Pleasant Talk About Fruits, Flowers and Farming

Chapter VII: Preface: To the First Edition (7)

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Ashes are peculiarly good for all kinds of melon, squash, and cucumber vines. This is well known to those who raise watermelons on burnt fields, on old charcoal pits, etc. We have seen statements of cucumbers being planted upon a peck of pure, leached ashes, in a hole in the ground, and thriving with great vigor. The ashes of vines show a great amount of potash; and as wood ashes afford this substance abundantly, its use would seem to be indicated by theory as well as confirmed by experiment.

Lastly, whenever ground is liable to suffer severely from drought, we would advise a liberal use of ashes and salt.

HARD TIMES.

What are called _hard times_ produce very different effects on different individuals. Some are made more industrious, and some more indolent; some grow frugal and careful, others careless and desperate; some never appear so honest as when brought to the _pinch_, but many men seem honest _until_ they are brought to the trial, and then give way. Hard times are gradually passing away. As a community, are we better or worse off than before? A few particulars may help us to form some judgment.

Fewer goods are bought at the store, and more are manufactured at home; spinning-wheels and looms have renewed their youth—and so have our mothers, who, after a long disuse, may now be seen working as merrily at them, as they used to do when they spun and wove their _wedding_ furnishings—although they have not now any such rosy hope to quicken their aged fingers. Men have been obliged to rely more upon their own ingenuity—for want of money to pay the carpenter, the blacksmith, the shoe-maker, etc. Old clothes, old tools have been made to serve an additional campaign.

The leisure of dull times has been improved extensively in setting out orchards, and we hope this practice will be continued in busy times. No one has, during the _pressure_, suffered for food, raiment, or shelter. Indeed, it is supposed that not a pound less of sugar, tea and coffee, has been used by the farmers than hitherto. Probably the quantity has increased.

Debts have been gradually contracted or discharged. Men have seen the end of speculations to be sudden disaster—and (of all things on earth) speculation-farming has received its reward. Men contented with small gains—industrious, frugal, and prudent men have suffered almost nothing.

GYPSUM.—“Time and practice” have ascertained the circumstances under which gypsum should be applied. As a reason why, after repeated applications, it no longer benefits, Prof. Liebig says, “when we increase the crop of hay in a meadow by means of gypsum, we remove a greater quantity of potash with the hay, than can, under ordinary circumstances, be restored. Hence it happens that, after the lapse of several years, the crops of grass on lands manured with gypsum, diminish, owing to the deficiency of potash.” In such a case, if spent ashes were employed either in connection or alternately with gypsum—potash would be resupplied from the ashes.

ACCLIMATING A PLOW.

The other day we were riding past a large farm, and were much gratified at a device of the owner for the preservation of his tools. A good plow, apparently new in the spring, had been left in one corner of the field, standing in the furrow, just where, four months before, the boy had finished his _stint_. Probably the timber needed _seasoning_—it was certainly getting it. Perhaps it was left out for acclimation. May-be the farmer left it there to save time in the hurry of the spring-work, in dragging it from the shed. Perhaps he covered the share to keep it from the elements, and save it from rusting. Or, again, perhaps he is troubled with neighbors that _borrow_, and had left it where it would be convenient for them. He might, at least, have built a little shed over it. Can any one tell what a farmer leaves a plow out a whole season for? It is barely possible that he was an _Irishman_, and had _planted_ for a spring crop of plows.

After we got to sleep that night, we dreamed a dream. We went into that man’s barn; boards were kicked off, partitions were half broken down, racks broken, floor a foot deep with manure, hay trampled under foot and wasted, grain squandered. The wagon had not been hauled under the shed, though it was raining. The harness was scattered about—hames in one place, the breeching in another—the lines were used for _halters_. We went to the house. A shed stood hard by, in which a family wagon was kept for wife and daughters to go to town in. The hens had appropriated it as a roost, and however plain it was _once_, it was ornamented _now_, inside and out. (Here, by the way, let it be remembered that hen-dung is the _best_ manure for melons, squashes, cucumbers, etc.) We peeped into the smoke-house, but of all the “fixings” that we ever saw! A Chinese Museum is nothing to it. Onions, soap-grease, squashes, hogs’ bristles, soap, old iron, kettles, a broken spinning-wheel, a churn, a grindstone, bacon, hams, washing tubs, a barrel of salt, bones with the meat half cut off, scraps of leather, dirty bags, a chest of Indian meal, old boots, smoked sausages, the ashes and brands that remained since the last “smoke,” stumps of brooms, half a barrel of rotten apples, together with rats, bacon bugs, earwigs, sowbugs, and other vermin which collect in damp dirt. We started for the house; the window near the door had twelve lights, two of wood, two of hats, four of paper, one of a bunch of rags, one of a pillow, and the _rest_ of glass. Under it stood several cooking pots, and several that were _not_ for cooking. As we were meditating whether to enter, such a squall arose from a quarrelling man and woman, that we awoke—and lo! it was a dream. So that the man who left his plow out all the season, may live in the neatest house in the county, for all that we know; only, was it not strange that we should have dreamed all this from just seeing a plow left out in the furrow.

