HENRY WARD BEECHER. (continued 6)

Our desire is to diffuse a love for rural affairs, husbandry, and horticulture among the whole mass of the community.

Weeds in Alleys.—It is said that weeds may be entirely destroyed for years by copious watering with a solution of lime and sulphur in boiling-hot water. This, if effectual, will be highly important to such as have garden gravel walks, pavements, etc., through which grass and weeds grow up.

HOT-BEDS.

After a little practice any one can make and manage a simple hot-bed. For a common family one twelve by four feet will be large enough, and nine by four will answer for a small family. Frame.—The frame should be made of two-inch stuff (pine or poplar). The back must be as high again as the front, in order to give the right inclination to the sash. The ends should be nailed fast to corner posts, say four inches square. The back and front are to be attached to those parts by iron bolts, which may be screwed or unscrewed at pleasure. The frame may be taken to pieces, if so made, and put away during the season it is not in use. A frame twelve by four, will take four sash of three feet wide, the other sized frame will take three sash. Where the sash meet, a piece of wood three inches broad and two thick, should be let in from back to front, for the sash to run upon, and it may be allowed to extend back for two feet beyond the body of the frame. Three coats of paint should be put on the outside and inside of the frame, and then, with good care, it will last twenty years. Mark out the ground six inches larger every way than your frame. Dig it out a foot deep. Take fresh, strong horse-dung. Shake it up and mix it thoroughly. Lay it into the bed evenly, beating it down with the back of the fork, but never treading it. Raise the bed three feet above the surface, making the thickness in all four feet. In a week’s time this will have settled six or eight inches. We have for the sake of a gentler and longer continued heat, laid alternate layers of manure and tan-bark, and thus far it has done well with us. Put on the frame and sash and let it stand till the heat begins to raise, which will be two or three days. Then raise the sash to let the steam pass off. In about four days take off the frame, put on about six inches of light, good soil, evenly, all over the bed; replace the frame, and in a day thereafter it will be ready for seed.

Cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, egg plants, peppers, celery, cucumbers, lettuce, together with savory herbs, as sweet marjoram, sweet basil, thyme, sage, lavender, etc., etc. may be sown in drills in the soil prepared as above.

It is difficult to give, on paper, the directions for the care of the bed. The greatest dangers of all, are that of burning the plants by excessive heat, or of damping them off, by too little air. These evils must be guarded against by the admission of as much air as possible. In mild days let the sash be partly open all day, and in very cold days, endeavor to procure a half hour even, at mid-day, for raising the sash and airing the plants. As they grow up, if crowded, they should be thinned out, so as not to run up spindling.

ORIGINAL RECIPES.

When we say original, we don’t mean that no one ever employed the same recipes, but only this, that we have obtained them, not from books, but from good and skillful housewives.

Epicure’s Corn Bread.—Upon two quarts of sifted corn-meal, pour just enough boiling water to scald it thoroughly; if too much water is used it will be heavy. Stir it thoroughly, let it get cold; then rub in a piece of butter as large as a hen’s egg, together with two teaspoonfuls of fine salt; beat four eggs thoroughly, and they will be all the better if the whites and yolks are beaten separately, add them to the meal and mix thoroughly. Next, add a pint of sour cream, or butter-milk, or sour milk (which stand in the order of their value). Dissolve two teapoonfuls of saleratus in hot water, and stir it in. Put it in buttered pans and bake it.

In winter, it may be mixed over night and in that case, the eggs and saleratus should not be put in until morning. When ready for the oven, the mixture ought to be about as thin as good mush, and if not, more cream should be added.

If you are not an epicure already, you will be in danger of becoming one, if you eat much of this corn cake—provided it is well made.

Sugar Ginger-bread.—To three-quarters of a pound of butter and not quite a pint of finely rolled brown sugar, add a great spoonful of ginger, and a little cinnamon and nutmeg; beat these up to a foam; beat four eggs thoroughly and add and mix well, with the butter and sugar. Add a teacup of rich cream, a great spoonful of saleratus dissolved in hot water. Stir in sifted flour as long as it can be worked. Pound and knead the dough very thoroughly. Roll out quite thin, cut into small cakes, bake in a quick oven. They will be hard, but tender and crisp.

Hoosier Biscuit.—Add a teaspoonful of salt to a pint of new milk, warm from the cow. Stir in flour until it becomes a stiff batter; add two great spoonfuls of lively brewer’s yeast; put it in a warm place and let it rise just as much as it will. When well raised, stir in a teaspoonful of saleratus dissolved in hot water. Beat up three eggs (two will answer), stir with the batter, and add flour until it becomes tolerable stiff dough; knead it thoroughly, set it by the fire until it begins to rise, then roll out, cut to biscuit form, put in pans, cover it over with a thick cloth, set by the fire until it rises again, then bake in a quick oven. If well made, no directions will be needed for eating.

As all families are not provided with scales and weights, referring to the ingredients generally used in cakes and pastry, we subjoin a list of weights and measures.

WEIGHT AND MEASURE.

Wheat flour one pound is one quart.

Indian meal one pound two ounces, is one quart.

Butter, when soft one pound one ounce, is one quart.

Loaf-sugar, broken, one pound is one quart.

White sugar, powdered, one pound one ounce, is one quart.

Best brown sugar one pound two ounces, is one quart.

Eggs ten eggs are one pound.

LIQUID MEASURE.

Sixteen large tablespoonfuls are half a pint

Eight large tablespoonfuls are one gill.

Four large tablespoonfuls are half a gill.

A common sized tumber holds half a pint.

A common sized wine glass holds half a gill.

Allowing for accidental differences in the quality, freshness, dryness, and moisture of the articles, we believe this comparison between weight and measure to be as nearly correct as possible.

COOKING VEGETABLES.

While we believe meat to be necessary to laboring men, we are equally sure that it is used to excess; for persons of a sedentary habit, vegetable diet is supposed to be much more wholesome, because much less stimulating than meat. Whatever shall make vegetables more relishful will extend their popular use, and therefore any simple recipe for cooking them is a public good. The following are taken fresh from the kitchen, and we will vouch for their being good, although there may be other ways still better.

1. Greens.—The articles employed for greens are numerous; we merely mention the following:—sprouts of turnip and cabbage, dandelions, lamb’s quarters, red-rooted plantain, cowslip, wild pepper-grass, purslain, young beet-tops, lettuce, and spinage—the best of all greens.

In gathering plantain, care must be taken to select only the red-rooted, the white being thought poisonous. With the exception of spinage, all these should be boiled in salted water, or in water with a piece of salt pork, for half an hour, then taken out, drained, and served up with butter gravy.

Spinage is boiled, as above, for half an hour, then taken out, thoroughly drained, put into a skillet with cream, butter and pepper, and if need be, a little more salt. Place it over the fire and stir it up with a knife all the time it simmers, until it becomes a paste. About five minutes are enough for this last process—then dish and serve it.

2. Asparagus.—Asparagus should never be cut below the surface of the ground, although books and papers, almost universally, direct to the contrary. The white part of the stem is always tough and inedible. Let it spring up about six or eight inches and then cut it at the surface of the ground. Lay it in the pan or kettle in which it is to be cooked, and sprinkle salt over it. Pour boiling water over it, until it is just covered; boil from fifteen to twenty-five minutes, according to the age of the asparagus. Have two or three nicely toasted slices of bread in the dish which is to go to the table; lay the asparagus upon the toast, putting first sweet butter and pepper upon it according to your taste; lastly pour over it the liquor in which it was boiled. Many throw away the water in which it was cooked and substitute cream and butter, but thereby the finest flavor of the vegetable is thrown away and lost.

3. Beets.—While young, beets may be boiled tops and all; as the tops get tough the root alone is boiled in salted water until tender, viz. from three-quarters of an hour to an hour and a half; according to the size of the beet. Quarter or slice them if large, and add fresh sweet butter and pepper.

4. Peas.—No vegetable depends more for its excellence upon good cooking than peas. Have them freshly gathered and shelled, but never wash them. If they are not perfectly clean, roll them in a dry cloth; but even this is seldom required, and then only through carelessness. Pour them dry into the cooking dish, and put as much salt over them as is required, then pour on boiling water enough to cover them; boil them fifteen minutes if they are young; no pea is fit to cook which requires more than half an hour’s boiling. When done, put to a quart of peas three great tablespoonfuls of butter, and pepper to your taste. Put all the water to them in which they were boiled. The great mistakes in cooking peas are in cooking too long, and in deluging them with water.

String or SNAP beans are cooked like peas, only they require longer boiling.

5. Corn should be boiled in salted water from twenty to thirty minutes, according to its age; if boiled longer it becomes hard and loses its flavor. We have given in the Western Farmer and Gardener, p. 231, a recipe for corn and beans, but as all may not see that periodical, we extract the substance of it.

We give directions for a mess sufficient for a family of six or seven.

To about half a pound of salt pork put three quarts of cold water; let it boil. Now cut off three quarts of green corn from the cobs, set the corn aside and put the cobs to boil with the pork, as they will add much to the richness of the mixture. When the pork has boiled, say half an hour, remove the cobs and put in one quart of freshly-gathered, green, shelled beans; boil again for fifteen minutes; then add the three quarts of corn and let it boil another fifteen minutes. Now turn the whole out into a dish, add five or six large spoonfuls of butter, season it with pepper to your taste, and with salt also, if the salt of the pork has not proved sufficient. If the liquor has boiled away, it will be necessary to add a little more to it before taking it away from the fire, as this is an essential part of the affair.

