The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-04-30
AGRICULTURAL.
The Farmers Garden.

should devote to the cultivation of kitchen
vegetables. We are satisfied that this can
be made not only the most profitable acre on
the farm, but one that will conduce
most to the comfort of the family. The
average farmer is apt to neglect this
part OF his estate, partly because he does
not prize vegetable diet at its true value,
and partly because he regards work in the
garden as ''puttering business" fit only for
women and children. We are not vegeta-
rians ourselves, and are far from advocating
an exclusively vegetable diet for others, and
least of all for farmers. They are hard
workers In the open air, need hearty food,
and can digest it better than those leading a
sedentary life. Still, the old-fashioned rou-
tine at the farmhouses of fried pork for
breakfast, boiled corned beef and pork for
dinner, and the same cold for supper, with
only potatoes and cabbage in the vegetable
line, was a severe tax on the stomach of
even the most r-bust, and often led to dys-
pepsia and fevers. That the Creator in
tended the diet of man to be mixed is mani
fest from his natural love of such diet, the
adaptation of his teeth stomach and other
organs for it, and the careful observation of
the skillful Psychologist. The wild Indian
says, Buffalo meat is enough and good
enough for me-" but the average wild Indi-
an is far from being sample of healthy
man. As race the Indians are subject to
disease, and die young. The few old stall
warts only eXemplify Darwin's idea of ''the
survival of the fittest." Besides, when the
red man is brought within the pale of civil
cation, where he can get hold of fruits and
vegetables, he devours them with gusto
which contradcts his talk about buffalo
meat. The truth is that, while the vegeta-
tarlans are cadaverous looking set of men
DR.. Graham himself being no exception
and the blood of the meat COMMANDERS is
in an infiammatory state, tending to violent
passions as well as violent fevers, it is only
the man who tempers the stimulating influ-
ence of meat with liberal supply of fruits
and vegetables who is blessed with health
and the prospect of a green old age The
farmer who should feed his COWS with corn
meal mainly would be considered unwise if
not insane; but he is no less foolish when
he confines himself and family principally to
potluck dietsas many are inclined to do.
The other excuse which farmers offer for
the neglect of their gardens, ''the puttering
nature of the business" had some founda-
ton when tie garden was little sixpenny
affair enclosed with a picket fence, in
which there was little room for horse power,
and more demand for the spade than the
plough. .Ihe citizen and the villager must
content themselves with such contracted
gardens, but the farmer has land enough to
make his garden as large as he pleases. and
locate it where it can be cultivated with the
same facility with which he cultiyates his
kitchen garden must be under the kitchen
window, and surrounded with a picket
fence to keep the hens out, was
long since exploded by progressive
farmers. 1t is very convenient to
have the garden near the kitchen, and so it
would be to have tine pig pen; but there is
no more necessity for the one than the 9TH
er. Located in the field it can be cultivated
by horse power, and its site be changed from
time, to time as the rotation of crops may re-
quire. The old fashioned mode of cultivat-
ing flowers and vegetables together, the for
mer on borders of walks and the latter in
little parallelogram-shaped beds, made the
labor of garden four-fold what it is under
the horsepower plan of long rows and no
alleys. We spent no little time in our youth
in one of these old-fashioned gardens, and
as we rembember it, half the time was spent
in hoeing out the walks and trimming up
the borders. 1t was much work and little
pay, ard we do not wonder that farmers
called it puttering work, and were disguised
with it. Still, this old style of gardening is
not altogether obsolete. In closely settled
villages there may be some excuse for a
spade and hoe garden, but the farmer with
land and horse power in abundance should
garden on more satisfactory plan. If he
will only try this field gardening and see
how easily and cheaply asparagus, beets and
cabbages and the whole alphabet of vegeta-
bles are cultivated, we are confident that he
will raise score of bushels where he now
raises one, and this with little, if any in
crease OF expense. Any surplus of garden
sauce will generally find ready market, and
thus materially add to the income of the
farm. An acre cultivated in vegetables af
ter the manner above indicated Should weld
net income to the interest of a thousand
dollars; and we have known one to make
better returns than the interest at six per
cent. of two thousand dollars.
One of the essentials to success in garden
ing is good seed. 1t is very vexatious to pre-
pare land with care, and to find the plants
to come up stunted and feeble for the want
of constitutional vigor. The laws of heredi-
ty hold dominion'oyer the vegetable kingdom
with the same force as over the animal, and
thoroughbred seed is as essential for good
crop as pure-blooded bulls are for good
breed 1t is not SO easy to distinguish pure
seed as pure stock, but there is the same
virtue in the one as in the other, and the
practiced eye can generally discern the pure
from the mongrel.
Those with less skill must be careful to
purchase of reliable seed growers Fortu-
nately all seed dealers are not cheats any
more than are all milkmen. We have never
tailed OF good crops OF cabbages, onions and
squashes when we have used Marblehead-
grown seed. Some prefer to raise their own
seed, but this is rather puttering business
for farmers when they raise such variety
of vegetables as they ought. Seed growing
is trade by itself, and the expert in the
business will do better than novice. For
this reason we have procured cur small
seeds of late years, directly from the grower
and knowing our man, have not failed in
single instance of good crops.-Massachu-
sets Ploughman.
Farm Notes.