SCOUR YOUR PLOWS BRIGHT!

Farmers may be surprised to know that their crops will depend a good deal on the color of the plows! yet so it is. Bright plows are found to produce much better crops than any other. It may be electricity, or magic for aught we know; we merely state the fact, leaving others to account for it. But very much depends upon the manner of doing it, for merely scrubbing it by hand with emery or sand is not the thing—_it must be scoured by the soil_. It is found that the subsoil scours it better for wheat, than the top soil—for a plow kept bright by very deep plowing affords better wheat than a plow brightened by the surface of the soil. It is the same with corn. In respect to this last crop, if you will keep your plow bright as a mirror until the corn is in the milk, you will find that it will have a wonderful effect. We appeal to every good farmer if he ever knew a rusty plow to be accompanied with good crops? Iron rust on a plow-share is poisonous to corn.

A young farmer of about twenty years of age said to us the other day: “If anybody wants me, he must come to my corn-field; I live there—I am at it all the time—I have harrowed my corn once, plowed five times, and gone over it with the hoe once.” “Yes,” said his old father, who seemed, justly, quite proud of his son—“keep your plows agoing if you want to fetch corn. I never let the ground settle on the top; if it is beaten down by rain, or begins to look a kind of rusty on the surface, I pitch into it, and keep it as mealy as flour. The fact is our farmers raise more corn than they can tend, they can’t go over the corn more than once or twice, and that’ll never do, and I guess I’ll show old Billy R—— that it’s so.”

Some ambitious farmers are pleased to “lay by” the corn very early; but it is not wise; for the grass is always more forward to grow about this season than any other; and the ground will become very foul where corn is too early laid by, and, what is more to the purpose, a great deal of the nourishment of a crop is derived from the air and dew _conveyed to the roots_. This can be done only when the surface is kept thoroughly open.

PLOW TILL IT IS DRY, AND PLOW TILL IT IS WET.

Speaking of corn, a very intelligent gentleman remarked: “Well, by a five minutes’ talk, I made Mr. —— produce the best crop he ever had on a certain field.” He was looking over the fence where his corn was, at a flat field, upon furrows full of water; as I came by he said: “Well, I shall never get a crop off this piece of land; it’s going just as it always does when I plant here.” I told him of an old man in Indiana, who was a good farmer, to whom I once said when at his house one morning:

“Deafenbaugh, how is it that you always have good corn when no one else gets a half crop?”

“_Why_,” said he, “_when it is wet I plow it till it is dry, and when it is dry I plow it till it is wet_.”

The man to whom I told this anecdote, says our informant, tried the practice, and gained a fine crop.

Now the principle is _good_. Our Dutch friend would not, we suppose, plow a stiff _clay_ in a wet condition, unless, possibly, to strike a channel through the middle between rows. But the gist of the story lies in this—_constant cultivation_. Stir, _stir_, STIR the ground.

STIRRING THE SOIL.

Next to deep plowing we should urge the advantage of continually stirring the surface of the soil.

IT PRODUCES CLEANLINESS.—Weeds in a growing crop are witnesses which no good farmer can afford to have testifying against him. When seed is sown broad-cast, weeding cannot be performed. In Europe, where labor is cheap and children plenty, acres of wheat and such-like crops are weeded by hand. _Our_ only chance is to clear out every field, to be sown broad-cast, by a thorough previous culture. In all crops which are drilled, or planted in rows, the hoe, or plow, or cultivator, should be kept in lively use through the season. This practice should begin early, that weeds and grass may not get a start, for often, if they do, it is nearly impossible to keep them down, especially if the season is a wet one.

But there are yet some important reasons for constantly stirring the soil among growing crops. No matter how thoroughly the earth was pulverized when the seed was put in, one or two rains will, except in very sandy loam, beat it down compactly. This crust is injurious in preventing the ingress of moisture. But that which is the most material of all is, that _it excludes the air_. It is well known that the air affords much nourishment to vegetation; but, perhaps, it is not as well known, that it supplies it _by the root_ as well as by the leaf. If any one wishes to try the experiment, and we have done it time and again, let two patches in a garden be treated in all respects alike, except in this—let one be hoed or raked _every two or three days_ and the other not at all, or but once in the season.

The result will satisfy any man better than a paper argument. Indeed, we have found it impossible (in a garden) to perfect some vegetables without constantly stirring the soil.

While these advantages are gained, it is not to be forgotten that, in dry seasons, a thorough pulverization of the surface, will prevent the evaporation of the moisture _in the earth_ and prevent deleterious effects of the drought.

SUBSOIL PLOWING.

One of the great improvements of the age is the adoption in husbandry of the subsoil plow; or, as it is called in England, _Deanstonizing system_, from Mr. Smith, of _Deanstone_, who first brought the implement into general notice. They are designed to follow in the furrow of a common plow, and pulverize without bringing up the soil for eight or ten inches deeper. In ordinary soils two yoke of oxen will work it with ease, plowing from an acre to an acre and a quarter a day.

The use of this plow will renovate old bottom-lands, the surface of which has been exhausted by shallow plowing and continual cropping. It brings up from below fresh material, which the atmosphere speedily prepares for crops.