6. Salsify or Oyster-plant.—This vegetable is raised exactly as are carrots and parsnips. Like the latter—they require a little frosting before their flavor is fully developed.

They should be scraped and washed (but not soaked in vinegar, as English cooks direct, to extract a bitter taste, which they do not contain), and sliced; sprinkle enough salt upon them to season them, pour on just enough boiling water to cover them; boil till perfectly tender, which will be, say fifteen minutes. Put butter and pepper to them; stir up a little flour in cream to make a thin paste and pour in enough to thicken a little the water in which they were boiled. Dish with or without toasted bread, as may suit the taste.

7. Tomatoes.—The recipe which we gave in the Farmer and Gardener has been universally copied, and, we believe, has beguiled thousands to the love of tomatoes. It has been introduced to cook-books under the name of “Indiana Recipe for Cooking Tomatoes.”

8. Onions should be boiled for half an hour in salted water, then drained, put into sweet milk, boiled again for five or ten minutes, seasoned with butter, pepper and salt, and served up.

9. Pie-plant.—This important vegetable—among the earliest, the most wholesome, and of the easiest culture—should be found in every garden, and served up on every table during the spring and early summer. To prepare it for use, strip off the skin, slice it thin, put into a dish with a few spoonfuls of boiling water, just enough to keep from sticking, for its own juice will afford liquid enough after it is cooked. Boil until it is perfectly tender, stirring it constantly. If the plant is good and the fire quick, it ought to be boiled in five minutes. Stir in all the sugar needed while it is in a scalding state. A little nutmeg or lemon peel, put in while it is hot, improves the flavor. When cool, it may be used for tarts, or pies, with or without upper crust; it also makes a better apple-sauce than apples do themselves.

10. Egg-plant.—Boil in salted water a few minutes; cut slices, put a little salt between each slice, and let them lie for half an hour. Then fry them in butter or lard until they are brown.

11. Cauliflower and Broccoli.—The only difference between these, so far as the cook is concerned, is in color. Take off the outside leaves and soak them for an hour in salted water. Pour boiling water to them and boil for about twenty minutes. Serve them up with butter and pepper. The Savoy cabbages are next in delicacy of flavor to the cauliflower, and may be cooked in the same way.

FARMERS, TAKE A HINT.

It is very surprising to see how slow men are to take a hint. The frost destroys about half the bloom on the fruit-trees; everybody prognosticates the loss of fruit; instead of that, the half that remains is larger, fairer, and higher flavored than usual; and the trees instead of being exhausted, are ready for another crop the next year. Why don’t the owner take the hint and thin out his fruit every bearing year? But no; the next season sees his orchard overloaded, fruit small, and not well formed; yet he always boasts of that first-mentioned crop without profiting by the lesson it teaches.

We heard a man saying, “the best crop of celery I ever saw, was raised by old John ——, on a spot of ground where the wash from the barn-yard ran into it after every hard shower.” Did he take the hint, and convey such liquid manure in trenches to his garden? Not at all; he bragged about that wonderful crop of celery, but would not take the hint.

We knew a case where a farmer subsoiled a field and raised crops in consequence which were the admiration of the neighborhood; and for years the field showed the advantage of deep handling. But we could not learn that a single farmer in the neighborhood took the hint. The man who acted thus wisely, sold his farm and his successor pursued the old way of surface-scratching.

A stanch farmer complained to us of his soil as too loose and light; we mentioned ashes as worth trying; “well, now you mention it, I believe it will do good. I bought a part of my farm from a man who was a wonderful fellow to save up ashes, and around his cabin it lay in heaps. I took away the house and ordered the ashes to be scattered, and to this day I notice that when the plow runs along through that spot, the ground turns up moist and close-grained.” It is strange that he never took the hint! There are thousands of bushels of ashes lying not far from his farm about an old soap and candle factory with which he might have dressed his whole farm.

A farmer gets a splendid crop of corn or grain from off a grass or clover lay. Does he take the hint? Does he adopt the system which shall allow him every year just such a sward to put his grain on? No, he hates book-farming, and scientific farming, and “this notion of rotation;” and jogs on the old way.

A few years ago our farmers got roundly into debt; and they have worried and sweat under it, till some of them have grown greyer, and added not a few wrinkles to their face. Do they take the hint? Are they not pitching into debt again?

A few years ago mules commanded a high price; everybody raised mules forthwith; the market of course was glutted; the price fell; everybody quit the business; markets became empty and the price rose; a few men who had stuck to the business pushed in their droves and made money; and now everybody is raising mules again. The same game is played every four or five years with pork; men make when pork is scarce, but few farmers have stock on hand. They instantly rush into the business, flood the country with hogs and get almost nothing for them. Why don’t men take the hint? A moderate stock all the time, makes more money than that system which has none when the price is high and too many when the price is low.

Because one year, the wheat crop has been very large and fine, and the price low, not half so much will be put in another year. Those who are wise, foreseeing this fact and sowing largely, will, if the season favors wheat, reap a handsome profit.

Auctioneers tell us that a “wink is as good as a word.” We give both, and hope our readers will take the hint.

MIXING PAINT, AND LAYING IT ON.

It is convenient, and oftentimes, on the score of economy, necessary for persons (who have not been apprenticed to the trade), to do their own painting. To enable such to practise with success, we propose giving a few hints.

RESPECTING THE ARTICLES USED.

White Lead.—This is extensively manufactured in all of our principal cities. Low priced leads are always adulterated by chalk, or, as it is called in its prepared state, whiting. It is sometimes so largely mixed with this, as to be worthless, and every one has observed houses, painted for a year or so, from which the paint rubs off like whitewash, in consequence of the use of adulterated lead. The poorest lead is sold without any brand. The common article is branded as No. 1, with the maker’s name. The best article is branded with the maker’s name, as Pure, or Superior. It is the best economy always to use the pure lead.

Oil.—Linseed oil is that usually employed in painting. It contains a large amount of fatty substance and of other impurity, which should be separated from it before it is used. This is to be done by boiling. For outside work, the oil should always be boiled, no matter what the painter says about it. Great care should be taken in doing this. Let the kettle be set out of doors, the heat be increased gradually, but never enough to produce violent boiling, as the oil will expand, run over, and take fire, when nothing can save it, or the house either, oftentimes, if you have been foolish enough to do it within doors. As fast as impurities rise to the surface, skim them off—when the oil has a clear look, slack off the fire and let the oil cool; carefully turn off the clear portion, leaving the sediment undisturbed.

Dryers.—Substances used to make paint dry quickly are called Dryers. For light work sugar of lead is the best; for colored paint, litharge and red lead are employed. Spirits of turpentine is used for the same purpose. Litharge and red lead are usually boiled in with the oil at the rate of about a quarter of a pound of litharge to a gallon of oil.

Mixing and Laying On.—Paint is purchased in kegs, containing twenty-five pounds of lead ground in oil, and ready for mixing. The kegs themselves make excellent paint-pots. The lead is to be mixed according to the work to be done. If paint is laid on in heavy coats it will crack and peel off. If several thin coats are successively laid on, it forms a solid body. The first coat is called priming. The lead is made quite thin with oil for priming. Before laying it on, let the work be cleaned, all dust and dirt be removed. The surface is then covered evenly with paint, and allowed to dry thoroughly.

Second Coat.—Let nail-holes, cracks, etc., be filled with putty; for colored painting, red-lead putty is the best. The paint should be mixed to the thickness of thin cream, and laid on evenly, but not in too great quantities. In nice work, after this coat has thoroughly dried, it should be rubbed down with pumice-stone or fine sand-paper. The third coat is to be laid on as was the second. Three coats, at least, are required for good painting. Four or five will be still better.

Paint mixed with boiled oil usually has a glossy appearance. If it is desired to increase this, small portions of varnish are added. This is usually confined to outside work.

In cities the glossy surface of paint, is dis-esteemed for inside work; and instead, a flatted white is laid on. This is produced by mixing the lead for the last coat with turpentine instead of oil, by which a dull white is made. Flatted colors are not susceptible of being cleaned by washing more that once or twice, whereas common paint will endure washing, if carefully performed, for years. If painting is well done, and the paint is of the best materials, it ought to last twenty years. But the trash too often daubed upon buildings, does not last five years.

White will keep its color best for outside work. Some tint is thought to be more agreeable for inside work. Much judgment is required in preparing colored or tinted paints; and verbal directions cannot well be given for it in any moderate space. The usual pigments employed in making up the tints most in fashion, are for grey—white lead, Prussian blue, ivory black, and lake, or Venetian red; for pea and sea greens—white, Prussian blue, and yellow; for olive green—white, Prussian blue, umber, and yellow ochre; for fawn color—burned terra sienna, umber, and white.

We add two recipes taken from an English work, for a cheap paint for inside walls.

