The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1875-02-11
FARM AND GARDEN.
WY SO FEW GARDEN?

It ia astonishing that, with the facil
tiles by which every man IN our conn
try Is surrounded to supply himself and
his family with the substantial advan-
tages and refining influences of a gar
den, so few avail themselves of them.
1t is great error to suppose that it
is necessary to be wealthy to have
good garden and attractive flower yard.
Every man who chooses can have land
enough to have both. Even IN the most
densely populated portions OF the
northern cities we have seen lovely col
Iections of plants and flowers, with many
varieties of fruits. In European cities,
where the poorer classes live in crowded
tenements, we have seen the fairest and
choicest flowers blooming in window
gardens, cultivated by hands that
earned but few cents per day to pro-
vide for the wants of q large family.
In the country, especially one like ours,
with the finest climate and the richest
soil in the world, it is g reproach to our
civilization that our flower gardens are
so i'll supplied and poorly cultivated.
In our eagerness to obtain wealth We
imagine that it is necessary to devote
all our time to its pursuit, and that
every moment OF time and every rod
of ground that is not devoted to making
money is wasted. ''We have no time
to fool with garden truck or with flow
Grs, says the farmer who lives in a
tumble-down log house with worm
fences, dilapidated stables and sheds,
eats hog and hominy, makes his fifty,
hundred or two hundred bales of cot
ton. Ev,Ty hour in the day, week
afte week, year after year, must be
devoted to raise more cotton. Not a
l. - he,
beauty and glory which nature SO Law
ishly yields for the asking. The veg
etable gardens, so called, which are to
be found on nineteen out of twenty
plantations, are monuments of thrift
lessness, ugliness and poverty. A few
struggling collards, row or two of
unstaked peas, q few snaps, with
diminutive patch of Irish potatoes
struggling Tor bare life with weeds and
grass, constitute the vegetables.
We venture to say that in not ono OF
the cotton states can there be found a
dozen plantation gardens where aspera-
gus, beets, carrots, parsnips, peas, beans,
celerly, tomatoes, satisfy, egg plant,
okra, lettuce, onions, cabbage and GU
cumbers can be found in their proper
succession, and yet there is not single
plantation where all these vegetables
could not be raise3 in abundance on
less than an acre of land for an outlay
of few dollars, yielding moro Of do
nestle comfort, than any other ten acres
on the place. And as for flowers, where
do we find them except those which
nature gives in spite of man? Is this
so because we are destitute of an appre-
citation of comfort and all taste for the
! beautiful? It is because the sweet sun
shine Of heaven and the beauty and
glory Of the world have no charms for
us except as they are connected with
the yield of our cotton patch?
! For a small part of what we spend
| for cigars, whisky and the circus, the
| poorest of us can surround himself
with a valuable vegetable amt fruit
! garden snd invest his dwelling, be it
/ ever so humble, with the flowers OF
] rich foliage and the bloom aud fra
! GRANGE of flowers. mature let's the
tree grow" as Willis said, "snd the
| flower expand for man, without refer
! ence to his account at the bank. -
| Southern Farmer.
THE APPLICATION OF MANURE.
There is a great diversity of opinion
among practical farmers as to the best
and most iudicious way Of applying
manure to land. Some contend that,
TO pillow the manure under as soon as
spread and thus prevent the dissipation
by the sun and wind of its most valu-
| able properties, is the best way to ap-
ply manure others insist that manure
spread upon the land and allowed TO
remain on the suface does not waste by
exposure to the elements, because
being so thoroughly spread it does not
ferment, and cOnsequt ntly does not
emit ammonia.
Although many good farmers and
really enlightened aRricul wrists hold
the latter opinion, Invariably act upon
it aud raise fine crops, we cannot ap-
prove 1t, because, in our judgment. it is
not based upon true principle. Nobody
will deny that the value of manure de-
ponds upon the amount of ammonia and
soluble phosphates it possesses, and
that the ammonia is volatile. It is only
necessary to walk over n field on which
stable manure has been newly spread
and smell the ammonia that is escaping
and diffusing itself in the atmosphere to
be convinced of this. The ammonia
thus carried away is so much lost to the
land, and though perhaps all the am
MONA contained in the manure may not
be carried of, some being washed into
the soil by the rain and thus carried
down and deposited in the stOrehOuse,
whence the growing crop will draw it
out, great deal is thus wasted. We,
therefore, adhere firmly to the belief
that all mauures should be plowed IN
der as soon as possible after they are
spread, whenever the ground is not too
wet to be plowed.
The fact that top dressing crops
meadows, for instances beneficial to
them, although the manure is exposed
to the sun and wind and cannot be
turned under, is not @ conclusive argu-
meut. It is the only way in which solid
manure of any kind can be applied to a
meadow. Il is the best that can be
done, but it would be much more bene-
fetal could it be covered when spread
and the waste by exposure prevented.
Besides, is not top dressing always ap-
piled at a season when ram may be ex-
pected to wash the ammonial properties
into the soil and thus save them for the
plant? Ii top dressing could be always
applied in liquid form, will anybody
deny that it would be of more benefit
than in a solid fosm? B.
RENOVATION OF WORN SOIL.
We all have lands not worn out, but
tired down by continual cropping, and
we always have lands that may be said
TO be worn ont, since they are no longer
productive. We now want the best and
cheapest plan of renovating these lands,
so as 10 grow remunerative crops, To
do this, we must have our lands charged
with q good supply of vegetable matter
to make the land lively aud productive.
This can only be obtained by the turn
ing under of green crops and afterwards
a ludicious rotation of crops in doing
this, we can only cultivate what lands
We can manure well, or such as have not
been exhausted. Let us take the lands
in the fall, break thoroughly and sub
soil {: in The spring, pillow and SOW peas
about the hrst of June, and harrow
them in.
Turn under the peas in September
and SOW TO rye, and pasture through tho
winter with sheep; the second spring
turn under rye at proper time aud again
SOW to peas these IN turn to be plowed
in September; then in October, by SOW
ing one bushel of wheat or oats and
thirty bushels Of cotton seed per acre,
and narrowing in welt with clover seed
lightly narrowed in the spring, yOu are
ready for q iudicious system of rotation