Old fields, a long time in grass, are very much benefited.

Constant plowing at about the same depth will often form a hard under-floor by the action of the plow, through which neither roots nor rain can well penetrate; subsoiling will relieve a field thus conditioned.

Soils lying upon clay or hard compact gravel are opened and remarkably improved by the process. The wet, level, beech-lands would be greatly benefited by deep plowing in the _fall of the year_, subjecting the earth, to a considerable depth, to the action of the frosts, rains, etc., and giving a downward drain for superfluous moisture.

Although we have incidentally alluded to the benefits of subsoiling, they deserve a separate and individual enumeration.

1. In very deep molds or loams it brings up a supply of soil which has not been exhausted by the roots.

2. In soils whose fertility is dependent upon the constant decomposition of mineral substances, subsoil plowing is advantageous by bringing up the disintegrated particles of rock, and exposing them to a more rapid change by contact with atmospheric agents.

3. Subsoiling guards both against too much and too little moisture in the soil. If there is more water than the soil can absorb, it sinks through the pulverized under-soil. If summer droughts exhaust the moisture of the surface they cannot reach the subsoil, which affords abundant pasture to the roots.

FIRE-BLIGHT AND WINTER KILLING.

These are two entirely different processes. The _Fire Blight_ (of the middle and western States), is a disease of the circulatory system, induced by a freezing of the sap while _the tree is in a growing and excitable state_. It always _must_ occur before the leaves are shed in the autumn. Winter-killing is of two kinds—resulting from severe cold, and from untimely heat. The loss of tender shrubs, roses, etc., at least, before they are fully established, and of half-hardy fruit-trees, is occasioned by the winter sun shining warmly upon them while frozen, and suddenly thawing them. The point of death is usually near the surface of the ground, where the under-ground bark and upper bark come together. Whole orchards are destroyed in this way; and, if examined, the bark may be found _sprung off_ from the wood. This may occur at any time during the winter.

We are in doubt whether the winter-stored sap exists in a state to be affected by the expansion of the freezing fluids of the tree. If the expansion of congelation _did_ produce the effect, it should have been more _general_, for there are fluids in every part of the trunk—all congeal or expand—and the bursting of the trunk in one place would not relieve the contiguous portions. We should expect, if this were the cause, that the tree would _explode_, rather than split. Capt. Bach, when wintering near Great Slave Lake, about 63° north latitude, experienced a cold of 70° below zero. Nor could any fire raise it _in the house_ more than 12° above zero. Mathematical instrument cases, and boxes of seasoned fir, split in pieces by the cold. Could it have been the sap in _seasoned fir wood_ which split them by its expansion in congealing?

We quote a paragraph from Loudon—“The history of frosts furnishes very extraordinary facts. The trees are often scorched and burnt up, as with the most excessive heat, in consequence of the separation of the water from the air, which is therefore very drying. In the great frost in 1683, the trunks of oak, ash, walnut, and other trees, were miserably split and cleft, so that they might be seen through, and the cracks often attended with dreadful noises like the explosion of fire-arms.”

We don’t exactly know whether to take the first part as Loudon’s explanation of the facts in the second.

There can be no doubt that the nature of the summer’s growth, very much determines the power of a tree to resist the severity of winter. When there is but an imperfect ripening in a cold and backward season, the tissues formed will be feeble, and the juices stored in them thin. Now the power to resist cold, among other things, is in proportion to the viscidity of the fluids in a plant.

It is highly desirable that the chemical researches which have revolutionized the art of cultivation, should be pushed into the _morbid anatomy_ of vegetation. A close, exact analysis of all the substances in an injured condition, will save a vast deal of bootless ingenuity and fanciful speculation.

WINTER TALK.

Do not be tempted by fine weather to haul out manure—it will be half wasted by lying in small heaps over the field; to spread it will be worse yet; manure should lie in a stack, as little exposed to the weather as possible.

Look to your fences; see that they are in complete order and leave nothing of this to consume your time in the spring when you will need all your force for other work. It is well to haul all the rails you will need for the year. The timber will last longer cut now. Do not leave rails or sticks of timber lying where you cleave them, on the damp ground, they will decay more in six months there, than in eighteen when properly cared for. Put two rails down and lay the rest across them so as to have a circulation of air beneath. If you have five or ten acres of _deadening_ which you mean to clear up and put to corn, you may as well roll the logs now. Every good farmer should study through the winter to make his spring work as light as possible. Whatever can be done _now_ do not fail to do it; you will have enough to do when spring opens; and perhaps the season may be one which will crowd your work into a week or two. If you have young fruit-trees, or a little home-nursery, look out for _rabbits_. They usually depredate just after a light fall of snow.

Overhaul all your plows, carts, shovels, hoes, etc., and put everything in complete readiness.

