The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-03-09
wHAT SHALL WE PLANT.

This ever recurring question is perhaps
the most important of anything to the
farmer and gardner every spring, and
now is the time to plan and get ready.
Now is the time to select and order
seeds, plants and trees, and trees before
the best are sold; it is the early bird that
gets the worm. If we have learned any
thing the past year we should profit by
it; If we have worked a whole year and
learned nothing some one ought to knock
us in the head.
Did you have any sub-soil blowing
done last year upon which to test the
benefits in the season of drouth? Did
your neighborS have any? Did you plant
the same seed you have planted for the
last ten years? Did you get humbugged
by some big swindling house into pay
ing enormous prices for some old kind
under a new name?
And are you still planting the same old
potatoes that hardly yield a hundred
bushels per acre while there are plenty
of good kinds that yield double that
amount? How is the fruit garden? Have
you got a decent garden, anyway? Is 1t
not a little corner where you planted
few store-bought seeds and what the
hens did not scratch up, other plants
overrun with weeds and the same weeds
are an eyesore today? Are you still of
the opinion that small fruit can be
How is it that good, practical men say
fruits can be raised for two cents a quart
UP to the picking? This cannot be done
in a Slip-Shod manner; there must be
some system, some brains mixed with
considerable elbow grease to do this. 10
make a garden profitable there should
be something besides half day after
corn is planted to put it in. The garden
demands the best of land, manure, seed,
planting and culture. This may be given
and the chickens and pigs spoil 1t all
There must be a fence, and While woven
wire four feet wide is SO cheap no one
has any reasonable excuse to neglect
having a good garden; lathe fence can
be made at very little expense
One acre devoted to the small fruits
and vegetables ought to give 500 returns
to a family of six persons every year, II
it is as well cared for as an acre OF corn
should be. The surplus of the garden
will always finds a market will bring
spending money to the children and VIII
be one of the pleasant memories that will
tie them to the old home. Now is the
time to select that acre and prepare for
a better garden than ever before. Inc
soil should be of the best, and the nearer
the house the better; if it had a hoed
crop on it the last two years, better stlll;
if grain, it will answer; but II IN grass
or old pasture, it will not do as the cut
worms and white grubo- will remain a
year longer, as they do not mature till
the third season; the May beetle usually
deposits her eggs in grass and pasture
grounds under the manure or rubDlSn ly-
ing about. and it is not safe to plant
/ strawberries where the ground has not
been worked for two years after grass
so in selecting for a permanent garden,
these things must be remembered.
If the ground is now grass, put on
twenty tons of the best manure, spread
it and let it leach in; plow late on &C
count of the cut-worm: plant to corn or
potatoes, and then after a year have 1t
in condition for the garden except for
Strawberries, which must be kept on
other ground a year longer. If our acre
has been cultivated for the past two
years, no matter how rich, still cover it
with twenty loads of the best manure
and If you should have to use strawy
manure horse-rake it off in the spring
and pillow little deeper than before, and
follow the first team with another plow
to stir the bottom of the furrow, but
don't throw the subsoil to the surface
If you have a subsoil attachment, all
right; put it down full depth; if you
can't make the second pillow work. take
a stout cultivator, take off all the
teeth but one, and put that down as deep
as possible 1t will pay to subsoil every
acre on the farm to protect from drouth
so get a subsoil plow-of course, sandy
land does not need it.
In the selection of this acre let it be
twenty by eight rods, so all the rows viii