“Milk Paint.—A paint has been used on the Continent with success, made from milk and lime, that dries quicker than oil paint, and has no smell. It is made in the following manner: Take fresh curds and bruise the lumps on a grinding-stone, or in an earthen pan, or mortar, with a spatula or strong spoon. Then put them into a pot with an equal quantity of lime, well slacked with water, to make it just thick enough to be kneaded. Stir this mixture without adding more water, and a white-colored fluid will soon be obtained, which will serve as a paint. It may be laid on with a brush with as much ease us varnish, and it dries very speedily. It must, however, be used the same day it is made, for if kept till next day it will be too thick: consequently no more must be mixed up at one time than can be laid on in a day. If any color be required, any of the ochres, as yellow ochre, or red ochre, or umber, may be mixed with it in any proportion. Prussian blue would be changed by the lime. Two coats of this paint will be sufficient, and when quite dry it may be polished with a piece of woollen cloth, or similar substance, and it will become as bright as varnish. It will only do for inside work; but it will last longer if varnished over with white of egg after it has been polished.”

“The following recipe for milk paint is given in ‘Smith’s Art of House Painting:’ Take of skimmed milk nearly two quarts; of fresh-slaked lime about six ounces and a half; of linseed oil four ounces, and of whiting three pounds; put the lime into a stone vessel, and pour upon it a sufficient quantity of milk to form a mixture resembling thin cream; then add the oil, a little at a time, stirring it with a small spatula; the remaining milk is then to be added, and lastly the whiting. The milk must on no account be sour. Slake the lime by dipping the pieces in water, out of which it is to be immediately taken, and left to slake in the air. For fine white paint the oil of caraway is best, because colorless; but with ochres the commonest oils may be used. The oil when mixed with the milk and lime entirely disappears, and is totally dissolved by the lime, forming a calcareous soap. The whiting or ochre is to be gently crumbled on the surface of the fluid, which it gradually imbibes, and at last sinks: at this period it must be well stirred in. This paint may be colored like distemper or size-color, with levigated charcoal, yellow ochre, etc., and used in the same manner. The quantity here prescribed is sufficient to cover twenty-seven square yards with the first coat, and it will cost about three halfpence a yard. The same paint will do for outdoor work by the addition of two ounces of slaked lime, two ounces of linseed oil, and two ounces of white Burgundy pitch: the pitch to be melted in a gentle heat with the oil, and then added to the smooth mixture of the milk and lime. In cold weather it must be mixed warm, to facilitate its incorporation with the milk.”

We add several recipes of various convenient kinds of paint to be employed in particular situations, and for special purposes.

“A coating to preserve wood in damp situations may be made by beating twelve pounds of resin in a mortar, and adding to it three pounds of sulphur and twelve pints of whale oil. This mixture must then be melted over a fire, and stirred well while it is melting. Ochre of any required color, ground in oil, may be put to it. This composition must be laid on hot, and when the first coat is dry, which will be in two or three days, a second coat may be given; and a third, if necessary.”

“Gas tar, with yellow ochre, makes a very cheap and durable green paint for iron rails and coarse woodwork.”

“Composition to lay on a boarded building, to resist the weather and likewise fire.—Take one measure of fine sand, two measures of wood-ashes well sifted, three of slaked lime ground up with oil, and mix them together; lay this on with a brush, the first coat thin, the second thick. This adheres so strongly to the boards covered with it, that it resists an iron tool, and the action of fire, and is impenetrable by water.”

“A flexible paint for canvas is made by stirring into fifty-six pounds of common oil paint a solution of soap lye, made of half a pound of soap and three pounds of water: it must be used while warm.”

“A black coloring for garden walls may be made by mixing quicklime, lampblack, a little copperas, and hot water.”

GARDEN WEEDS.

After hot weather sets in many are naturally inclined to relax their garden labors; they have eaten their salads, their radishes and peas; their beans and corn require but little attention, and as for the rest, it is left to the company of weeds.

Weeds.—If the garden be thoroughly hoed twice or three times, the labor of keeping down weeds the rest of the summer will be small. It is best to go over a compartment first with the hoe, to cut off weeds and loosen the soil, then with a rake go over it again, levelling and smoothing the surface, and collecting the weeds into heaps, which should be wheeled to the manure-corner and left to decay. In raking, tread backward so that your tracks will be covered by the rake, and the bed left even.

Among the most vexatious weeds may be mentioned the purslain (Portulacca oleracea), commonly called pussly. It comes in May and lasts through the summer. One plant bears seed enough for a whole acre. It is very tenacious of life. The least bit of root sprouts again, and when rooted up, if a single fibre touches the soil, it starts off in full vigor. When boiled it furnishes a very palatable article of “greens.” We go over the ground with a hoe, then rake it into heaps and wheel it to the barn-yard. Hogs are fond of it, and it is said to fatten them well. It is somewhat amusing to those who are vexed at its insuperable intrusiveness and its inevitable vigor, to hear English garden-books speaking of it as “somewhat tender,” of raising it on hot-beds, of drilling it in the open garden, of watering it in dry weather thrice a week, and cutting it carefully so that it may sprout again! Cut it as you please, gentlemen! rake it into alleys, let an August sun scorch it, and if there is so much as a handful of dirt thrown at it, no fear but that it will sprout again. It is a vegetable type of immortality. The Jamestown weed (called jimpsum), the Spanish needle, lamb’s-quarters, etc., are easily eradicated for the season by one or two hoeings. The grasses which infest gardens, spreading into a cultivated ground from the grass-plat, or brought in with manure, are easily weeded out if plucked while small; but if left, the long spreading-roots tear up tender plants along with them.

It is said that if no seeds were brought into the land by wind or manure, or growth, the stock of weeds might be eradicated in eight years. But so long as corners and fence edges are reserved as weed-nurseries, to furnish an annual supply of seed, no one need fear that gardening will become too easy from want of work.

We know of but two reasons for letting weeds grow to any size. In a large garden, when all the ground is not to be planted at once, the reserved portions may be suffered to sprout all the weeds, and when six or eight inches high, if turned under, they will furnish good manure. Again, when cut-worms are very numerous, when tomatoes and cabbages have been set out on a clean compartment, we have lost from a half to two-thirds of the plants. If the weeds are kept down just about the hill, and permitted to grow for a few weeks, between the rows, although it has a very slovenly look, it will save the cabbages, etc., by giving ample foot to the cut-worm. When the plants grow tough in the stem the weeds may be lightly spaded in, and the surface levelled with a rake.

LUCERNE.

This admirable plant is not so well known as it should be. It resembles a clover, and is used for green food for cattle, for which it is peculiarly adapted both by its nutriciousness and its endurance of repeated cuttings. Care must be taken to put it upon the right soil and it will bear mowing four or five times a year, and will last for ten years—with care five years more! The soil for it is a deep, a very deep vegetable loam, which drains itself perfectly and yet without becoming dry. It has a fusiform root, which, as the plant grows older, extends downward from four to six feet. The subsoil is regarded by Flemish farmers as of more importance than the surface soil. A stiff, cold, clay, a wet and springy soil; a hard, cold, wet subsoil of any sort, is unfavorable to it. It should therefore be tried on warm, dry, and rich soils, than which none are better than our sandy alluvions or bottom lands. During its first year it requires some care, to keep down weeds, as it is easily smothered; but when once established it rules the soil in defiance of anything. If the ground is very clean, it may be sown broadcast; but it is always safer and often necessary to drill it. Authors vary as to the quantity of seed required per acre, Von Thaër says six to eight pounds, while his French editor says from sixteen to eighteen. We suppose that from ten to twelve pounds will be a fair amount.

When the plants are well established they will be improved by severe harrowing every spring, a sharp harrow being used until the field looks as if it were plowed.

Lucerne has been tried by a few cultivators in the West, but by more in the East, with great success, and it has this peculiar excellence, that, thanks to its very long roots, it withstands our severest droughts; indeed our hottest and dryest summers are those which it seems to delight in.

FAMILY GOVERNMENT.

“William! stop that noise, I say—won’t you stop! Stop, I Tell you, or I’ll slap your mouth.”

William bawls a little louder.

“William, I tell you! ain’t you going to stop? Stop I say! If you don’t stop I’ll whip you, sure.”

William goes up a fifth, and beats time with his heels.

“I never saw such a child!—he’s got temper enough for a whole town; I’m sure he didn’t get it from me. Why don’t you be still! Whist. Wh-i-st. Come, come, be still, won’t you? Stop, stop, STOP, I say! Don’t you see this—don’t you see this stick? See here now,” (cuts the air with the stick).

William, more furious, kicks very manfully at his mother—grows redder in the face, lets out the last note, and begins to reel, and shake, and twist, in a most spiteful manner.

“Come, William! come dear—that’s a darling—naughty William! come, that’s a good boy; donty cry, p-o-o-r, little fellow; sant ab-o-o-s-e you, sall eh! Ma’s ittle man, want a piece of sooger? Ma’s little boy got cramp, p-o-o-r little sick boy,” etc., etc.

William wipes up, and minds, and eats his sugar, and stops.

After Scene.—The minister is present, and very nice talk is going on upon the necessity of governing children. “Too true,” says mamma, “some people will give up to their children, and it ruins them—every child should be governed. But then it won’t do to carry it too far; if one whips all the time it will break a child’s spirit. One ought to mix kindness and firmness together in managing children.”

