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THE

AMERICAN GARDENER:

A TBEATISE ON THB

SITUATION, SOIL, AND LAYING OUT OF GARDENS,

ON THE MAKING AND MANAGING OF HOT-BEDS
AND GREEN-HOUSES;

AND

ON THE PROPAGATION AND CULTIVATION
OF THE SEVERAL SORTS OF

VEGETABLES, HERBS, FRUITS,

AND FLOWERS.

BY WIIXIAM COBBETT.

NEW-YORK:
ORANGE JUDD & COMPANY

C5

PREFACE.

1. THE proper uses of a Preface appear to be, tu
give the reader information, which may be useful,
during the perusal of the work to which it is prefix-
ed ; to explain the nature and object of the work :
to point out the method of the arrangement of its
several parts ; and, in short, to afford the means of
due preparation for the task the reader is entering
upon ; which preparation is always a great advan-
tage to the author as well as to the reader.

2. As to the nature of the work, it is, I hope,
pretty clearly stated in the Title Page. The object
evidently is to cause the art of gardening to be betler
understood and practised than it now is in America ?
and, very few persons will deny, that there is, in this
?ase, plenty of room for improvement. America has
soil and climate ffcr surpassing -those of England ;
and yet she is surprizingly deficient in variety as
well as quality of garden products. I am not allu-
ding to things of ornament, or appertaining to Lux-
urious enjoyments ; but, to things that are really
useful, and that tend to profit and to the preservation
of health, without which latter, life is not worth hav-
ing. It is incredible to those, who have not had oc-
casion to observe the fact, how large a part of the
sustenance of a country-labourer's family, in Eng-
land, comes out of his little garden. The labourers
of England are distinguished from those of other
countries by several striking peculiarities; but, by
no one are they so strongly distinguished as by their
fondness of their gardens, and by the diligence, care
and taste, which they show hi the management of

4 PREFACE.

them The reproach which Solomon, in the words
of my motto, affixes on the slothful and ignorant hus-
bandman, they seem to have constantly in their
minds ; and to be constantly on the watch to prevent
it from applying to themselves. Poverty may apo-
logize for a dirty dress or an unshaven face ; men
may be negligent of their persons ; but the sentence
of the whole nation is, that he, who is a sloven in his
garden, is a sloven indeed. The inside of a labour-
er's house, his habits, his qualities as a \vorkman, and
almost his morality, may be judged of from the ap-
pearance of his garden. If that be neglected, he is,
nine times out of ten, a sluggard or a drunkard, or
both.

3. It seems, at first sight, very odd that this taste
for gardening should not have been preserved in
America; but, it is accounted for by reflecting, that
where land is abundant, attachment and even atten-
tion to small spots wear away. To desire to possess
land is a universal desire ; and vani.y makes us pre-
fer quantity to quality. You may prove as clearly
as daylight, that it is better, in certain cases, to pos-
sess one acre than a hundred ; but where do you
find the man that prefers the one acre ? When large
parcels of kind are undertaken to be cultivated,
small ones are held in contempt ; and, though a good
garden supplies so large a part of what is consumed
by a family, and keeps supplying it all the year
round too, there are many farmers even in England,
who grudge even a wheelbarrow full of manure that
is bestowed on the garden. To remove this neglect
as to gardening in America is one of tho objects of
this work; and, I think, I shall, in the progress of
the work, show, thfi' ^ e garden may* besides its in-
trinsic utility, be made to be a most valuable help-
mate to the Farm.

PREFACE. 5

4. It is impossible to write a book that shall ex-
clusively apply to every particular case. Some per-
sons have need of large, while others want only small
gardens ; but, as to Situation, Soil, and Fencing, the
rules will apply to all cases. Those who want nei-
ther Hot-Beds nor Green-Houses, may read the part
treating of them, or leave it unread, just as they
please ; but, I think, that it will not require much
to be said to convince every American Farmer,
North of Carolina, at least, that he ought to have
a Hot-Bed in the Spring.

5. I have divided the matters, treated of, thus :
The first Chapter treats of the Situation, Soil, Fenc-
ing, and Laying-out of Gardens ; the second, oi
the making and managing of Hot-Beds and Green-
Houses ; the third, of Propagation and Cultivation
generally ; the three remaining Chapters treat of the
raising and managing of the several plants, each un-
der its particular name, classed under the heads,
Vegetables and Herbs ; Fruits ; Flowers. In each
of these last three Chapters, I have, in arranging
my matter, followed the Alphabetical Order of the
names of the several plants, which mode of arrange-
ment must naturally tend to make the work of re-
ference easy. But, as very frequent reference must
be necessary, and, as the utility of the work must,
in some degree, depend on the facility with which
the several parts of it can be referred to, there are
t\vo Indexes at the end, one of the names of the se-
veral plants, and, the other, of the matters generally.
For the same reason, I have numbered the para-
graphs throughout the work. A more proper term
might have been found than that of Vegetables, see-
ing, that, strictly speaking, that word applies to all
things that grow from the earth. But, as we call
those products of the garden, which we use, in their

1*

6 PREFACE.

natural shape, as human food ; as we generally call
these only by the name of vegetables, I have chosen
that word in preference to one, which, though more
strictly proper, would foe tess generally understood.
Nearly the same may be said of the word Herbs.

