and light, it is well to prepare the hills 
 around poles, as described for cucumbers. 
 
 Many lose their first plantings by covering 
 too deeply. Limas should be pushed under the 
 soil about an inch only, eye or germ down- 
 wards. Seemingly they do not like being bur- 
 ied, and soon reappear again, thus tending to 
 substantiate the ghost theory still so prevalent. 
 Not unfrequently the surprised amateur has 
 poked them back again and then they stayed, 
 but the poles remained bare. If you want to 
 obtain anything from Nature, treat her as 
 " lovely woman," and let her have her ov/n way 
 as far as possible, however odd her methods. 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. ^;^^ 
 
 Arbitrary measures won't answer, as some of 
 my readers outside of the garden may have dis- 
 covered. 
 
 I now consider that I have done all in my 
 power to secure succotash, and therefore happi- 
 ness, to my readers. May not come grateful 
 sighs of memory mingled with the mouthsful 
 next July? If what is esteemed the profound- 
 est human philosophy be true, I have gained 
 some hold on the popular heart. 
 
 We close with a few marriages, as all ortho- 
 dox stories should. 
 
 It now but remains to link the labors of late 
 spring and of summer with those before de- 
 scribed, as appropriately commencing with 
 autumn, and then to bow myself out. 
 
 The tomato has probably been the most 
 profitable vegetable that I have raised. It will 
 
334 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 grow on any soil, and after being once started, 
 requires but little attention. The main point is 
 to have good, strong, stocky plants by the lOth 
 of May, to set out in the open ground. Every- 
 one can grow tomatoes, and nearly every one 
 does, who has a few feet of land ; and since they 
 will flourish where a weed will live, success 
 crowns the most careless culture. But in having 
 tomatoes very early, any amount of skill and 
 effort can be expended. In the height of the 
 season, there are times when they will not sell 
 at any price, while I have sold those first ripen- 
 ing at twelve cents a quart. Therefore every 
 year we have half a dozen or more " novelties " 
 introduced, each said to be earlier than any- 
 thing ever grown before. But gardeners are 
 annually losing their childlike faith in regard to 
 these. Still try a few. It is an innocent form 
 of gambling and will add interest to the garden. 
 But we would advise that the main supply be 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 335 
 
 of the "Solid Smooth Red," "Trophy," and 
 " General Grant." I am going to try the 
 " General " four years longer. But in order to 
 be first in the market, sow the seed of some very 
 early variety in a hot-bed as soon in March as 
 you can, and about the middle of April transfer 
 the plants to a deep cold frame, where the 
 glass will be at least two feet from the bottom 
 of the pit. Set them out six or eight inches 
 apart, so that the plants will grow bushy and 
 strong. Give plenty of air in the heat of the 
 day,, and in ivarin rains take off the glass 
 altogether. Thus the plants will be very vigor- 
 ous and hardy by May lOth. Set them out in 
 a warm and rather dry spot in the open garden, 
 and do not let the soil be too rich, as this tends 
 to growth of vines rather than fruit, and you 
 will beat your neighbors, whi:h is a very proper 
 thing for a gardener to do. My sales in '71 
 were eighty-two and one-fou/th bushels, realiz- 
 
336 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 ing one hundred and twenty-five dollars and 
 sixty' cents. In '72 the results were not very 
 different. A great many pretty experiments 
 can be tried in pruning and training the tomato, 
 which the amateur's genius or leisure will sug- 
 gest. The majority of us are satisfied to set 
 out the plants and hoe them. 
 
 We next come to the treatment of the straw- 
 berry-beds previous to their fruiting, and can 
 assure the reader that the crop can be greatly 
 enhanced by proper culture, during April and 
 especially May. In the first place, if it was not 
 done in fall, a good top-dressing of manure in 
 the early spring stimulates the plants very much. 
 If the manure is fine, it can be scattered im- 
 mediately over the plants, as well as around 
 them. If they were covered with coarse 
 manure in the fall, then this can be forked in 
 between the rows in April. Good cultivation, 
 frequent stirrings of the soil until they begin to 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 337 
 
 blossom, adds to their vigor greatly ; but as 
 soon as the fruit commences to form, the roots 
 should be in no Avay disturbed, but another and 
 entirely different course adopted, which, prob- 
 ably carried out, often works wonders. I refer 
 to judicious mulching. 
 