“I think so,” said the preacher; “firmness first and then kindness.”

“Yes, sir, that’s my practice exactly.”

CATALOGUE OF FLOWERS, SEEDS, AND FRUITS.

We have received from different directions catalogues of seeds, flowers, and fruits. Instead of a mere mention of them, we shall employ them as texts for some remarks on the departments to which they belong.

The kinds, and varieties of the same kind of vegetables advertised are satisfactory. Then there is evidence that the easily besetting sin of seed establishments has been resisted and very much overcome, viz.: a prodigal multiplication of varieties. Now we do not wish to tie down a seedsman to only one variety of cucumber—one pea—one bean; for there is great advantage in having many varieties of the same vegetable. Some love mild radishes, and some love the full peppery taste; as both qualities cannot exist in the same variety it is desirable to have two. But some radishes which do admirably in the spring and early summer, lose their good qualities if planted in summer. We therefore seek and find a summer variety. This again fails for late autumnal use, and we procure a (so called) winter sort. We need one pea for its earliness: but early fruit seldom has size or a high flavor; we desire other varieties, therefore, for flavor, even though, in giving them a longer period to perfect their juices, we have a late pea. But some men raise peas for market, and cannot afford to raise a pea merely because fine-flavored, unless also it is prolific. Then, once more, market peas must be raised, usually as a field-pea, and sown broadcast. Some peas stand up stronger than others, and these are of course preferred. Now, as we cannot find any vegetable that combines all the qualities of earliness, size, flavor, and adaptation to variety of soil and diversity of cultivation, we come as near to it as possible, by gaining varieties, in which some one or more of these qualities are better developed than in any others. The reasons for multiplying varieties afford a rule by which they may be limited.

The fact that a seed is a variety different from all others is no good reason for retaining or cultivating it; it must, in SOME respects, surpass others now in use, or it only encumbers the garden. What is the use of ten varieties of peas ripening at the same time of one size, and differing from each other in not one assignable particular? When a catalogue enumerates fifty varieties of cabbage, or pea, or bean, are we to believe that each of the fifty has a virtue peculiar to itself? If not, if two-thirds of them have no merit which is not found, and found in a higher degree, in the one-third they have no business to be retained. Let the one-third, stand and the rest be erased. We regard a very fat catalogue as we do a very fat man—all the worse for its obesity. In comparing catalogues, we are not left as much without an authoritative standard of judgment, in respect to a proper extension of the number of varieties, as might at first appear. English gardening has been carried to such a degree of excellence, both as an art and as a science, that we may regard the deliberate judgment of the best gardeners as law on this subject. When Loudon published his invaluable “Encyclopedia of Gardening,” he was permitted by the London Horticultural Society to avail himself of the services of the distinguished Monro in the department of culinary vegetables.

Let us compare the catalogues of three first rate seedsmen as it respects a multiplication of varieties, with Mr. Monro’s selections:

Cucumber Melon Celery Beet Turnip Cabbage Peas Beans Lettuce

Landreth 2 15 2 5 9 10 7 15 8

Breck 9 10 6 8 22 18 20 24 12

Prince 17 25 8 9 30 49 47 61 56

Cucumber Melon Celery

Landreth 2 15 2

Breck 9 10 6

Prince 17 25 8

Beet Turnip Cabbage

Landreth 5 9 10

Breck 8 22 18

Prince 9 30 49

Peas Beans Lettuce

Landreth 7 15 8

Breck 20 24 12

Prince 47 61 56

Mr. Monro names nineteen kinds of peas only, instead of forty-seven: twenty-two kinds of beans instead of sixty-one; seven varieties of turnip instead of twenty-two, or, worse yet, thirty; fourteen sorts of lettuce, instead of fifty-two.

To the uninitiated a catalogue may look meagre with only eight kinds of lettuce instead of fifty; fifteen beans instead of sixty-one, etc., but these corpulent catalogues make meagre pockets, except in the case of the seedsman. A much greater latitude of varieties is allowable in a nursery catalogue than in a seedsman’s list. But in even these there is a disposition to extravagance which needs to be corrected. Where the disproportion of knowledge between the buyers and seller is so great as it is, and for some time, must be, in horticultural matters, it becomes nurserymen and seedsmen who are honest (and we have many such, and they are increasing)—those who regard their business as an honorable branch of science, as well as a proper means of livelihood, and who hope to gain a high reputation, even more than they do wealth, it becomes such to render the lists SELECT; and while the monstrously bloated catalogues of boasting and avaricious men continue to perplex and deceive the unwary, let all intelligent cultivators sustain those who rely on the quality rather than quantity of their articles.

GARDEN SEEDS.

Good seeds are the very first requisite for a good garden; soil and culture cannot make good crops out of bad seed.

1. As a general rule, buy your seeds. The reasons for it are so many and so good, that you will certainly do it, unless economy prevent; but it is better to economize elsewhere.

In the first place, seed-raising is a delicate business; and, for many reasons, will be better done by those who make it their business, than by those who do not. A reputable seedsman never dreams of raising, himself, all the seeds which he sells. For example, one sort of seed is let out to a farmer who contracts to raise it in a given soil and manner, and at a distance from all other seeds. One man raises the beet seed—another man, very often hundreds of miles distant, another sort. Peas are sent to Vermont and to Canada, where the pea-bug does not infest them. Some seeds, for which this climate is not favorable, are imported from Italy, from Guernsey—just as flowering bulbs are from Holland. We suppose this to be true of Landreth, Thornburn, Prince, Bliss, Risley, etc. In cases where seeds are raised upon the premises of the seedsman, they are put on different parts of the farm, as far apart as possible.

Those precautions are indispensable to the procuration of the best seeds of esculent vegetables. Species of the same genus, with open flowers, are so easily crossed, that, if grown contiguously, they cannot be kept pure. All cucurbitaceous plants, such as squashes, pumpkins, melons, cucumbers, gourds, etc., will mix and degenerate if planted even in the same garden. Let any one who wishes to see how it is done, watch the bee covering itself with golden pollen as it searches for honey in the cells of the flower, and darting off to another, mingling the fertilizing powder of the two. In a single morning, cucumbers will be mixed with each other, and with canteloupes; squashes will be crossed, and in the next generation will show it. Where the organs of flowers are protected, as in the pea, bean, etc., by a floral envelope, insects do not mix their pollen. I have never known pure beet seed raised in a private garden which had more than the single kind in it—or when another garden was near which had other sorts.

We prefer, generally, northern seeds to those raised elsewhere. A mere change of soil and climate is often advantageous to seeds. But besides this, greater care and skill are usually employed at the north in producing sound and safe seeds.

We can recommend, from repeated trials, the seeds of Risley, Chatauque county, N. Y., and of Mr. Breck of Boston. Landreth of Philadelphia has a high reputation; so have the veteran Thorburn of John Street, and the enterprising house of B. K. Bliss & Sons of Park Place, New York.

2. Some seeds retain their power of germination to an astonishing length of time, as will appear from facts stated by Prof. Lindley:

“Not to speak of the doubtful instances of seeds taken from the Pyramids having germinated, melons have been known to grow at the age of 40 years, kidney beans at 100, sensitive-plant at 60, rye at 40; and there are now growing, in the garden of the Horticultural Society, raspberry plants raised from seeds 1600 or 1700 years old.” (See “Introduction to Botany,” ed. 3, p. 358.)

But in selecting seeds, fresh ones should be had if possible. Where, however, the vegetable is cultivated for the sake of its flower, or its fruit, it is sometimes better to select old seed. Thus balsamines (the touch-me-not) and the cucumber, squash and melon tribe do better on seeds three or four years old; for fresh seeds produce plants whose growth will be too luxuriant for producing fruit; whereas from old seed, the plants have less vigor of growth but a greater tendency to fruit well.

We insert a table, exhibiting the years which different seeds will retain their vitality.

TIME THAT SEEDS WILL KEEP.

YEARS.

Asparagus4 or 13

Balm2

Basil1 or 3

Beans1 or 2

Beets8 or 10

Borage2

Cabbage6 or 8

Carrot1 or 7

Celery6 or 8

Corn2 or 3

Cress2

Cucumber8 or 10

Caraway4

Fennel6

Garlic3

Leek3 or 4

Lettuce3 or 4

Mangel Wurtzel8 or 10

Marjoram4

Melon8 or 10

Mustard3 or 4

Nasturtium2 or 3

Onion3

Parsley5 or 6

Parsnip1

Pea2 or 3

Pumpkin8 or 10

Pepper5 or 6

Radish6 or 8

Rue3

Ruta Baga4

Salsify2

Savory3 or 4

Spinage3 or 4

Squash8 or 10

Turnip3 or 4

FARMERS’ GARDENS.

