GARDENER. (See Gardening.) GARDENING. The term gardening is used to designate the cultivation of culinary plants, flowers, and the adornment of the landscape. Thus we have in special branches of these elegant and fascinating branches of agriculture, kitchen gardeners, who raise vegetables solely for private use, or, as in the case of large hotels, where per sons are especially employed to grow the vege tables daily prepared for the guests. Market gardeners are those who cultivate tracts of land for, the daily markets of cities and villages. A gardener proper, as the term is now-a-days gene rally understood, is one who raises flowers and vegetables for his own account, or for wealthy citizens, and includes the use of hot-beds, cold frames, green-houses, conservatories, and hot houses. The landscape gardener deals princi pally with landscape effects in the building of ornamental walks, drives, roadways, rock work, bridges, lakes, ponds, water courses, and the planting and adornment of the same. The florist, to whom the term gardener may be cor rectly applied, is one who devotes his time to certain classes of flowering plants, for sale, and also to cut flowers and the making of bouquets and floral designs. Their province is chiefly in the green-house and conservatory, strictly hot house plants being rarely cultivated by them.. The term is also generally applied to those indivi duals and firms in cities, who make a specialty of selling flowering and other plants, and to the making of bouquets and floral designs. Garden ing is as old as history. The Lord God is stated to have planted a garden in Eden. Wherever civilization extends gardening early receives attention, but high art is never attained until wealth and refinement is fairly established. Eng land, France, Germany, Austria, Holland, Bel gium, and the United States, have more fine gardens, and higher art in gardening than all the rest of the nations and tribes of the earth together, and in the countries mentioned there is more wealth and refinement than in all the rest of the world. As an aid in laying out a garden and in its economical working, we give an illustration of a garden as laid out by the editor (see cut), and plain practical directions so that no one need err. But the next thing is how to grow them economi cally, and this can be accomplished in a well drained soil, deeply tilled, heavily manured, and watered when dry. The drainage we suppose to be good. If not, make it so by thorough drain in tile laid of least at three feet deep. This may cost you sixty or seventy dollars, but it will be money well expended. It is one of the prerequisites in garden ing. The deep tillage may be accomplished by the aid of three horses, or, which is better, three mules abreast. Each and every plat of this garden may be manured from the main and circular road way, and the watering may be' accomplished by means of a. force pump in the center, and a hose. The hot-bed — that sine qua non of every well arranged garden—is placed near the entrance at the south of the roadway. This will enable you to handle the sash and covers easily, and it will, besides, be near enough to the water so it may be easily accessible for watering. In cropping a. garden, the deeper the tilth, the more manure may be applied; and this should always be thor- oughly decomposed if possible. If this is the. case, oue hundred loads may be safely applied; to start with, and thereafter, from thirty to forty loads annually. But some of you may say: It is. no easy matter to plow under one hundred loads. of manure. It is easy enough, however. Spread, evenly, forty loads over the surface and harrow thoroughly, then, with your deep tiller plow turn.