 Say that the soil between the rows is light, 
 and free of weeds, as it ought to be. Then 
 after the first rain, when the ground has been 
 well moistened, cover the intervening spaces 
 between the plants thickly and closely with 
 leaves, or better still, fresh grass just cut from 
 the lawn. Only unparalleled drouth will 
 greatly injure the bed so treated. The berries 
 will be much larger and finer, and the plants 
 continue longer in bearing. Moreover, the fruit 
 will be perfectly clean, and will need no washing 
 for the table ; a process that robs it of flavor 
 and beauty. For these reasons, it is far better 
 
 to keep the plants in straight rows, as the 
 23 
 
338 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 ground can then be readily covered with grass, 
 leaves, or straw, at the time of blossoming. 
 Where the beds have been permitted to run to- 
 gether, or where they are cultivated in wide, 
 matted rows, it is next to impossible to mulch 
 them well, and they are very apt to suffer from 
 drouth. This was the case with my beds in '71. 
 I could not bring myself to cut out the strong, 
 thrifty plants, so as to leave good spaces be- 
 tween the rows. The ground Vv^as rich, so I 
 concluded to let all fruit. If May had been cool 
 and moist (the weather that the strawberry de- 
 lights in), my crop would have been enormous. 
 But, from the middle of May till some time in 
 June, we had a very unusual drouth. I tried 
 watering, as before intimated, and perhaps 
 helped some of my beds very much, but others, 
 I think, were injured. It is well known to gar- 
 deners that if you once commence watering in a 
 dry time, you must continue, or the plants v/ill 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 339 
 
 suffer far more than if left to fight it out them- 
 selves. If you can thoroughly soak your beds 
 and keep them moist, watering always in the 
 evening, they will do splendidly. But if you 
 water in the morning, or while the sun shines, 
 the plants will be scalded and the fruit injured ; 
 and if the ground is left to dry out thoroughly 
 after an artificial watering, still greater harm 
 will be done. My difficulties and losses in try- 
 ing to water a large area are thus plainly indi- 
 cated, even though I had the water drawn in a 
 barrel by a horse. Still, as I have stated, I 
 raised fifty-seven bushels of fruit on five-eighths 
 of an acre, but am satisfied that the same num- 
 ber of plants, kept in rows and mulched, would 
 have yielded over seventy bushels, and at less 
 cost and culture. 
 
 On the 31st of May three quarts were picked. 
 What though they were sour, as the first ripen- 
 ing always are ? They were big and red, with 
 
340 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 something of the ambrosial strawberry flavor, 
 and had the exquisite aroma that almost rivals 
 the rose. 
 
 As has been hinted, it is the time-honored 
 custom of story-tellers to marry off some of their 
 principal characters in their closing chapter. I 
 have already united my corn and beans in the 
 delightful combination of succotash. Single 
 beans and single corn are very well, but they 
 are much better together. Good marriages 
 always improve character. 
 
 It still remains for me to provide for my 
 blushing strawberries and delicate raspberries, 
 and for them "nobody and nothing" is good 
 enough, but cream from our Alderney cow. 
 The happy fruit is picked for breakfast with the 
 dew upon it for wedding diamonds. 
 
 And wlien the cream appears, 
 Is soon "o'er head and ears." 
 
 Who would not be a gardener, when he 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 34I 
 
 could solemnize such unions three times a day ? 
 Do not imagine that you can do this as well in 
 the city as the country. There may be more 
 parade of silver and gold in the service, but 
 city berries are too often like city belles ; city 
 cream like Wall Street men. They have seen 
 too much of the world. 
 
 To change a subject that may not be agree- 
 able to all, we turn to one somewhat in con- 
 trast, and remark that winter cabbage should 
 be set out before the Fourth of July, in our 
 latitude, and it would be better that the large 
 late varieties were growing in the open ground 
 the last of June. 
 
 I might refer to other vegetables, from which 
 some slight revenue was obtained, or might be ; 
 but as this is mainly a record of experience, they 
 scarcely have place in these pages. If this trea- 
 tise is in any sense exhaustive, it deserves such 
 character solely from its effect on the reader. 
 
342 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 We will, therefore, close with celery, the 
 latest, and perhaps the most delicious vegetable 
 of the garden. 
 
 Before the lOth of August, it should all be 
 in the trenches, where it is to grow and blanch. 
 Some prefer to set out the plants on level 
 ground, in rows four or five feet apart, and 
 doubtless this is the most economical way of 
 raising it by the quantity, especially where the 
 dwarf varieties are used. I have practised 
 both methods with success. A very rich soil 
 is indispensable for this crop. In fall it is my 
 plan to draw the earth up around the plants 
 about once a week, so that the blanching 
 process will go forward with the growth. 
 
 I much prefer storing my celery in the open 
 garden during the winter. It is very easily 
 and simply done. Selecting some gravelly 
 slope where there is thorough drainage, I have 
 a trench cut, a foot wide and about the depth 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 343 
 
 of the celery's length, so that when packed 
 close in the trench, in the natural position in 
 which it grew, its top leaves will be a little 
 above the surface of the ground. As the 
 weather grows colder, late in November, the 
 earth can be drawn up till the leaves are nearly- 
 all covered. This should not be done till 
 freezing weather has really come, for too early 
 and close earthing up might cause decay. Just 
 before winter sets in, cover heavily with leaves 
 or straw. Thus all frost will be kept out, and 
 you will be able to get at the plants any time. 
 Under this treatment they will usually keep in 
 excellent order till spring. 
 
 I prefer to get my celery plants nicely grow- 
 ing during July. Places from which early 
 crops were taken furnish the needed space, and 
 this is put in readiness by the most thorough 
 enriching of the soil. As my ground is lim- 
 ited, and as I raise the large varieties, I usually 
 
344 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 prepare trenches about eight inches deep and 
 eighteen wide for the plants. Then we are on 
 the watch for showers, so as to get as many out 
 as possible before the rain. 
 
