Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-06-28
ABOUT BARREL GARDENING.


is no waste OF water, as in other forms of
irrigation. You simply pour the water into
the barrel, and the plants get all of it. What
do you think of the system? WV.
Fort Worth, Tex.
This barrel-gardening nonsense is not
new by any means-it is simply an old
thing rejuvenated. We say rejuvenated on
account of the fact that we have seen a
was in its greatest glory about 1875. A gen.
tleman of Bay St. Louis, Miss, who wrote
under the nom de plume of ''Nota Bene,"
started it in the following two paragraphs,
which quite generally went the rounds of
the press:
"We use old -four barrels in various
ways. l fill up barrel with good rich
earth, and top dressing of manure, and
plant it with cucumber seed. The vine
grows luxuriantly, is trailed on fence or
harbor and will bear till frost, yielding sew
eral hundred cucumbers.
Our housekeeper makes a very tidy
dressing table or washstand out of an empty
-four barrel, dressing it up in dimity or mus
lin, and bordering with fringe or ribbon.
We make a comfortable cushion chair by
saving the barrel in the middle, leaving
three of the slaves to support the back.
Then fill up with clean straw, cotton or
wool; cover the whole with calico, and you
have chair quite as pleasant as one made
of rosewood or mahogany.
For our own part, we never took much
stock in that barrel business. People wrote
to US for information concerning it and we
replied to them through the paper with
which we were then connected that theory
Eo
went on to state that the agriculturalist
has hosts of theories to deal with. They
are kind Of poetry for him, and if he has
a taste for poetry he may enjoy them first
rate, provided he don't undertake to put too
many of them to practice. There is danger
in that. A few attempts at application may
spoil the entire mess, by giving one a
chronic distaste for mere theory, conse-
quently wiping out forever, in his case, a
rather important source of enjoyment. So
our advice to you shall ever stand as fol-
lows: When some theoretic agriculturist
tells you beautiful story about, say,
what nice piece of furniture you
might make of an old -four barrel, or what
wonders you might perform in the garden
with the said barrel, or what a marvel of
beauty you might bring to light by suspend
ing peach seed above tumbler Of water,
or what gorgeous window decoration you
might cause to spring from a sweet potato
in bottle, try to believe every word of it,
and to enjoy in your imagination the de-
ightful things you might make, but don't
undertake to make them. They are pleas
ant to think about, and in all such cases it
is 'best to let well enough alone" So say
we still.
Nota Bene's paragraphs, as already
quoted, were first published in the then ex-
isting CLONE Journal of New Orleans.
No doubt the gentleman who told you about
the great advantages of flour barrel garden
ing had obtained his cue directly from the
publication mentioned above, for about all
the papers of the country copied it.
A year or so after the publication had
been made gentleman called at our Office
in Mobile and informed US that he was down
from the North in search of some suitable
point at which to start a market
garden. He was market gar
dener by profession, he said, and
had many new systems of culture by
which he was able to astonish the world;
especially was he able to work the most ex-
traordinary wonders in the production of
the cucumber He could realize a hand
some little fortune off an acre of land to
cucumber5 in single season! But he
didn't want to make it all himself; he wanted
to share his extraordinary profits with some
good fellow as partner. We hadn't much
faith in cucumbers as wholesome diet,
to enter into an arrangement with the gen.
tleman, and he left us to battle on through
the hard times alone: not, however, until
we had given it as our opinion that the vii
lage of Chronicle, some thirty miles above
Mobile, on the Mobile and Ohio railroad,
i've market garden.
Our champion cucumber raiser went to
Chronicle, and there found partner with
tin enough to run the business, and with
out any conscientious scruples bearing on
gorging the general public with cucumbers.
IL was " NC d SICdU SuCSCSS, duo
SO the whole thing, aside from furnishing
money, was to be left to the gentleman
from the North with the great cucumber
secret. So that gentleman took scrip in his
purse and proceeded to collect all the old
-four barrels in all the country round about.
We think, as well as we can remember,
that he got about ten acres Of flour barrels,
which he filed with good rich earth, ac-
cording to directions by Nota Bene, for it
was evident from the start that Nota Bene
had been at the entire bottom Of that broad
transaction. The barrels were then planted
with cucumber seeds and ten acres Of arbors
were put up for the cucumber vines to run
upon and make up their enormous fruitage.
Well, from some cause or other it must
not have been good season for cucumbers.
It may be that the moon never got right
for those vines to run, and so one fine
morning, to quiet the rising mistrust of
the gentleman who had furnished the
ssdough," the champion cucumberist con-
cluded he had better run for them, which
he did-tc where the woodbine twineth-