While you are moving about and repairing holes in the fence, putting on a rail here, a stake yonder, a rider in another place, you may inquire of yourself whether your _character_ is not in some need of repairs? Perhaps you are very careless and extravagant—the fence needs rails there; perhaps you are lazy—in that case the fence corners may be said to be full of brambles and weeds, and must be cleared out; perhaps you are a violent, passionate man—you need a stake and rider on that spot. And lastly, perhaps you are not _temperate_, if so, your fence is all going down and will soon have gaps enough to let in all the hogs of indolence, vice, and crime: and they make a large drove and fatten fast. Now is a good time to plan how to get out of debt. Don’t be ashamed to _save_ in _little things_, nor to earn small gains: “_Many a mickle makes a muckle._” But set it down, to begin with, that no saving is made by cheating yourself out of a good newspaper. No man reads a good paper a year, without _saving_ by it. Suppose you put in your wheat a little better for something you see written by a good farmer and get five bushels more to the acre. One acre pays for a year’s paper. One recipe, a hint which betters any crop, pays for the paper fourfold. Intelligent boys work better, plan better, earn and save better; and reading a good paper makes them intelligent. Besides, suppose you took a good paper a year, and found nothing new during all that time (an incredible supposition!) yet every two weeks it comes to _jog your memory_ about things which you may forget, but ought not to forget. It steps in and asks whether that little store bill is paid? Whether that loan drawing a fatal _six_, _seven_ or _ten per cent_ (poison! poison! deadly poison!) is being melted down? whether the children are going to school? whether the tools are all right? the fences snug? whether economy, and industry, and sound morals (the best crop one can put in), are flourishing? It will look at your orchard—peep over into your garden, pry into the dairy—nay, into the cupboard and bureau, and even into your pocket. Now, if you are a man willing to learn, it will give you hints enough in a year to pay ten times over for your paper.

“SHUT YOUR MOUTH.”

We heard a lad, in anger, use this expression to another. It was not very bad advice, though given somewhat roughly.

When we hear some of our mincing misses singing, now away up, and now away down, tossing their heads and rolling their eyes, we think, Well, miss, if you knew what folks thought of you, you’d _shut your mouth_.

We have seen many men ruined because they did not know how to _shut their mouth_ when tempted to say “Yes,” to a bad business.

When we see a man standing before the bar just ready to drink, we think, Ah! you fine fellow, if you will not keep your mouth shut before _that_ bar, you will, by and by, find yourself before a Bar where it will be shut tight enough.

When we hear a fine lady scolding till every room rings; or tattling from house to house—or scandal-mongering, we think, Ah, you lady, with all your schooling, you never learned to _shut your mouth_.

SPRING WORK ON THE FARM.

Thoroughly overhaul your tools; let plows be sharpened; repair their stocks if anywhere started or weakened; look after the chains, the swingletrees, the yokes for your oxen, or the harness for your horses. Don’t have any straps to replace, or harness to tie up with tow strings after you get into the fields, and when time is precious. NOW IS THE TIME TO SAVE TIME, BY GETTING READY. Old rusty buckles will give way the moment the plow strikes a root; stitches which have been longing for some time to fall out and part, will be likely to do it when you have the least time to mend them. Then we shall hear talk; you’ll be cursing the old horse or the old rickety harness, and declaring that your “luck is always on the wrong side;” and you may depend upon it, that it always will be, so long as you are not more careful. Good luck is a wary old fish which nibbles at everybody’s hook, but the shrewd and skillful angler only catches it.

The opening of spring is usually debilitating both to man and beast. Your horses cannot stand hard usage at once; some of them will need physic—all of them should be put to work carefully; increase their task gradually; favor them, and you will get abundantly paid for it before their summer’s work is done.

A good farmer may be known by the way he manages his spring work. Consider how much there is of it. Cows are calving; mares foaling; young heifers for the first time to be broken to milking; all the tools to be got ready; the ground to be broken up and seeded; the orchards to be set; or old ones to be attended to; a garden to be made; and a hundred other things to do. Now here is a chance for good management, and a yet better chance for bad management. There is as much skill in “laying out” a season’s work for the farmer, as there is in “laying out” a frame for a house or barn.

Bethink you of all the _mistakes_ you made last season; if you made any good hits, improve upon them this year. Every farmer should resolve to do _all things_ as well as he did the last year, and _some_ things a great deal better.

While everything is merry, birds singing, bees at work, cattle frisky, and the whole animated world is joyous, do but search and see if, among all beasts, birds, or bugs, you can find one that needs whisky to do its spring or summer work on?

Look again; seeds are sprouting; trees budding; flowers peeping out from warm nooks. Everything grows in spring-time. Youth is spring-time, habits are sprouting, dispositions are putting out their leaves, opinions are forming, prejudices are getting root. Now take at least as good care of your children as you do of your farm. If you don’t want to use the land you let it alone, and _weeds_ grow; but when you wish to _improve_ a piece, you turn the natural weeds under, and sow the right seed, and tend the crop. I have heard good kind of folks object to much “_bringing up_” of their boys. They guessed the lads would come out about right. You break a colt, and break a steer, and break a heifer, and break a soil, and if you won’t break your children, they will be very likely to break you—heart and pocket.

Fermenting manures should not be hauled or spread until you are ready to plow them under. [If you spread manure on meadows it should be fine, and well rotted, and let ashes be liberally mixed with it.] If you let manure lie a week or ten days exposed in the fields to the air, it will waste one half of “its sweetness on the desert air.” Let the plow follow the cart as fast as possible, and the gases generated by your manure will then be taken up by the soil, and held in store for your grain.