this in, a foot deep if you can. Spread forty loads more and plow six or eight inches deep. Then spread twenty loads of the finest manure on top, and in the spring before working the land, bar row it until the tilth is perfect. The other work should have been done in the fall. Upon a soil prepared in this manner you will not suffer from too much, or from a lack of moisture, and your principal waterings will have to be expended upon your rhubarb, asparagus, strawberries, let tuce, radish, celery, and other moisture-loving plants, if you want these extra nice. One rea son why a garden should be heavily manured and have plenty of water is, that the excellence of most vegetables consists in their succulence, and this can only be produced by forcing their growth. This, plenty of food, water, and good cultivation will always accomplish. No idle spots must be allowed in the garden. They will become har bors for weeds. No useless fallows—the spaces between the rows are the fallows—no yearly rota tion. The land must labor with a rotation each year—thus, early radish, lettuce, turnips, beets, top-onions, carrots, spinach, and other quick growing vegetables may be succeeded by sorts transplanted from the hot-bed, and also by the late corn, beans, and melons. The only rotation being to succeed fibrous rooted plants, when prac ticable, with tap-rooted ones, and plants maturing their fruit above ground, with those bearing their fruit below; and plants loving a partial shade should be planted in such portions of the garden as will most easily ensure this. Pains should be taken also, to plant the taller growing vegetables so as to obstruct the view from the walks as little as possible, which may be accomplished, measurably at least, by the exercise of a little skill and forethought. As before stated practical amateur gardeners object to the use of the plow in the garden at all, and with very good reason especially in a small place, but the use of the plow in preparing the land need not be dis pensed with, since the cross-roadways need only be temporary paths, which may be made yearly, while the central portion of the garden is entirely filled •up with perennial plants. The principal objection to plowing,• heretofore, has been that the spade would more thoroughly pulverize the soil than the plow. But with our present improved forms of plows, the pulverization is fully as com plete as the ordinary spadesman will effect, and much better than an unpracticed one would accomplish. Within all the angular and circular surfaces, however, and wherever perennials are planted, nothing but the spade and other hand implements may be allowed. Where space is an object, but little care need be required with the roadways, except the wagon way. This ought, if possible, to present a hard surface; but if this is not practicable, the surface should be kept rounded, smooth and clean, as should indeed all the paths. This may be accomplished, principally with a good rake, by raking to the middle of the roadway from both sides. The great objection among farmers, to the kitchen garden is the cost. They dislike to spend thirty, forty, or fifty dol lars a year upon an acre of land. But if they would reflect for a moment that this outlay will produce from two to five hundred dollars in pro duce, the surplus of which, or that not needed for consumption in their own families, may be easily sold at good prices in the nearest or city, if not, indeed, to their more negligent neighbors, the objection must cease; for there is no doubt that the , product of an acre of garden, well attended, will supply all the vegetables a large family will need, besides selling enough there from to defray all the expenses of its cultivation. Hot beds and forcing houses are warmed either by fermenting manure or by fire heat, but for hot beds manure is the best. Hot beds for winter forcing should be about two and a half feet under ground and one to one and a half feet above ground This will enable you to use from two and a half to three feet of manure. The principal crop for winter forcing is lettuce, which may be sown middle of September, in a cold frame, covering with glass only during cold nights and severe storms. By the first of November it will be ready to prick out at a distance of two and a half inches each way in a hot bed, and from this time it may have a heat of from 50° to 70° Fahr. By the first of
December it will be ready to transplant, the last time, at a distance of five inches each way. By taking out alternate rows, we leave one-half. If we now take alternate plants of the remaining rows, we have one quarter left which will be just five inches apart. Those taken out are transplanted in other beds at the same distance apart. By the first to the middle of January your lettuce will have completly filled the frames, when it should be cut, and, after renewing the heat with fresh manure, other lettuce should be planted therein, which has been brought forward for the purpose, as hereto fore directed. By this means, after having matured the first crop, you will raise succeeding ones at intervals of about one month, but since some parts of your beds are colder than others, it will not all come on alike, and with a little care, you can cut a regular supply, each day until it will grow in the open air. About January fifteenth to February first, radish may be sown in drills four inches apart, to one-half inch in the row. These will be fit to pull in from thirty to fifty days. About the twentieth of February provision must be made for forcing cabbage, cauliflower, pepper, egg plant, tomato and cucumbers. The first two named must be grown at a low heat like lettuce and radish ; the others require a stronger heat say, 60° to 80°. The least frost will kill these latter plants, but if your lettuce, radish, cabbage, and cauliflower are slightly frozen, the bed should be covered up tight and kept dark until the frost is drawn out of them naturally. If light and air are admitted they are ruined, for it must be remem bered that plants grown in this artificial man ner are more, succulent