Farmers are apt to have very inferior gardens. The idea is, that in the spring they have no time; the farm crops are of more importance. In consequence of such a decision, no garden will be had unless the housewife is willing to be gardenwife too. At her importunity at length one horse is put to the plow and the garden is broken up—say four inches deep. Possibly the boy is allowed to throw up the beds, but very often even this is left to woman’s hand. She has to hunt up seed; peppers are pulled off from the ceiling and eviscerated; drawers are ransacked for the bag of radish seed or the paper of lettuce seed; the old broken pitcher is taken from its long seclusion on the top of the cupboard and emptied of its beans and peas; withal a few flower seeds are added to grace the stock—four o’clocks; poppies, marigolds, and touch-me-nots. Our gardenwife is not so admirable for lily hands or fair face, or fairy form. She cannot walk over dewy flowers without crushing them, as can a true heroine; for her specific gravity gives evidence of a good constitution, health and habits.

Her praise is, that in a new country where woman unquestionably suffers the most of hardships, she is cheerful, contented, industrious, enterprising, and, like women the world over, seeks to draw around herself objects of taste and beauty to decorate and cheer her husband’s and her children’s home; and, if necessary, to do it by the field-labor of her own hands. We could not forbear saying so much of the meritorious gardener of more than half the rural gardens in the West.

The seeds all mustered, she may be seen, after the breakfast things are all done up, busy with spade and hoe, hiding her treasures. And thus she does it. First a liberal suit of onion beds—savory vegetables to the tongue and most unsavory to the nose—making it almost impossible for these respectable neighbors to live together in peace, one or other of them being in bad odor with the other. Next, a seed-bed full of cabbages—significant to the imagination of cold-slaw, sourcrout, etc. A good row of peas, and a few hills of running beans are added. The alleys are ruffled with bush beans; a few early potatoes, some corn for roasting-ears, with a slender bed for beets, complete the stock of esculents. But sage, and summer savory, and thyme, and rue, and sweet marjoram, tansy, boneset and wormwood are attended to; a part for stuffing ducks and chickens—and the others for curing those who have been too much stuffed with them. The garden yields in due time its first fruits; the potatoes come and go, the corn is early plucked, lettuce shoots up its seed-stalk, peas render their tribute and grow sere, beans rattle in the pod, and before August her work is done and her garden forsaken except a small retinue of flowers, which are nursed to the last. Weeds now make up for lost time, and in a few weeks a weedy forest hides every trace of cultivation. This is not a fancy sketch; we have been far from drawing a picture from the worst specimens; it is a fair average case.

Our business is, not to quarrel with the farmer, but to suggest a better plan for his garden. We saw the plan stated some years ago; where, we have forgotten, but think well of it. It is simply this: let the garden be an oblong—say three times as long as it is broad—and cultivate it with the plow. Instead of having beds, let all seeds be planted in rows running the whole length of the garden. For example, begin with one row of beets—or more if wanted; next a row or rows of carrots, parsnips, cabbages, potatoes, corn, and all about three feet apart. The same system should be followed for small fruits—currants, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc.—and it will have this advantage over common gardens, that the bushes will have sun and air on all sides, and be more fruitful and more healthy for it. The whole garden, thus arranged, can be kept in order with very little labor. A single-horse plow will dress between the rows of the whole garden in a very little time and save all hand-hoeing. The hand-weeding in the row may be performed by women or children.

In large towns ground is scarce and labor abundant. Gardens, therefore, are properly laid out for economy of space. In the country the reverse is true; land is abundant but labor scarce and dear; of course gardens should be laid out not to save room, but to economize labor. The plan suggested will save labor, improve the garden, and take from the wife the drudgery of the spade and hoe.

EARLY DAYS OF SPRING.

If the soil be thrown up during the open weather into ridges, an immense number of insects will be unburrowed and destroyed; stiff clayey soils will be rendered more crumbling and mellow by exposure to frost. If advantage is taken of the weather to haul manure, let it be stacked up, and a little earth thrown over it, else the volatile and most valuable portions will escape. Ashes may be spread over the garden; a small portion of refuse salt will benefit the ground, and may be sown now. Clear the ground of all vines, stalks, haulm. If you have flowering bulbs, cover slightly with coarse manure—they will not be so much tried by the changes of temperature and moisture, and will flower stronger for it. Bright, dry days afford a fine time for going to the woods and cutting poles for your beans, stakes for your trees and dahlias, brush for peas, etc. While you are about it, collect moss from old logs, and put away in the barn or shed to cover the ground in summer where roses and shrubs have been newly set out, and require to be kept moist. If not done before, put two or three forks full of coarse green manure about tender shrubs—Noisette and China roses. Freezing and thawing at the crown of the roots, destroys them oftener than anything else.

On mild days when the earth is open, sow lettuce seed in a warm corner, beat it gently with the back of the shovel, and cover it slightly with fine earth or old crumbling manure. You will have lettuce ten days earlier for your trouble. Pepper-grass and radishes may be sowed in like manner.

☞ Let alone the knife and saw. Your vines and trees will not be benefited by any pruning at this season.

PARLOR FLOWERS.

Water freely such as are in pots, while in blossom. The flower stalks will be apt to shoot up taller and weaker than in the garden, and will require rods to support them. Let the rod be thrust down about two inches from the centre of the flower, and attach the flower stem to it by one or two ligaments. Flowers in small stove rooms can be kept in health with extreme difficulty. The heat forces their growth, or injures the leaves. They should be washed off once a week (either on a mild day out of doors, or in a warm room within, if the weather be severe), as the dust settles upon the leaf, and stops up the stomata (mouths) by which the leaf perspires and breathes. If green aphides infest them, put a pan of coals beneath the stand, and throw on a half-handful of coarse tobacco. In half an hour every insect will tumble off. Let such as lie on the surface of the earth be removed or crushed, as they will else revive. Plants should have fresh air every day.

A SALT RECIPE.

There is a great fashion, now-a-days, in all papers, to set forth useful recipes for every imaginable purpose. Every newspaper has its weekly budget of recipes. Our magazines have a page of original recipes; and, before long, why should not the North American Review, or the Edinburgh Review come out with their quarterly bill of fare reciped in full? So practical is our nineteenth century, that our literary men and women feel it to be a solemn duty to indite novel recipes for cooking, seasoning, removing stains, curing diseases, etc.; and why not? If one can invent a sonnet, an elegy, or worse yet, a poem, and thus draw people’s brains a wool-gathering in the regions of imagination, ought they not to atone for their license by an invention equally substantial for the body? Miss Leslie writes a beautiful story, and a recipe for manipulating lobsters. Miss Martineau writes travels, political economies and suggestions on plum pudding. Mrs. Sigourney tunes her lyre with a hand most redolent of pies, cakes and gingerbread. Such is the aspect of culinary affairs, and the rights of women, that the day seems at hand when no learning will sustain a man, and no accomplishments a woman, who does not understand the art and mystery of cooking. It will be the duty of some future Heyne to give accurate recipes for all the feasts of Homer’s heroes, the ingredients of all the Horacian drinking-bouts—the dishes of Virgil’s fine fellows, as well as the minor matters of armor, language, manners, and customs; and a good lexicon, Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, must contain clearly written recipes for all the dishes used by the people whose language it sets forth. We have been led into this grand prairie of reflections by a recipe found in a country paper which unquestionably is salty.

“Indian Baked Pudding.—Indian pudding is good and wholesome, baked. Scald a quart of milk, and stir in seven table spoonfuls of salt, a tea-cupful of molasses, and a great spoonful of ginger, or sifted cinnamon. Bake three or four hours. If you want whey you must be sure and pour in a little cold milk, after it is all mixed. Try it.”

If Misses Leslie, Childs, etc., refuse to mother such a recipe, with no Indian meal in it, but seven mortal spoonfuls of salt, then we will consider it as emanating from Lot’s wife. We are sure if one should eat many such puddings, he would speedily come to her estate.

CULTURE OF CELERY.

We know of no vegetable which requires more care and skill in its cultivation, from beginning to end, than celery. An inexperiened hand will be apt to fail in planting his seed, fail in preparing the trenches, and fail in earthing up the plants and bleaching them. And yet, celery is so generally a favorite that every family desires it, and every gardener is willing to cultivate it.

Seed Sowing.—The seed is exceedingly slow in germination, and, if not assisted artificially, will lie three and sometimes four weeks without sprouting. We soak the seed in water, (a solution of oxalic acid would be much better), for twenty-four hours: turn off the water, and then add and stir up a few handfuls of sand, well moistened, and let the seed stand in a stove room or other warm place, for two or three days. The sand will now be nearly dry; if it be not, add dry sand to it until it is perfectly powdery, and can be sown without falling in lumps. Besides hastening its germination, mixing the seed with sand enables the operator to sow it with greater facility and evenness. Select a shaded spot, let the earth be rich, rather inclined to moisture, and perfectly mellow. Sow the seed broadcast, and cover very thinly by sifting over it finely pulverized mold. Beat the bed gently with the back of the spade to settle the earth firmly about the seed. Don’t fear that the seed will be troubled by beating; every seed should have the earth pressed to it by a smart stroke of the hoe, hand, spade, or by the pressure of a roller. If the weather is exceedingly warm and dry, cover your seed-bed with matting or old carpet, to retain the moisture. When up let them be well weeded, until they are six inches high, when they are to be removed to the trench for blanching.

First Transplanting.—The process here detailed may be wholly omitted by those who are obliged to economize time and labor. But those who wish to do the very best that can be done—who wish to avoid spindling, weak plants, and secure strong and vigorous ones—transplant their celery to a level bed of very rich soil, placing the plants four inches apart every way. They are cultivated here for about five weeks, when they will have attained a robust habit, or, technically, they will have became stocky—for which purpose they were thus transplanted.