DEEP PLOWING.—There may be some rare cases where, for special reasons, shallow plowing is advisable. But the standing rule upon the farm should be deep plowing. A good farmer remarked the other day to us, “One of my neighbors who is always talking of deep plowing was at it last summer, and I followed in the furrow, and his depth did not average more than four inches; he did not measure on the _land side_ but on the mold-board side.” The reasons are very strong for deep plowing.

1. When crop after crop is taken off the first four or five inches of top earth, it tends speedily to rob it of all materials required by grass or grain. Every blade taken from the soil, takes off some portion of that soil with it.

2. Deep plowing brings up from beneath a greater amount of earth, which, when subjected to the frosts, the atmosphere, and the action of the plow, becomes fit for vegetation.

3. Summer droughts seldom injure deeply-plowed soils; certainly not to that degree that they do shallow soils. The roots penetrate the mellow mould to a greater depth, and draw thence moisture when the top is as dry as ashes. Will not some one who is curious in such matters try two acres side by side plowed shallow and deep, respectively, and give us the history of their crop?

QUANTITY OF SEED.—It has been often said that American husbandry was unfavorably peculiar in stinginess of seed-sowing. It is certain that very much greater quantities are employed in Great Britain and on the Continent than with us, and that much greater crops are obtained per acre. In part the crop is owing to a superior cultivation; but those who have carefully studied the subject affirm that, in part, it is attributable to the use of much greater quantities of seed. We give a table showing the average quantity of seed per acre for different grains, in England, Germany, and the United States. The table was formed in that manufactory of so many valuable articles, the _Albany Cultivator_. It must be remembered that the average crop is not the average of the best farming States, but of the whole United States.

SPRING WORK IN THE GARDEN.

When spring comes, everybody begins to think of the garden. A little of the experience of one who has learned some by making many mistakes will do you no harm.

TOO MUCH WORK LAID OUT.—When the winter lets us out, and we are exhilarated with fresh air, singing birds, bland weather, and newly-springing vegetation, our ambition is apt to lay out _too much work_. _We_ began with an _acre_, in garden; we could not afford to hire help except for a few days; and we were ambitious to do things as they ought to be done. By reference to a Garden Journal (every man should keep one), we find that we planted in 1840, _sixteen_ kinds of peas; _seventeen_ kinds of beans; _seven_ kinds of corn; _six_ kinds of squash; _eight_ kinds of cabbage; _seven_ kinds of lettuce; _eight_ sorts of cucumber, and _seven_ of turnips—_seventy-six varieties of only eight vegetables_! Besides, we had fruit-trees to transplant in spring—flowers to nurture, and all the etceteras of a large garden. Although we worked faithfully, early and late, through the whole season, the weeds beat us fairly; and every day or two some lazy loon, who had not turned two spadefuls of earth during the season, would lounge along and look over, and seeing the condition of things, would very quietly say: “Why, I heard so much about your garden—whew! what regiments of weeds you keep. I say, neighbor, do you boil that _parsley_ for greens?” It nettled us, and we sweat at the hoe and spade all the harder, but in vain; for we _had_ laid out more than _could_ be well done. Nobody asked how much we _had_ done—they looked only at what we had _not_ done. To be sure so many sorts were planted only to test their qualities; but the laying out of so large a work in spring is not wise. _A_ HALF _well done is better than a_ WHOLE _half done_. Remember there is a _July_ as well as an April; and _lay_ out in April as you can _hold_ out in July and August. We have profited by our own mistakes and have no objections that others should do it.

VEGETABLE GARDEN.—Before you meddle with the garden, do two things: first inspect your seeds, assort them, rejecting the shrunk, the mildewed, the sprouted, and, generally, the discolored. Buy early, such as you need to purchase. Do not wait till the minute of planting before you get your seeds. Second, make up your mind beforehand just what you mean to do in your garden for the season.

_Preparation._—Haul your manure and stack it in a corner; do not spread it till the day that you are ready to turn it under; cut your pea-brush and put it under shelter; inspect your bean-poles and procure such as are necessary to replace the rotten or broken ones; inspect every panel of the garden fence; one rail lost, may ruin, in a night, two months’ labor, and more temper and grace than you can afford to spare in a whole year. Clean up all the stubble, haulm, straw, leaves, refuse brush, sticks and rubbish of every sort, and cast it out, or burn it and distribute the ashes. If you intend to do your work in the best manner, see that you have the _sorts_ of manure that you may need through the season: ashes, fine old barn-yard manure, green long manure, leaf-mold from the wood, top-soil from pastures, etc., etc. Every florist understands the use of these.

Coarse manure may be put upon your pie-plant bed, as a strong and succulent leaf-stalk is desirable. Let it be thoroughly forked, gently near the stools and deeply between the rows.

With an iron-toothed rake go over your old strawberry beds that are matted together, and rake them severely. Strawberries that have been kept in hills and cleanly tended should be manured between the rows and gently spaded or forked.