and tender than the same plants grown in the open air. Air must. however, be admitted to growing plants every day when it is not freezing, and care must be taken that the wind -does not blow directly on the plant, by tilting the sash against • the direction of the wind. The beds are kept from freezing by covering with slough bay, straw, or mats. My practice is to use two thick nesses of straw or reed mats, and about twelve to fifteen inches of prairie hay, varying it for extreme cold or mild weather. By these means I have grown lettuce when the thermometer has sunk as low as 27° below zero. It is sometimes necessary to keep the beds covered for days together, during cold storms. There can be no directions given which will enable a person to force vegetables in winter with entire success. Practice must also come to our aid. What is essential is to keep them warm at the bottom, not to allow them to get chilled at the top, and to give plenty of air when not too cold. Cucum bers, melon, squash, etc., should be sown in pots, or on inverted sods four to six inches square. As soon as cucumbers show signs of running, they should be transplanted, one hill to each sash, and tomatoes, egg plant, pepper, etc., grown in the vacant spaces, pinching the vines from time to time to make them stocky and fruitful, and removing the other plants as they are crowded. Do not, in any event, allow them to become so. Once spindled, they can never after be made stocky and handsome. Tomato and egg plants sown in February, will require to be transplanted three times before the final setting in the open air, at two and a half, five and eight inches apart. Cabbage and cauliflower should be transplanted once at about three inches apart, and if they come on too fast, keep them cool; in fact, hardening plants for the open air— that is, inuring them to the temperature in which they must finally grow—is one of the things that gardeners too much neglect. It is good practice to grow them slowly, and give plenty of air, and had practice to grow them fast and hdrden sud denly. Manure for hot beds should be turned two or three times, until fermentation is equal and the color uniform. It should not be streaked with gray, nor fire-fanged. In placing it in the frames, lay it evenly, throwing out hard lumps, patting it from time to time with the fork, to give it some solidity, and find the soft places. Six inches is the proper depth of mold for the generality of plants, except radish, which requires eight inches. The frames above ground require to be banked with horse manure, even with the sash, and if your bed gets too cold the lining should he renewed. The best manure for hot beds that I have ever used is from the city stables, where saw dust is used for bedding, and next, i where oat straw is used. The most important plant for forcing, after lettuce, is parsley. It is treated precisely like lettuce, except that when once planted, the heat is kept up by relining, until the plant is exhausted. Another important article, near large cities especially, is mint (men thes varidis). The roots are placed in the beds about the middle of February, by strewing, rather thickly. upon five inches of soil and covering two inches deep, adding another inch just as the plants are coming up. In relation to sashes, six feet long by three feet wide, is a suitable size, but the great proportion of my sash are about eighteen inches square, contain ing six lights of six by eight glass. These are fastened together by means of thin strips, by placing four sash together, making a sash six feet long by eighteen inches wide. Two of these sections, or eight sash, are equal to one of the previous size. After you are all done forcing your plants in the spring, you take the sash apart, and place single ones over boxes to fit, for covering cucumbers, melons and other tender plants. These sash however, will not do for winter forcing, but are admirable for general use. Drainage is so important a matter in con nection with gardening that it must not be passed lightly over. If the soil is at all stiff and retentive, it must be underdrained in order to successfully cultivate vegetables; and it is best and cheapest done, all things considered, with tile. We will suppose that your garden land descends regularly to the east, but that in spring, and after heavy rains, it is wet from the perco lation of water from above; in this case, if the drains are three feet deep, they may be placed thirty feet apart and should run directly up and down the slope, the grade being uniform to the bottom, that is, not steeper in one place than another. Tile of a caliber of two inches should be laid so that their ends may meet as nicely as possible. Pipe tile are the best, and collars are advantageous though not indispensable. My practice, where collars were not used, has been to spread two or three corn husks over the joints, which do not obstruct the packing of the earth and yet keep out silt which might enter before the earth was firmly impacted about them, besides which they leave scarcely any deposit from decay as does hay and other like material. The best soil for gardening is a deep, rich, warm sand. A good soil is a friable loam and the worst is a stiff clay. Upon the latter, even if well drained, it is useless to attempt to raise early vegetables; one must content himself with the grosser and later crops. Three important considerations with the market gardener are, a warm, rich soil, nearness to market, and ample facilities for getting manure. Without the first he can not raise early crops; without the second, he can not get them to market in good condition, and without the last, be can not cultivate suc cessfully at all. In gardening it is not sufficient that the land was manured last year. It must he manured this year as well, and the best manure is a compost, composed of every waste thing liable to decay about a city, a village or farm. Forty tons per acre each year of such manure will not hurt any land, and we know soils that receive and consume one hundred loads with profit, per acre, to the owner.