Celery Trenches.—Dig your trenches about eighteen inches wide, and one foot deep, laying a shovelful of dirt alternately on each side of the trench, that it may be conveniently drawn in on both sides when you earth up. If you are favored with a very deep and rich loamy soil, such as often abounds in Western gardens, you will need little or no manure. But usually about four inches of vegetable mold and very thoroughly rotted manure, should be placed in the bottom of the trench and gently spaded in. No part of the culture is more critical than manuring. If the soil is slow, poor, and stingy, the celery will be dwarfish, tough and strong. On the other hand, if you employ new, rank, fiery manure, although you will have a vigorous growth, the stalks will be hollow, watery, coarse and flavorless. Let the manure be very thoroughly decayed and mixed half and half with leaf or vegetable mold.

Set the plants five inches apart, water them freely with a fine rosed watering pot, and, if the sun is fierce, cover the trenches daily from ten A.M. till evening with boards. In about a week they will begin to grow and will need no more shading.

Let them alone, except to weed, until the plants are from twelve to fifteen inches high—at which time they are to be earthed up.

Earthing Up.—In dry weather, with a short, hand-hoe, draw in the earth gently from each side and bring it up carefully to the stalk. The soil must be kept out of the plant, and it is best for the first and perhaps the second time of earthing, to gather up the leaves in the left hand, and holding them together, to draw the earth about them. Fill in about once in two weeks, and always when the plants are dry. When the trench is full, the process is still to go on, and at the close of the season your plants will be exactly reversed—instead of standing in a trench they will top out from a high ridge.

Saving Celery in Winter.—Three ways may be mentioned. Letting it stand in the trench—in which case it should be covered with long straw and boards so laid over it that it will be protected from the wet, which is supposed to be more prejudicial to it than mere cold.

The Boston market gardeners dig it late in autumn, trim off the fibrous roots, cut off the top, lay it for two days in an airy shed, turning it, say twice a day, and then pack it in layers of perfectly dry sand, in a barrel. After laying two days to air it goes into the barrel much wilted, but regains its plumpness, and comes out as fresh as from the trench.

Lastly, it may be put in rows on the cellar bottom, without trimming, and earth heaped up about it. Set a plank at an angle of forty-five degrees and bank up the earth against it, set a row of roots and cover them with dirt, then another row and so on.

Solid celery is not a particular variety—any celery is solid when properly grown—and if grown too rankly the most solid celery in the world will be hollow.

We have seen it recommended to water the trenches once or twice during the season with a weak brine of salt and water. Besides the fertilizing effect of salt, it will have the effect of retaining moisture in the soil, and what is of yet more moment, it destroys the parasitical fungus (Puccinca Heraclei) which attacks and rusts the plant, and probably would, also, guard it against a maggot which is apt to infest and very much injure it. There is an insect, which, in very dry weather, is apt to sting the leaf and cause it to wilt. While the dew is on in the morning, sift lime over the plants once or twice, and it will check the fly.

If any think these directions too minute and the process vexatious, they are at liberty to try a cheaper method—and may, once in a while, succeed. But a certain crop, year by year, cannot be expected without exact and very careful cultivation. We have learned this by sorrowful experience.

The main crop of celery need not be placed in the trenches until the middle of July or the first of August. It’s greatest growth will be in the fall months.

Seedling Trees.—Many trees which are entirely hardy when grown, are very tender during the first and second winters. Cover them with straw, refuse garden gatherings, leaves, etc. Sometimes it is best to raise them and lay them in by the heels, by which those gardeners designate the operation of laying trees in trenches or excavations, and covering the roots and a considerable portion of the stems. This will not be extra labor in all cases when the young trees are to be reset, at any rate, the second year in nursery rows.

CULTURE OF PIE-PLANT.

Beginners should in all cases, if possible, obtain a supply of plants, from a proved sort, by dividing the root. Raising from seed is an after, and an amateur practice. The first object with every man is to supply his family with this esculent, and not to experiment with new sorts. Let him buy or beg from garden or nursery, enough buds to establish a bed, of some kind already known to be good.

The best season of the year for dividing the root is in the spring; the next best is in late autumn; and the worst in midsummer—as we have abundantly ascertained by experiment. The reason is plain. Like bulbs, and tubers, the root of the pie-plant stores up in itself during one season, a supply of organizable matter enough to enable it to start off the next season, without any dependence upon the soil. Dahlias, potatoes, onions, turnips, cabbages, etc., it is well known, are able to grow for a considerable time, in the spring, without any connection with the soil; being sustained by that supply which they had treasured up within themselves the previous autumn. When this is exhausted, they will die, if they have not been put in connection with food from without. When pie-plant is divided in the spring, it is full of the material of life, and a bud cut off from the main root with a portion of the root attached, has a supply of food until new roots are emitted, which in good soil and weather will be in about a week. There is the same vitality in autumn, and the only reason why it is not so good for transplanting as spring, is the risk that the buds and roots will rot off during the winter. A uniform winter will scarcely injure one in a hundred, but constant changes, freezing and thawing, will weaken, if not destroy many of them. When, however, it is necessary to divide and transplant in the fall, cover the bed full four inches deep with coarse, strong manure. Although great care will enable one to transplant a section of the root in midsummer, yet we have found that when no more attention is paid than in spring, nine plants are lost out of ten. The reason is obvious. There is no reserved treasure of sap in the root in summer, such as gives it vitality in spring or autumn. If for any reason we must take up a root in summer, let every possible fibre be saved, the plant well watered and sheltered until it begins to grow again.

Raising from Seed.—The origination of new varieties of fruits, flowers and esculent vegetables is one of the greatest rewards of gardening. Almost every seed of the pie-plant will produce a variety. We have thought ourselves repaid for trouble if one in fifty seedling plants were worth saving. It requires a full two years’ trial to improve a sort. Of fifty plants, say twenty-five may be rejected peremptorily the first season, the petioles being mere wires. Of the other twenty-five, one or two will give great promise, and the others will be doubtful. Let them be transplanted in the spring of the second season, into very mellow, rich, deep loam, full three feet apart every way, and here they may stand until the owner is fully satisfied, by the trial of one or more seasons, which are good and which inferior. In marking seedling plants, the cultivator should bear in mind that there are two kinds required, viz. a very early sort, and one for the later and main supply. If a plant has small stalks, and is late too, reject it of course. If it be very early, it may be valuable even if quite small. Some sorts are fit for plucking five or six weeks before others; we have a variety which comes forward almost the moment the frost leaves the ground in the spring, or in warm spells in winter.

In selecting a late sort from your seedlings, several qualities must be consulted. The plant should manifest an indisposition to go to seed; should be apt to throw out an abundance of leaves, to supply those taken off; the petioles should be large; the meat rich and substantial. There is great difference between one sort and another in the amount of sugar required, in the delicacy of flavor, and in the property of stewing to a pulp, without wasting away.

A good variety of pie-plant, then, should be a vigorous grower, prolific, large in the stalk, not apt to flower, of a sprightly acid without any earthy or woody taste, not stewing away more than one-third when cooked, and not requiring too much sugar.

We have observed in our trials that seedlings having smooth leaves, with the upper surface varnished and glossy, are seldom good; while every plant which we have thought worth keeping, had the upper surface of its leaves of a deep, dull, lack-lustre green.

Formation of a Bed.—Select a strong and rich loam. Let it be spaded full two feet deep. If the subsoil has never been worked, and is clay, or gravel, a large supply of old manure should be mixed with it. Our working-method is this: Mark off the square, begin on one side, lay out a full spadeful of the top-soil clear across the bed; lay four or five inches of manure in the trench, and then spade it down a full twelve inches deep; beginning again by the side of the first trench, put the top-soil of the second into the first; add manure and spade as before; and so across the bed. The surface-soil thrown out of the first trench may be wheeled down and put into the last one. This process will leave the bed much higher than it was; let it stand one or two weeks to settle. If the bed is prepared in autumn it will be better, and in the spring it may be half-spaded again before planting.

Mark out, by line, rows three feet apart, and set your plants in the rows three feet from plant to plant, if of the large kind, and two feet, if of the small. Very large varieties require four feet every way. Tho buds should be left just below the surface of the soil.

After Culture.—Through the summer keep the surface mellow and free from weeds. In the fall of the year, when the leaves show signs of falling, form a compost heap of fine charcoal, if you can get it from blacksmith’s or elsewhere, vegetable mold, ashes, and very old manure. Spread and spade in a good coat of this, spading lightly near to the plants and deeply between them. When frost destroys the tops wholly, cover the bed with coarse, strong manure about four inches deep, smooth it down, and let it remain thus. The next spring stir the surface smartly with a rake, and no further care will be required except to pluck out any weeds that grow through the summer.

Gathering.—Leaves are constantly springing from the centre. Of course the full-grown ones will be on the outside. These should be harvested, leaving the inside ones to mature. By going regularly over your bed, and taking in turn the outside leaves, a bed may be used till July without the slightest injury. Other fruit, after that time, usually displaces pie-plant and leaves it to rest the remainder of the year. The leaf-stalks should not be cut off. Slide the hand down as near as possible to the root, and give the stalk a backward and sidewise wrench and it will be detached at a joint or articulation, and no stump will be left to rot and injure the root—we usually cut off the leaves on the spot, leaving them about the root, both for shade to the ground and for manure.