_Early Sowings._—Tomatoes, egg-plant, early cucumbers, cabbage, cauliflowers, broccoli, lettuce, melons, celery for an early crop, should have been, before this, well advanced in a hot-bed. If not, no time is to be lost; and if a first sowing is well along, a second sowing should be made.

You cannot get too early into the ground after the frost is out and the wet a little dried, onions for seed or a crop, lettuce, radishes, peas, spinage, parsnip, early cabbage, and small salads.

ASPARAGUS.—The beds should be attended to; remove all weeds and old stalks; give a liberal quantity of salt to the bed—if you have old brine, or can get fish brine at the stores, that is better than dry salt. Asparagus is a _marine_ plant, growing upon sandy beaches along the sea coast, and is therefore benefited by salt, to which, in its _habitat_, it was accustomed. Put about three or four inches of old, thoroughly rotted manure upon the bed; fork it in gently, so as not to wound the crowns of the plant. Directions for forming beds belong to a later period in the season.

ONIONS.—Should be sown or set early.

If you prefer seed, sow, across beds four feet wide, in drills eight inches apart; young gardeners are apt to begrudge _room_—give it freely to everything, and it will repay you; when they come up, thin out to one for every inch; as you wish young and tender onions for your table, draw these, leaving, at least, one every five inches in the row. If your soil is deep and very rich, onions can be grown in one season from the seed as well as from the set—we try it almost every year and _never fail_, although told a hundred times: “You could do that in the old States, but it won’t do out here.” It had to do, and did do, and always will do, where there is no lazy men about; but nothing ever does well in a slack and lazy man’s garden; plants have an inveterate prejudice against such, and won’t grow; but he is a darling favorite among weeds.

The white or silver skin, and the yellow Portugal have been favorite kinds with us to raise from seed. They are tender, mild flavored, but do not keep as well as the _Red_. _Strong onions always keep better than mild ones._

If you prefer top-onion sets, or sets of any other kind, plant them out at the same distances, viz. eight inches between the row and five or six between the sets. Inexperienced gardeners are afraid that _little_ sets no bigger than a pea, will not do well. It is a mistake—they will make large onions; put them _all_ in, if they are sound. Plant the sets so that the top shall just appear above the surface.

If you plant out old onions for _seed_, let them be at least a foot apart and stake them when they begin to blossom. If you plant the _top-onion_ for sets you need not stake them, for they cannot shed out their seed if they fall over. It is not generally known that the same onions may be kept for seed for many years.

TRANSPLANTING.—All fruit-trees, most kinds of shade trees, shrubs, _hardy_ roses, honeysuckles, pinks, lilacs, peonies, etc., may be raised, divided, and transplanted in April unless your soil is _very wet_. All _hardy_ plants may be safely transplanted just as soon as the ground is dry enough to crumble freely—and not till then. In planting out shrubs, remember that they will _grow_; if you put them near together, for the sake of present effect, in a year or two they will be crowded. We set at ample distances and fill up the spaces with lilies, peonies, phlox, gladiolus, and herbaceous plants which are easily removed.

FLOWER GARDEN.—Remove the covering from your bulb beds; as soon as the earth is dry enough to crumble, with a small hoe carefully mellow the earth _between_ the rows of bulbs, and work it loose with _your hands_, in the row itself. Leave the surface convex, that superfluous rain may flow off. Transplant roses that are to be moved. Divide the roots of such lilies, peonies, irises, etc., as are propagated by division, and replant.

As fast as the soil allows, spade up your borders, and flower compartments, giving first a good coating of very fine, old, pulverized manure.

If you have hot-beds you may bring forward most of your annuals, so as to turn them out into the open beds as soon as frosts cease.

But defer sowing in the open air until the first of April; and then, sparingly; sow again the middle of April, and on the first of May. Only thus, will you be _sure_ of a supply. If you gain more than you need by three sowings, should all succeed, you have friends and neighbors enough, if you are a reasonably decent man, who will be glad to receive the surplus.

MANURE.—Corn and potatoes will bear green and unfermented manure. But all ordinary garden vegetables require _thoroughly_ rotted manure. If the soil is sandy, leached ashes may be applied with great profit at the rate of seventy or eighty bushels the acre. The soil is made more retentive of moisture, and valuable ingredients are secured to it. Salt may be used with great advantage on all garden soils, but especially upon light and sandy ones. Thus treated, soils will resist summer droughts and be moist when otherwise they would suffer. Salt has also a good effect in destroying vermin, and it adds very valuable chemical ingredients to the soil. Soapsuds should be carefully saved and poured about currants, gooseberries and fruit-trees. Charcoal, pulverized, is excellent, as it absorbs ammonia from the atmosphere, or from any body containing it, and yields it to the plants. Let a barrel be set near the house filled with powdered charcoal. Empty into it all the _chamber-ley_. The ammonia will be taken up by the charcoal, and the barrel will be without any offensive smell. But as soon as the charcoal is saturated, it will begin to give out the peculiar odor of urine. Let the charcoal then be mixed with about five times its bulk of fresh earth and well worked together, and it will afford a very powerful manure for vegetables and flowers. In Europe, where manure is precious, it is estimated that the excrementitious matter, slops, suds, scraps, etc., of a family, will supply one acre, for each member, with manure.[3] There are few families whose offal would not afford abundant material for enriching the garden, and with substances peculiarly fitted for flowers, fruits, and esculent roots.

