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Page 14
THE GARDEN
We now approach that part of the acre to which its possessor will
probably give his warmest and most frequent thoughts--the garden.
If properly made and conducted, it will yield a revenue which the
wealth of the Indies could not purchase; for whoever bought in
market the flavor of fruit and vegetables raised by one's own
hands or under our own eyes? Sentiment does count. A boy is a boy;
but it makes a vast difference whether he is our boy or not. A
garden may soon become a part of the man himself, and he be a
better man for its care. Wholesome are the thoughts and schemes it
suggests; healthful are the blood and muscle resulting from its
products and labor therein. Even with the purse of a millionaire,
the best of the city's markets is no substitute for a garden; for
Nature and life are here, and these are not bought and sold. From
stalls and pedlers' wagons we can buy but dead and dying things.
The indolent epicure's enjoyment of game is not the relish of the
sportsman who has taken his dinner direct from the woods and
waters.
I am often told, "It is cheaper to buy fruit and vegetables than
to raise them." I have nothing to say in reply. There are many
cheap things that we can have; experience has proved that one of
the BEST things to have is a garden, either to work in or to visit
daily when the season permits. We have but one life to live here,
and to get the cheapest things out of it is a rather poor
ambition.
There are multitudes who can never possess an acre, more or less,
and who must obtain Nature's products at second hand. This is not
so great a misfortune as to have no desire for her companionship,
or wish to work under her direction in dewy mornings and shadowy
evenings. We may therefore reasonably suppose that the man who has
exchanged his city shelter for a rural home looks forward to the
garden with the natural, primal instinct, and is eager to make the
most of it in all its aspects. Then let us plunge in medias res at
once.
The ideal soil for a garden is a mellow, sandy loam, underlaid
with a subsoil that is not too open or porous. Such ground is
termed "grateful," and it is not the kind of gratitude which has
been defined as "a lively appreciation of favors to come," which
is true of some other soils. This ideal land remembers past
favors; it retains the fertilizers with which it has been
enriched, and returns them in the form of good crops until the
gift is exhausted; therefore it is a thrifty as well as a grateful
soil. The owner can bring it up to the highest degree of
fertility, and keep it there by judicious management. This sandy
loam--Nature's blending of sand and clay--is a safe bank. The
manure incorporated with it is a deposit which can be drawn
against in fruit and vegetables, for it does not leach away and
disappear with one season's rains.
Light, thin, sandy soil, with a porous or gravelly subsoil, is of
a very different type, and requires different treatment. It is a
spendthrift. No matter how much you give it one year, it very soon
requires just so much more. You can enrich it, but you can't keep
it rich. Therefore you must manage it as one would take care of a
spendthrift, giving what is essential at the time, and in a way
that permits as little waste as possible. I shall explain this
treatment more fully further on.
In the choice of a garden plot you may be restricted to a stiff,
tenacious, heavy clay. Now you have a miser to deal with--a soil
that retains, but in many cases makes no proper use of, what it
receives. Skill and good management, however, can improve any
soil, and coax luxuriant crops from the most unpropitious.
We will speak first of the ideal soil already mentioned, and hope
that the acre contains an area of it of suitable dimensions for a
garden. What should be the first step in this case? Why, to get
more of it. A quarter of an acre can be made equal to half an
acre. You can about double the garden, without adding to it an
inch of surface, by increasing the depth of good soil. For
instance, ground has been cultivated to the depth of six or seven
inches. Try the experiment of stirring the soil and enriching it
one foot downward, or eighteen inches, or even two feet, and see
what vast differences will result. With every inch you go down,
making all friable and fertile, you add just so much more to root
pasturage. When you wish to raise a great deal, increase your
leverage. Roots are your levers; and when they rest against a deep
fertile soil they lift into the air and sunshine products that may
well delight the eyes and palate of the most fastidious. We
suggest that this thorough deepening, pulverization, and enriching
of the soil be done at the start, when the plow can be used
without any obstructions. If there are stones, rocks, roots,
anything which prevents the treatment which a garden plot should
receive, there is a decided advantage in clearing them all out at
the beginning. Last fall I saw a half-acre that was swampy, and so
encumbered with stones that one could walk all over it without
stepping off the rocks. The land was sloping, and therefore
capable of drainage. The proprietor put three men to work on the
lower side with picks, shovels, and blasting-tools. They turned
the soil over to the depth of eighteen inches, taking out every
stone larger than a walnut. Eight or ten feet apart deep ditches
were cut, and the stones, as far as possible, placed in these. The
rest were carted away for a heavy wall. You may say it was
expensive work. So it was; yet so complete a garden spot was made
that I believe it would yield a fair interest in potatoes alone. I
relate this instance to show what can be done. A more forbidding
area for a garden in its original state could scarcely be found.
Enough vegetables and fruit can be raised from it hereafter, with
annual fertilizing, to supply a large family, and it will improve
every year under the refining effects of frost, sun, and
cultivation.
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