Preserve Your Pot-Plants.—We warn ladies having pot-plants designed for winter-wear, to be prudent beforehand, or some frosty night will cut every tender plant left out, and then prudence will be good for nothing. Every one who pretends to keep parlor plants should own a thermometer. If at sundown or at nine o’clock it stands anywhere near forty degrees, your plants are in danger. Sometimes it will fall, in one night, from fifty degrees to below thirty-two degrees, which last is the freezing point.

SUN-FLOWER SEED.

To some extent this is likely to become a profitable crop. Medium lands will yield, on an average, fifty bushels; while first-rate lands will yield from seventy to a hundred bushels.

Mode of Cultivation.—The ground is prepared in all respects as for a corn crop, and the seed sown in drills four feet apart—one plant to every eighteen inches in the drill. It is to be plowed and tended in all respects like a crop of corn.

Harvesting.—As the heads ripen, they are gathered, laid on a barn floor and threshed with a flail. The seed shells very easily.

Use.—The seed may be employed in fattening hogs, feeding poultry, etc., and for this last purpose it is better than grain. But the seed is more valuable at the oil-mill than elsewhere. It will yield a gallon to the bushel without trouble; and by careful working, more than this. Hemp yields one and a fourth gallons to the bushel, and flax-seed one and a half by ordinary pressure; but two gallons under the hydraulic press.

The oil has, as yet, no established market price. It will range from seventy cents to a dollar, according as its value shall be established as an article for lamps and for painters’ use. But at seventy cents a gallon for oil, the seed would command fifty-five cents a bushel, which is a much higher price than can be had for corn.

It is stated, but upon how sufficient proof we know not, that sun-flower oil is excellent for burning in lamps. It has also been tried by our painters to some extent; and for inside work, it is said to be as good as linseed oil. Mr. Hannaman, who has kindly put us in possession of these facts, says, that the oil resembles an animal, rather than a vegetable oil; that it has not the varnish properties of the linseed oil. We suppose by varnish is meant, the albumen and mucilage which are found in vegetable oils. The following analysis of hemp-seed, and flax-seed, or as it is called in England lint or linseed, will show the proportions of various ingredients in one hundred parts.

Hemp-seed. (Bucholz.) Linseed. (Leo Meier.)

Oil, 19.1 11.3

Husk, etc. 38.3 44.4

Woody fibre and starch, 5.0 1.5

Sugar, etc. 1.6 10.8

Gum, 9.0 7.1

Soluble albumen (Casein?) 24.7 15.1

Insoluble do — 3.7

Wax and resin, 1.6 3.1

Loss, 0.7 3.0

100 100

The existence of impurities in oil, such as mucilage, albumen, gum, etc., which increase its value to the painter, diminishes its value for the lamp, since these substances crust or cloy the wick, and prevent a clear flame. All oils may, therefore, the less excellent they are for painting, be regarded as the more valuable for burning. Rape-seed is extensively raised in Europe, chiefly in Flanders, for its oil, and is much used for burning. Ten quarts may be extracted from a bushel of seed. We append a table representing the richness of various seeds, etc., in oil.

Oil per cent.

Linseed (flax) 11 to 22

Hemp-seed, 14 to 25

Rape-seed, 40 to 70

Poppy-seed, 36 to 33

White mustard-seed, 36 to 48

Black mustard-seed, 15

Swedish turnip-seed, 34

Sun-flower seed, 15

Walnut kernels 40 to 70

Hazel-nut kernels, 60

Beech-nut kernels, 15 to 17

Plum-stone do. 33

Sweet almond kernels, 40 to 54

Bitter do. do. 28 to 46

APRIL GARDEN-WORK.

Every one will now be at work in the garden. A few suggestions may make your garden better.

Plowing Gardens.—We do not like the practice except when the garden is large, and the owner unable to meet the expense of spading. But if you must plow, let that be well done. Those contemptible little one-horse plows, with which most gardens are plowed, should be discarded. The best plowing will be too shallow, but these spindling little plows, drawn by a little meagre horse, will skim over your ground, averaging from three to four inches deep, and preparing your soil to receive the utmost possible detriment from summer droughts. What chance have young roots, or the finer fibres of plants, to penetrate more than a few inches of surface-soil? Persons come to our garden and wonder why some vegetables flourish so well, while they never have luck with them, “It must be a difference of soil.” No, it is the difference of working it. Give your vegetables a chance to descend eighteen or twenty inches if they incline to it, and you will have no more trouble. A large plow should be used, and you should stand by and see that it is put in to the beam. A garden soil is usually mellow, and a plow can go to its full depth without hurting the horses.

Spading.—This mode of working the ground will always be employed by those ambitious of having a first-rate garden. Indeed, where there is much shrubbery and permanent beds, as of asparagus, pie-plant, strawberry, and plantations of currants, raspberries, etc., spading is the only method which can be employed.

Spading Shrubbery.—Let very fine manure be spread about roses, honeysuckles, and ornamental shrubs (where they are not standing in a grass-lawn). Beginning at the plant, with great care turn over the soil one or two inches deep, yet so as not to injure the fibres; gradually deepen the stroke of your spade as you go out from the plant; at two feet from the shrub you may put in the spade half its depth, and at three feet to its full depth. You will of course cut many roots, but they will very soon re-form and send out fibres, and by the manure spaded in, be supplied with abundant nourishment for the season.

Spading Flower Beds.—This requires a practised hand. There is danger of wounding and displacing clumps of flower-roots, or of filling the crowns with dirt, or of leaving the surface uneven, and the edges ragged. If there is a skillful gardener to be had, hire it done, and watch while he performs, for any man who has seen a thing done in a garden once, ought to be ashamed if he cannot himself do it afterwards.

Spading Vegetable Beds.—Asparagus, pie-plant, strawberries, etc., require enriching every year, and to have the manure forked or spaded in. It is easy to perform this upon strawberries, and a spade is preferable. A three or four-pronged fork is better for asparagus and pie-plant. Be careful not to tear or cut the crowns of the plants. No material injury ensues from clipping the side fibres, in the spring; in summer, when a plant requires all its mouths to supply sap for its extended surface of leaf, it is not wise to cut the roots or fibres at all, but only to keep the surface mellow and friable.

Deep Spading.—Ames’ garden-spades measure twelve inches in length of blade. In a good soil the foot may gain one or two additional inches by a good thrust. Thus the soil is mellowed to the depth of fourteen inches. This will do very well; but if you aspire to do the very best, another course must be first pursued. The first spadeful must be thrown out, and a second depth gained, and then the top soil returned. This is comparatively slow and laborious, but it need not be done more than once in five years, and by dividing the garden into sections, and performing this thorough-spading on one of the sections each year, the process will be found, practically, less burdensome than it seems to be.

GETTING POOR ON RICH LAND AND RICH ON POOR LAND.

A close observer of men and things told us the following little history, which we hope will plow very deeply into the attention of all who plow very shallow in their soils.

Two brothers settled together in —— county. One of them on a cold, ugly, clay soil, covered with black-jack oak, not one of which was large enough to make a half dozen rails. This man would never drive any but large, powerful, Conastoga horses, some seventeen hands high. He always put three horses to a large plow, and plunged it in some ten inches deep. This deep plowing he invariably practised and cultivated thoroughly afterward. He raised his seventy bushels of corn to the acre.

This man had a brother about six miles off, settled on a rich White River bottom-land farm—and while a black-jack clay soil yielded seventy bushels to the acre, this fine bottom-land would not average fifty. One brother was steadily growing rich on poor land, and the other steadily growing poor on rich land.

One day the bottom-land brother came down to see the black-jack oak farmer, and they began to talk about their crops and farms, as farmers are very apt to do.

“How is it,” said the first, “that you manage on this poor soil to beat me in crops?”

They reply was “I WORK my land.”

That was it, exactly. Some men have such rich land that they won’t work, it; and they never get a step beyond where they began. They rely on the soil, not on labor, or skill, or care. Some men expect their LANDS to work, and some men expect to WORK THEIR LAND;—and that is just the difference between a good and a bad farmer.

When we had written thus far, and read it to our informant, he said, “three years ago I travelled again through that section, and the only good farm I saw was this very one of which you have just written. All the others were desolate—fences down—cabins abandoned, the settlers discouraged and moved off. I thought I saw the same old stable door, hanging by one hinge, that used to disgust me ten years before; and I saw no change except for the worse in the whole county, with the single exception of this one farm.”

GETTING READY FOR WINTER.

Haul tanbark and bank up around the house to insure a warm cellar. Cellar windows should be kept open through the day, and closed after the nights begin to freeze, as late in the season as possible. See that dry walks are prepared from the house to all the out-houses. Do not be stingy of your materials; make the paths high and rounding, so as to insure dryness, especially about the barn. See that stones, gravel, or timber are laid so as to be out of the way of cattle’s feet, and just in the way of your own. We have seen swamp-barn-yards, before going into which a prudent man would choose to make his will. Mud on the shoes from roads and fields is all well enough; but mud from one’s own yards, shows that the owner has not fixed up as he ought to have done.