[3] See note, p. 98, Colman’s Tour, 2d part, where is given
an estimate by a distinguished agricultural chemist, Mr.
Haywood.

FALL WORK IN THE GARDEN.

Planting seeds may be performed for very early spring use. Lettuce, spinage, and radishes, may be sown in a sheltered spot, and they will come forward ten days or a fortnight earlier than those which shall have been sown, in spring.

_Clearing up_ the garden should be thoroughly performed. Let pea-brush be removed, bean poles and flower stakes be collected and put under shelter. Collect all refuse vines, haulm, stems and stalks and wheel them to a corner to rot, or to be ready for use in covering flower-beds. Let the alleys be hoed out for the last time, and it will be as good as one hoeing in the spring, when they will probably be too wet to hoe. Gravel may now be laid in the walks; if ashes are to be spread, it may be done in autumn, and save time in the spring.

All tender plants are to be removed or secured by covering.

The best covering to secure the earth from frost, that we know of, is a layer of leaves, say three inches thick when well packed down, and _upon them_ two or three inches of chip dirt, with the coarsest part on top. We have had the soil unfrozen in severe winters when so covered. In this manner, tuberoses, gladiolus, dahlias, tiger flowers, etc., may be kept out through the winter. The gladiolus thus treated makes splendid tufts of blossoms. It may be prudent to try only a few at first, and adventure more as experience gives confidence.

CELERY which is to be left in the trenches should first be well covered with straw, and then boards should be placed upon the top in such a manner as to shed the rain. Great quantities of wet rot it when it is not growing; and freezing and thawing _in the light_ destroys it.

If portions of the garden have been infested with cutworms, etc., let it be spaded and thrown up loosely just before freezing weather. A clay soil will be ameliorated by frosts, if treated in the same way. A light, loose soil, should not be worked in the fall.

GUARDING CHERRY-TREES FROM COLD.

This tree is peculiarly liable while young, but more especially when coming into bearing, to be roughly handled by our winters. The bark at the surface of the ground splits, and often the trunk, enfeebling the tree and sometimes destroying it. The evil does not result from the cold, but from the action of bright suns upon the frozen trunk. Let those having valuable young trees, prepare them for winter by giving a cheap covering to the trunks, so that the sun shall not strike them. This may be done by tying about them bass matting, long straw, corn-stalks, or any similar protection.

SHADE-TREES.

We believe that no man ever walked under the magnificent elms upon the Boston Common, or beneath the Lindens in Philadelphia, or through Elm street in New Haven, without conviction of the beauty and utility of shade-trees. Trees not only are objects of beauty—the architecture of Nature—but they promote both health and comfort. Our ardent summers, from June to October, make open, unshaded streets, almost impassable, and reflect heat upon our dwellings from the side-walks and beaten road.

In this country the growth of trees is so rapid, and the supply from our own forests so abundant and convenient that every village and city, and every well-conducted farm should be lined with shade-trees. We will offer a few suggestions upon the kinds to be selected and the manner of setting.

THE LOCUST (_Robinia pseudacacia_).—This tree is very popular, and is almost the only one at the West set for shade-trees. It has a beautiful form, grows very rapidly, bears a profusion of beautiful and very fragrant blossoms (pendulous racemes of pea-shaped flowers), its foliage is singularly pleasing—the young leaves being of a light pea-green, and growing darker with age, so that in the same tree three or four distinct shades of green may be seen; it grows freely in all soils, and is not infested by any worms; its timber is almost as durable as cedar, and in the West, is not subject to the attacks of the _borer_, as it is in the East.

On the other hand, the tree becomes unsymmetrical with age, it is brittle, breaking easily at slight wounds, even when they have healed over. It is not a long-lived tree, and requires careful protection from cattle.

We would advise a more sparing use of it. Let _every other_ tree be a Locust, and the alternate maple or elm, oak, tulip, etc. By this method the Locust will afford immediate shade, and when they become unsightly the intervening trees will have grown to a goodly size. The Locust should be transplanted just as the buds are ready to burst; they should be protected by frames as soon as set. Good cases may be made at a trifling expense, by taking strips of inch and a half stuff, three inches wide, and nine or ten feet long, sharpen the lower end, and drive it into the ground four or five inches, and in a box formed about the tree let crosspieces be nailed at the top. Be careful that the tree does not _rub_ upon the case, although the wound will heal over, yet in the first high wind, it will be apt to break off at that point. This tree is rather peculiar in that respect.

The Locust was introduced to Europe by a Frenchman named Robin. From him the genus (_Robinia_) took its name. There are but four species belonging to it, and they are all indigenous to North America, viz.:

_Robinia pseudacacia_ (common Locust). _R. viscosa_, confined to the southwestern parts of the Alleghany Mountains, bearing rose-colored blossoms and being even more ornamental than the former; it is equally hardy, and if it could be introduced among us would form a valuable addition. Locusts nowhere appear to a better advantage than when planted in clumps of six or eight on a lawn, and if the _R. pseudacacia_ and _R. viscosa_ were contiguous, blending the pure white and the rose-colored blossoms, the world might be challenged for a finer effect.

