The Portland daily press., 1875-07-26
A College Vegetable Garden.

From advance sheets of Michigan Agri-
cultural Report we have the following by
Prof Beal concerning the vegetable garden
at the Michigan Agricultural College:
We have found very great advantage from
thorough and frequent cultivation. We gen.
erally 90 over the entire garden once in four
to seven days, no matter whether there are
any weeds in sight or not, or whether any
showers have interviewed. Our ground dries
off very soon after heavy rain. We have
not found this mode of culture to cost as
much as it would if only performed once in
two or three weeks, or after the weeds have
become well established.
It is little difficult, at first, to make the
students work the ground all over thor
oughly if they can see no weeds. However,
they do prefer working clean garden to one
filled with weeds two to six inches high. A
single season of this practice generally con-
vinces them all that it is the cheapest way,
aud that it brings the most profit.
We cultivate mostly with horse one way
making the rows long and straight. The
students work in the garden is mostly done
with steel-toothed rake and hand cultiya-
tors. We take great pains to remove any
pieweeds, purslanes, etc., which may have
in immense numbers before many people are
aware of it. One of the students last season
estimated that large, well-grown plant of
purslane contained 100000 seeds. The
ground is carefully freed from weeds till Win
ter. None are allowed to seed the ground.
They appear now to be running out.
The experim ents made, and the great num-
bers of varieties tested, and the small size of
the garden, of course, render the profit in
dollars and cents very small. Still, last year
there was aprofit of 5000 in the garden,
which included young plats of currants, as
paragus, and grape vines too young to bear.
Besides, the garden was much improved in
condition at the end OF the season.
Instead OF a rotation of manures we use
variety on the same ground each year. Our
compost heap is made of horse manure,
muck, sods, night soil, few ashes, and other
materials. Ashes are used literally every
year. Commercial fertilizers have not been
much used. Bones are used after they have
become softened and pulverized, by alternat-
ing in layers of moistened unleached ashes
for a few months.
have for three or four years been urging
the Importance of irrigating on a small scale
by means of a windmill, but the 'spowers
that be'' have cut it out of the programme.
Our climate is so subject to severe droughts
that little help just in time by way of a
water supply would often save the crop, or
more than double the yield. Should not the
cOlleG6 Dc dNlcu W Wy QUILL oil cApciIllCuG
Two to five hundred dollars would do it. If
we should fail to find it profitable, then the
farmers need not repeat the experiment.
We have begun the planting of trees for
timber on small scale, intending to culti-
vate and otherwise care for them.
We have begun with large variety of
kinds which have any promise of making
fence Tor turning stock or for ornamental
purposes. Our seeds of native hawthorn and
priekIy ash did not come up,-an objection to
using these plants for hedges. Some way
may yet be found to obviate this difficulty.
The groves of young trees set in numerous
places on the lawn are generally thoroughly
cultivated. In few places the culture has
been omitted. The contrast is often surprjs
ing. Where the soil is deep and rich, as at
the foot of hill, trees have done well, even
in grass. A little space dug about trees
doesn't seem TO amount TO much. Grass
roots run down and under the trees, robbing
them.
Several members of the junior class have
lately been tracing up, or down, rather, the