 Sometimes we have three or four showers a 
 day, and the cloud scenery resulting is often 
 marvellously beautiful; but usually they make 
 their appearance some hot afternoon about 
 three or four o'clock. 
 
 A person living in the city can have little 
 idea of thunder-storms as they occur in this 
 mountain region. The hills about us, while 
 they attract the electrified clouds, are also our 
 protection, for, abounding in iron ore, they be- 
 come huge lightning-rods above the houses 
 and hamlets at their bases. But little recks old 
 Bear Mountain, or Cro' Nest, Jove's most fiery 
 bolts. The rocky splinters fly for a moment ; 
 some oak or chestnut comes quivering down ; 
 but soon the mosses, like kindly charity, have 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 345 
 
 covered up the wounded rock, and three or 
 four saphngs have grown from the roots of the 
 bhghted tree. 
 
 But the storm we witness from our safe and 
 sheltered homes is often grand beyond descrip- 
 tion. At first, in the distant west, a cloud rises 
 so dark that you can scarcely distinguish it from 
 a blue highland. But a low muttering of thun- 
 der vibrates through the sultry air, and we know 
 what is coming. Soon the afternoon sun is shad- 
 ed, and a deep, unnatural twilight settles upon 
 the landscape, like the shadow of a great sorrow 
 on a face that was smiling a moment before. 
 The thunder grows heavier, like the rumble and 
 roar of an approaching battle. The western 
 arch of the sky is black as night. The eastern 
 arch is bright and sunny, and as you glance from 
 side to side, you cannot but think of those who, 
 comparatively innocent and happy at first, cloud 
 their lives in maturer years with evil and crime, 
 
346 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 and darken the future with the wrath of heaven. 
 At last the vanguard of black flying clouds, dis- 
 jointed, jagged, the rough skirmish line of the 
 advancing storm, is over our heads. Back of 
 these, in one dark, solid mass, comes the tem- 
 pest. For a moment there is a sort of hush of 
 expectation, like the lull before a battle. The 
 trees on the distant brow of a mountain are seen 
 to toss and writhe, but as yet no sound is heard. 
 Soon there is a faint, far-away rushing noise, 
 the low, deep prelude of Nature's grand musical 
 discord that is to follow. There is a vivid 
 flash, and a startling peal of thunder breaks forth 
 overhead, and rolls away with countless rever- 
 berations among the hills. In the meantime the 
 distant rushing sound has developed into an in- 
 creasing roar. Half way down the mountain 
 side the trees are swaying wildly. At the base 
 stands a grove, motionless, expectant, like a 
 square of infantry awaiting an impetuous cavalry 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 347 
 
 charge. In a moment it comes. At first the 
 shock seems terrible. Every branch bends low. 
 Dead limbs rattle down like hail. Leaves torn 
 away fly wildly through the air. But the sturdy 
 trunks stand their ground, and the baffled tem- 
 pest passes on. Mingling with the rush of the 
 wind and reverberations of thunder, a new 
 sound, a new part now enters into the grand 
 harmony. At first it is a low, continuous roar, 
 caused by the falling rain upon the leaves. It 
 grows louder fast, like the pattering feet of a 
 coming multitude. Then the great drops fall 
 around, yards apart, like scattering shots. 
 They grow closer, and soon a streaming torrent 
 drives you to shelter. The next heavy peal is 
 to the eastward, showing that the bulk of the 
 shower is past. The roar of the thunder dies 
 away down the river. The thickly falling rain 
 contracts your vision to a narrow circle, out of 
 which Cozzcns's c^i'cat hotel and Bear Mountain 
 
348 CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 
 
 loom vaguely. The flowers and shrubbery 
 bend to the moisture with the air of one who 
 stands and takes it. The steady, continuous 
 plash upon the roof slackens into a quiet patter- 
 ing of rain-drops. The west is lightening up ; 
 by and by a long line of blue is seen above Cro' 
 Nest. The setting sun shines out upon a puri- 
 fied and more beautiful landscape. Every leaf, 
 every spire of grass is brilliant with gems of 
 moisture. The cloud scenery has all changed. 
 The sun is setting in unclouded splendor. Not 
 the west but the east is now black with storm ; 
 but the rainbow, emblem of hope and God's 
 mercy, spans its blackness, and in the skies we 
 again have suggested to us a life, once clouded 
 and darkly threatened by evil, but now, through 
 penitence and reform, ending in peace and 
 beauty, , God spanning the wrong of the past 
 with His rich and varied promises of forgive- 
 ness. At last the skies are clear again. Along 
 
CORN AND BEANS, ETC. 349 
 
 the eastern horizon the retreating storm sends 
 up occasional flashes, that seem hke regretful 
 thoughts of the past. Then night comes on, 
 cool, moonlit, breathless. Not a leaf stirs 
 where an hour before the sturdiest limbs bent to 
 the earth. This must be Nature's commentary 
 on the "peace that passeth all understanding." 
 
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