The _R. hispida_ (_rose-acacia_ of our gardens) is a highly ornamental shrub, its branches are, like the moss-rose, covered with minute spines, which give it a fine appearance. A fourth species is said to exist in the basin of Red River. The favorable opinion here expressed of the Locust, will remove any impression of prejudice when we say, that _they are altogether too much cultivated_. Our forests are full of magnificent shade-trees whose claims can never, all things considered, be equalled by the Locust.

ELM (_Ulmus Americana_), commonly called White Elm. Of the four species of elms indigenous to the United States, but two are particularly worth notice, the White Elm, and Slippery Elm (_U. pulva_). But the former of these is so incomparably the superior, that it should be selected wherever it can be had. It attains a height of one hundred feet, is very long-lived, grows more and more beautiful with age, its long branches droop over, forming graceful pendulous extremities; and no one who has seen the Boston Mall, or the New Haven elms, or those scattered along the villages of Connecticut, will think that Michaux exaggerated in pronouncing this tree to be _the most magnificent vegetable production of the Temperate Zone_. It is unquestionably the monarch among shade-trees, as superior to the oak for avenues and streets, as the oak is to it for parks and forests. The great main-street of every village should be lined with White Elms, set at distances of fifty feet, and Locusts between to supply an immediate shade, and to be removed so soon as the slower-growing elm has spread enough to dispense with them.

THE MAPLE.—The following varieties are in our forests, and are beautiful shade-trees for the borders of farms, door-yards, public squares, avenues, streets, etc. The Sugar Maple (_Acer saccharinum_), White Maple (_A. eriocarpum_), Red Maple (_A. rubrum_). This last variety shows beautiful red flowers before its leaves put out in spring, and, like the sugar-maple, brilliant scarlet leaves in autumn. The maple is a beautiful tree of fine form, the leaves of the different varieties are variously shaped and all beautiful, it is free from disease and noxious insects.

Besides these, the ash, oak, tulip, beech and walnut, are all worthy of being transferred to our streets. Shade-trees for door-yards, and public squares, and pleasure-grounds, require a separate notice, as in some material respects they should be differently treated.

We warmly recommend in lining streets, that each alternate tree only be locust.

It is better for _effect_ that each street, or at least continuous portions of each, have _one kind_ of forest tree, so that an avenue of similar trees be formed. In planting grounds, it is well to group trees of different kinds, but in streets an avenue should be of elms, or of oaks, or of sycamores, or of maples, and not all of them mingled together.

A PLEA FOR HEALTH AND FLORICULTURE.

Every one knows to what an extent women are afflicted with nervous disorders, _neuralgic_ affections as they are more softly termed. Is it equally well known that formerly when women partook from childhood, of out-of-door labors, were confined less to heated rooms and exciting studies, they had, comparatively, few disorders of this nature. With the progress of society, _fevers_ increase first, because luxurious eating vitiates the blood; _dyspepsia_ follows next, because the stomach, instead of being a laboratory, is turned into a mere warehouse, into which everything is packed, from the foundation to the roof, by gustatory _stevedores_. Last of all come _neuralgic_ complaints, springing from the muscular enfeeblement and the nervous excitability of the system.

Late hours at night, and later morning hours, early application to books, a steady training for _accomplishments_, viz. embroidery, lace-work, painting rice paper, casting wax-flowers so ingeniously that no mortal can tell what is meant, lilies looking like huge goblets, dahlias resembling a battered cabbage; these, together with practisings on the piano, or if something extra is meant, a little tum, tum, tuming, on the harp, and a little ting-tong on the guitar; reading “ladies’ books,” crying over novels, writing in albums, and original correspondence with my ever-adored Matilda Euphrosyne, are the materials, too often, of a fashionable education. While all this refinement is being put on, girls are taught from eight years old, that the chief end of women is to get a beau, and convert him into a husband. Therefore, every action must be _on purpose_, must have a discreet object in view. Girls must not walk fast, that is not lady-like; nor run, that would be shockingly vulgar; nor scamper over fields, merry and free as the bees or the birds, laughing till the cheeks are rosy, and romping till the blood marches merrily in every vein; for, says prudent mamma, “my dear, do you think Mr. Lack-a-daisy would marry a girl whom he saw acting so unfashionably?” Thus, in every part of education those things are pursued, whose tendency is to excite the brain and nervous system, and for the most part those things are not “_refined_,” which would develop the muscular system, give a natural fullness to the form, and health and vigor to every organ of it.

The evil does not end upon the victim of fashionable education. Her feebleness, and morbid tastes, and preternatural excitability are transmitted to her children, and to their children. If it were not for the rural habits and health of the vast proportion of our population, trained to hearty labor on the soil, the degeneracy of the race in cities would soon make civilization a curse to the health of mankind.

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Pleasant Talk About Fruits, Flowers and FarmingChapter VII: Preface: To the First Edition (7)

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