Los Angeles herald., 1909-12-26
IL

IOrIlnCaLlOnS, OF DdCkeu Dy lHe CITY
walls, which protect them from the
garden has its own walls, eight to
fifteen feet high on the north and east
sides, giving a climate of its own.
Old gardens dating from Louis Phil
ippe's time and before have hollow
brick walls with heated fiues to force
winter fruit on trees trained against
them. A border two and a half feet
wide along these walls will yield more
fruit of the finest quality than we
commonly take from half an acre OF
orchard. In winter lean-to or span-roof
shelters of glazed sash protect the
black Hamburg and Chasselas grapes.
or the peaches, red and perfumed,
which weigh ten ounces apiece. By
May these glass houses can be taken
down, and the trees rest and grow
strong in the open air all summer.
The skilled French or Belgian gar
dener takes four to seven crops in d
season from the same dead rich soil.
There is no magic in it. The maraich-
er, or marsh gardener, turns over the
old mushroom beds of the season be-
fore, forks them up roughly so that
the air works among the clods freely
to carry off the acrid gases of decom-
position-"to sweeten the SOIL" as he
says. In a few days 1t grows powdery
and is beaten and raked to level and
three to nine inches of fine soil, not
too fine, are sifted over it to make the
seed bed.
Then radlsh seed, turnips or carrots
of the small. tender, quick-growing
sorts are thinly sown and pressed
gently into the earth. On this same
bed twenty-five lettuce plants with
leaves the size of a half-dollar are set
out very likely with four or five cauli-
flowers under the same glass. In the
rich, warm soil, with plenty of water,
the plants have nothing to do but to
grow as fast as possible and get out
of each others way in succession.
The radishes are fit to pull in three
weeks, the turnips and carrots in five
to six weeks, the lettuce being headed
and cut a fortnight before. Then the
cauliflowers have room to spread, with
a melon vine or a cucumber in the
middle to riot over the whole three by
four feet inclosed when the caulif1ow-
er heads are set out again in the open
field.
This makes five crops from the same
ground before August, when tomatoes
fill the market. Six crops can be grown
on the same soil If weeds are not per-
mitted to exhaust it's strength. Inten-
sive cultivation cannot afford to waste
itself on weeds. In these rich forcing
beds not single weed an men nlgh
is allowed to show it's head. The min
utest Seeding is recognized at sight
and nipped up by the shrewd old wo-
men who do the wedding for $12 a
month and board-a wage which many
old people in this country would be
Tejoiced to earn.
From October to April the garden is
practically under glass-not green
houses, but wooden frames foot high.
covered with glazed sash. inclosing
beds of rich soil, heated by the fer
mentation of banks of stable dressing
four feet thick, which keep a growing
warmth of As degrees to 20 degrees in
side of the frames all winter.
These sashes, three or four feet by
twelve each, are too heavy to move
often, and clever gardeners long ago
devised small hand frames which could
be shifted with ease and would allow
small plots a foot and half square