If your stables are old, examine the floor; or some night may let a horse through, to come out lame for life. If you have a dirt floor, see that it is carefully laid, and remember that if it be inclined either way, it should be from the rack and not toward it. Let your wagons, carts, plows, etc., be repaired during the fall and winter, and not be left till spring. See that your shingles are all sound on the house, barn, and shed. The leak which you have allowed to drop, drop, drop all summer has at last taken off a yard or two of plaster, and it is time now to put on a shingle or two. There is another leak or two that must be stopped. That pocket of yours which has let out dime after dime for liquor, the hole getting bigger and bigger every year, now is the time to sow it up, or it will rip you up. A pocket is a small place, to be sure, but we have seen barns, cattle, and acre after acre slip through a hole in it which, at first, was only large enough to let sixpence through.

See that all your tools have a safe and dry standing-place; hoes, rakes, scythes, sickles, yokes, spades, shovels, chains, pins, harrows, plows, carts, and sleds, axes, mattocks, hammers, and everything, but your geese and ducks, should be kept from wet and snow.

If you have no stables for your cattle, you should have good sheds provided, opening to the south. Even when cattle are allowed to run through the stock-fields, there ought to be in some warm place an ample shed to which they can resort during wet and cold weather; and one sufficiently snug can be made without calling in the carpenter or buying lumber.

ESCULENT VEGETABLES.

We mention some of the more common kinds of garden esculent vegetables, to point out the best kinds, and give some hints for their cultivation. If more vegetables were raised and eaten in the place of meat, there would be fewer diseases, and less expense for medicine than is now the case among those who eat so heartily and liberally of the fat of the land.

Beet.—The turnip-rooted blood beet should be sown for the earliest crop; the long blood beet for the late crop, and for winter use. The blood beet is the proper garden beet. The scarcity, the sugar beets (so called), white, yellow, and red, are inferior for table use. Every year we see accounts of new varieties, which are seldom mentioned a second time, while these old standard sorts hold their own from year to year. We see people running around among their neighbors for beet-seed, careless whether it is early or late, coarse fleshed or fine grained, sweet or insipid. It is just as easy and cheap to have the best seed of the best kinds, as to have refuse seed of worthless kinds. Lately, a variety introduced from France, called Bassano, has attracted attention and commendation.[11] It is early, tender, and sweet. If you attempt to raise your own seed, let only one sort stand in the garden; otherwise bees and other insects will mix them, and the purity of the variety will be lost. We very seldom see an unmixed variety in common gardens, unless seed have been bought from good seedsmen.

The best seed is a small black seed about the size of a pin head, enveloped in a ragged, rough, two or three lobed husk. Every seeming seed planted, then, is a mere envelope of two or more seeds, and two or three plants come up, very much to the surprise of the inexperienced, for each husk. When a little advanced, they are to be thinned out to one in a place.

We prefer planting very early, and in rows eight inches apart and at about one inch distant in the row. As the plants begin to gain size they make very delicate greens; and for this purpose are to be boiled, leaf, root, and all. Continue to thin out until one is left for every six inches for full growth.

Every year a great ado is made about monstrous beets—twenty and thirty pounders. There is no objection to these giants, unless they beget an idea that size is the test of merit. For table-use, medium sized fruits and vegetables are every way preferable; a beet should never be larger than a goose-egg.

It is equally foolish to suppose that large, coarse-grained vegetables, whether potatoes, beets, parsnips, ruta bagas, or anything else, are as good for stock, though not so palatable to men. To be sure they fill up. But that which is nutriment to man is nutriment to beast; a vegetable which is rank and watery is no better for my cow than for us. It is not the bulk but the quality that measures the fitness of articles for food.

Parsnip.—This vegetable is, to those who are fond of it, very desirable, as coming in at a time when other things are failing. For, although the parsnip attains its size by autumn, yet its flavor seems to depend upon its receiving a pretty good frosting. It may be dug at open spells through the winter and early in the spring. It gives one of the first indications of returning warmth, and its green leaves are among the first which cheer the garden. On this account it must be dug early in the spring and housed, or it will spoil by growth.

We know of no difference in varieties. The Guernsey, is not a different sort from the common, but only the common sort, very highly cultivated in that island, where it sometimes grows to a length of four feet. The hollow-crowned and Siam are mentioned in English catalogues, as fine fleshed and flavored, but we have never been able to obtain seed of them.

The parsnip (Pastinacea sativa) is a native of Great Britain and is found wild by the road-sides, delighting particularly in calcareous soils. It has hitherto been supposed that the seed would not retain its germinating power more than one year, but Mr. Mendenhall states that he has raised freely from four year old seed. The parsnip is much sown as a field crop at the east, yielding 1,000 bushels, on good land, to the acre. They are invaluable both to cows and horses. The quantity and quality of milk in cows is improved; and no farmer with whom butter-making is a considerable object of interest, should be without a root crop—beet, carrot, or ruta baga.

Carrot. (Daucus carota).—This is a native of Great Britain. The early horn and Altringham are the best varieties sold by our seedsmen. Beside their use upon the table, they are largely and deservedly cultivated in the field for stock. A horse becomes more fond of them than of oats, and they do not, like the potato, require boiling before feeding out. A thousand bushels may be raised to the acre. The premium of the New York Agricultural Society for the year 1844, was to a crop of 1,059 bushels the acre. The seed should be new each year, as it will not come well even the second year, and not at all if kept yet longer.

Radish.—Every garden has its bed of radishes, and they are among the first spring gifts. They will grow in any soil, but not in all equally well. A mellow sandy loam is best; or rather that soil is best which will grow them the quickest. If they are a long time in growing, they are tough and stringy. It is said that a compost of the following materials will produce them very early and finely. Take equal parts of buckwheat bran and fresh horse-dung, dig them in plentifully into the soil where you intend to sow. Within two days a plentiful crop of toadstools will start up. Spade them under, and sow your seed, and the radishes will come forward rapidly, and be tender and free from worms.

The short-top scarlet, is the best for spring planting. It is so named, because, from its rapid growth the top is yet small when the root is fit for the table. There is a white and red turnip-rooted variety, also good for spring use. The turnip-rooted kinds have not only the shape, but something of the sweetness and flavor of the turnip, and are by some preferred to all others. For summer planting, there is a yellow turnip-rooted sort and the summer white. For fall and early winter, the white and black Spanish are planted. When radishes are sown broadcast, it must be very thinly, for if at all crowded they run to top, and refuse to form edible roots. For our own use, we sow on the edges of beds, devoted to onions, beets, etc., and thrust each seed down with the finger.

The radish (Raphanus sativus) is a native of China, and was introduced to England before 1584.

Salsify, or Vegetable Oyster.—We esteem this to be a much better root for table use than either the parsnip or carrot. It is cultivated in all respects as these crops are. Some have been skeptical as to their possessing an oyster flavor. They seldom attain the true taste until, like the parsnip, they have been well frosted. But if dug up during spells in winter and early in the spring, and cooked by an orthodox formula, they are strikingly like the oyster. We have just consulted the oracle of our kitchen, and give forth the following method of cooking it: First, oblige your husband to raise a good supply of them. When you have obtained them, scrape off the outside skin—cut the root lengthwise into thin slices—put them into a spider and just cover with hot water. Let them boil until a fork will pass through them easily. Without turning off the water, season them with butter, pepper, and salt, and sprinkle in a little flour—enough to thicken the liquor slightly. Then eat them.

The success of this gustatory deception depends, more than anything else, upon the skill in seasoning. If well done they are not merely an apology, but they are a very excellent substitute for the shell-fish himself; a thousand times better than pickled can-oysters—those arrant libels upon all that is dear in the remembrance of a live oyster.

Every one may save seed for himself, as it will not, if well cultivated, degenerate. It is a biennial, and roots may either be set out, or left standing where they were planted. When the seed begins to feather out it must be immediately gathered, or like the dandelion or thistle, it will be blown away by the wind. This vegetable should be much more extensively cultivated than it is.

Beans.—There are three kinds—English dwarf; kidney dwarf or string, and the pole beans. The first kind, so far as our experience has gone, are coarser than the others, and, in our hot and dry summers, are very difficult to raise.

Of kidney or bush beans, there is a long catalogue of sorts. The Mohawk is good for its hardiness, enduring spring frosts with comparative impunity. The red-speckled valentine is highly commended. But after a trial of some twenty kinds, we are entirely contented with one—the China red-eye. It is early, hardy, very prolific, and well flavored.

Of the pole beans, one sort, the Lima, might supersede all others were it a little earlier. It is immensely prolific, its flavor unrivalled, and nearly the same in the dry bean as when cooked in its green state, a quality which has never, we believe, been found in any other variety. To supply the deficiency of this variety in earliness, we know of none equal to the Horticultural. With these two kinds one has no need of any other. Pole beans will not bear frost, and are among the last seeds to be planted, seldom before the last of April. The bush-bean may precede them a fortnight.

The English dwarf (Vicia faba) is a native of Egypt; but has been cultivated in England from time immemorial, and, it is supposed, was introduced by the Romans.