Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1889-11-29
THE FARM
EIake a Good Garden.

Inc farmers garden should receive far
more attention than it usually gets. 1t
is on his success with this that much
OF the advantage and greater heaIthfuI-
ness of the farmers life depends To
nave fresh vegetables in succession
through their season, and a good variety
stored for his winters use, ought to be
the farmers especial privilege. In real
Ity the tables of those In cities earning
less than most farmers are better sup
piled with vegetable and fruits than are
those whose lack is only explainable by
their neglect to grow them. The city
man who has to buy everything finds a
variety costs no more than to cOnfine
himself to one dish. The farmer often
makes rule to buy nothing that he
might grow, and then negIects to
grow what he might.
There IS an economic aspect to this
question not often considered. IF farm
ers grew and used themselves greater
varieties of vegetables they would be
not only healthier, but the markets for
the few speclalties they generally grow
would be less likely to be glutted. The
past year for example, potatoes have
been extremely cheap. The crop is more
than the demand. If one-tenth of the
potato land has been diverted to grow
Ing carrots, turnips, cabbage, celery,
parsnips and like vegetables, there
would have been no glut in either, and
the farmers profits would be IN
creased. 1t requires more work, more
skill and intelligence to grow a large
variety OF vegetable crops than to grow
one or two. More farmers have got into
the habit of growing potatoes than have
learned the best methods of growing
other vegetables, and this is perhaps
one reason why they are so much more
largely sold than any other.
We need to learn a lesson from the
great famine which prevailed in Ireland
more than forty years ago after the fail
ure of the potato crop. The people had
become too exclusively dependent on
the potato as a means of subsistence. 1t
is not q perfect food for maintaining
strength and vigOr, and when famine
struck the land, the enfeebled poor
easily became victims to a pestilence
which followed in its wake. It is in
countries like India and China, where
one kind Of food is the main source Of
subsistence, that the dread Asiatic
cholera takes its rise. If men ate more
wholesome food, and in greater variety,
the attacks of many kinds of disease
would be averted.
It is not much that any one farmer
can do to change the prevailing dietary
habits of the whole country, but each
can for himself resolve to set a better
example. The first step in this good
work is to lay out a garden, not too large
to be thoroughly cultivated, and fill it
with as great a variety of vegetables as
the farmer can successfully manage.
When the farmer in any neighborhOod
does this, others Will quickly follow his
example, and he can probably dispose
for time of any surplus vegetables he
may grow more than are needed for his
own use among neighboring farmers. 1t
is not any willingness to live poorly
that restricts so many farmers to a diet
of bread and butter, with pork for the
| only meat, and potatoes. with an Occa-
siOnal boiled dinner, with cabbage as
the only vegetable. They want to en-
/ Joy greater variety of vegetable food,
and now, as their thoughts are turning
to spring work, is the best time to give
them a hint as to the best way to realize
their Desires american CetLtjUGtOr.