The Vermont transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1864-1870, 1864-06-03
turner's department.


FINE Tnru MAKES FINE CRoPs-
Grossness Versus Goodpess---Witb n
good situation, the secret of success
with garden crops, lies in the richness
of the soil, and its deep and fine tilth;
the last being far oftener wanting than
the former. A farm crop of potatoes
or even of corn, will make brave
struggle amid coarse nuggets of earth,
If only fertilizers are present; but such
fine feeders as belong to the garden
can lay no hold upon them; they want
delicate diet. Farmers are often
amazed by the extraordinary vegetable
results upon the sandy soil of city
dooryard, which they would count
comparatively worthless; not consider
ing that--aside from the shelter of
brick walls which make the sun do
double duty--the productive capacity
of such city gardens, hes very much
in the extreme and almost perfect
communion of the soil
What is true of garden earth, is true
also of its fertilizers; they must be tri-
turated, fine, easily digestible. Mass
es of unbroken farm-yard material are
no more suited to the delicate organi-
zation of garden-plants, than "A roast
ed side of bacon is suited to child's
diet. They may struggle with it in
deed. Possibly they may reduce it to
subsection; but their growth will be
rank and fiavorless, whatever size they
NAV gain.
1t is common mistake to suppose
that garden products are good i'll pro-
portion to their size. The horticultu-
raj societies have done great harm in
bolstering the admiration for mere
grossness. Smoothness, roundness, per-
feet development of all the parts, and
dehcacy of flavor, are the true tests.
/ remember once offering for exhibition
little tray of garden products, in
which every fruit and vegetable,
though by no means all they should
have been, was perfect in outline, well
developed, free from every sting of
insect or excrescence, and of that delicate
and tender fler which belongs only to
swift and unchecked growth; yet my
poor tray was over laughed entirely,
by an adjoining show of monstrous
vegetables, with warty excrescences,
and Of rank and wholly abnormal de-
velopment. The committee would
have been properly punished if they
had been compelled to eat them.
In the same way, and with equal
fatrity, the societies for agricultural
encouragement persist in giving pre-
miums to-so called-fat cattle; mere
monsters, not of good, wholesome,
muscular fiber, well mottled but
mountains of adipose substance, which
no Christian can eat, and which are
only disposed Of profitahly, by serving
as an advertisement to some venture
some landlord, from whose table the
reeking fat goes to the soap-pot.
Grossness does not absorb excel
lence, or even imply it--either in the
animal or vegetable world 1 have
never yet CHANGED to taste the monstro-
sites which the generous Californians
sometimes send us in the shape of
pears; but without knowing, / would
venture the wager of bushel of
Bartletts, that one of our own, little,
Jolly, redcheeked Seckles would out
match them thoroughly flavor, in
piquancy, and in vinous richness
Shall the Haunting dahlia match us
rose? Yet its tall stiffness tells i'll
the distance; but we have thousand
roses at every hand
/ sometimes fear that this DISPOSE
ton to set the mere prossness of n
thing above its finer qualities, is an
American weakness We do not for
get, so often as we might to advantage,
that we are great people. That ca
gle which our Fourth of July orators
paint for our delighted optics, dipping
his wings in both oceans is the merest
buzzard of bird, except he have more
virtue in him than mere size.--N. Mar
rei.