6. Some persons may think, that Flowers are
things of no use ; that they are nonsensical things.
The pame may be, and, perhaps, with more reason,
said of pictures. An Italian, while he gives his for-
tune for a picture, will laugh to scorn a Hollander,
who leaves a tulip-root as a fortune to his son. For
my part, as a thing to keep and not to sell ; as a thing,
the possession of which is to give me pleasure, I he-
sitate not a moment to prefer the plant of a fine car-
nation to a gold watch set with diamonds.

7. The territory of the United States includes
such a variety of climates ; degrees of heat and cold
so different at the same period of the year ; that it is
impossible to give instructions, as relating to time*
for sowing, planting, and so forth, that shall be ap-
plicable to every part of the country. I, therefore,
for the most part, make my directions applicable to
seasons, or states of the weather, rather than to
dates. When I make no particular mention as to
limes of the year, or month, it is to be understood,
that I am supposing my.ielf at, or near, the City of
New York, and that I am speaking of what ought to
be done there. With this clearly borne in mind, the
reader, who will know the difference in the degrees
of heat and cold in the different parts of the country,
will know how to apply the instructions accordingly.

8. Those persons, who perform their garden work
themselves, will need no caution with respect to men
that they employ as Gardeners ; but, those who em-
ploy Gardeners ought by no means to leave them to
do as they please. Their practical experience is

PREFACE. T

arorth something ; but, if they are generally found
/ery deficient in knowledge of their business in Eng
land, what must those of them be who come to
America ? Every man, who can dig and hoe and
rake, calls himself a Gardener as soon as he lands
here from England. This description of persons are
generally handy men, and, having been used to
gpade-work, they, from habit, do things well and
neatly. But as to the art of gardening, they gene-
rally know nothing of it. I wished to carry the
nicer parts of gardening to perfection, at Botley. I
succeeded. But I took care to employ no man who
called himself a gardener. I selected handy and
clear-headed farm-labourers. They did what I or-
dered them to do ; and offered me none of their ad-
cice or opinions.

9. There is a foible of human nature, which great-
ly contributes to establish and perpetuate the power
and the mischief of pretended gardeners. Tell a
gentleman, that this is wrong, or that is wrong, in
the management of his garden, and he instantly and
half-angrily replies, that his gardener is a very skil-
ful man. " That may be," said I once to a friend,
who, at an enormous expense, had got two or three
poor little melons, while I, at hardly any expense
it all, had large quantities of very line ones : " That
may be," said I, " for skill may consist in getting
you to expend your money without getting you any
fruit." The truth is, however, that it is not a desire
to be deceived, that produces this species of per-
verseness : it is a desire not to be thought foolish.
The gentleman has chosen the gardener ; and, the
reason why he stickles for him is, that, if he allow
the gardener to be a bad one, he himself has made
a bad choice ; and that would be an imputation on
\is understanding, rather than allow which to be

PREFACE.

just, he will cheerfully bleed from his purse pretty
freely.

10. The best security against the effects of this
foible of human nature, is, for the owner of the gar-
den to be head gardener himself ; and, I hope that
this work may assist in rendering this office easy
and pleasant. But, to perform the office well, the
OAvner must be diligent as well as skilful. He must
look forward. It is a very good way to look atten-
tively at every part of the garden every Saturday,
and to write down some, at least, of the things to
be done during the next week. This tends to pre-
vent those omissions, which, when they have once
taken place, are not easily compensated for. Sea-
sons wait for no man. Nature makes us her offers
freely ; but she will be taken a^her word.

11. I cannot help, in conclusion of this preface,
expressing my hope, that this work may tend to the
increasing, in some degree, of a taste for gardening
in America. It is a source of much greater profit
than is generally imagined ; and, merely as an
amusement, or recreation, it is one of the most ra-
tional and most conducive to health. It is a pursuit,
not only compatible with, but favourable to, the study
of any art or science. It tends to turn the minds of
youth from amusements and attachments of a frivo-
lous or vicious nature. It is indulged at home. It
tends to make home pleasant ; and to endear to us
the spot on which it is our lot to live.

WM. COBBETT.
North Hcmpstead, Long Island, 1819.

CHAPTER I.

9n the Situation, Soil, Fencing, and, Laying-oui
of Gardens.

SITUATION.

12. THOSE who have gardens already formed
and planted, hare, of course, not the situation to
choose. But, I am to suppose, that new gardens
will, in a country like this, be continually to be
formed ; and, therefore, it is an essential part of my
duty to point out what situations are best, as well
with respect to the aspect as to the other circum-
stances.

13. The ground should be as nearly on a level as
possible ; because, if the slope be considerable, the
heavy rains do grea.-t injury, by washing away the
soil. However, it is not always in our power to
choose a level spot ; but, if there be a slope in the
ground, it ought, if possible, to be towards the
South. For, though such a direction adds to the
heat in summer, this is more than counterbalanced
by the earliness which it causes in the spring. By
all means avoid an inclination towards the North,
or West, and towards any of the points between
North and West. After all, it may not be in our
power to have a level spot, nor even a spot nearly
level ; and then we must do our best with what we
have.

14. I am speaking here solely of a Kitchen-gar-
den. Of ornamental Gardening I shall speak a lit-
tle in the Chapter on Flowers. From a Kitchen-

10 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chaji

garden all large trees ought to be kept at a distance
of thirty or forty yards. For, the shade of them i^
injurious, and their roots a great deal more injuri
ous, to every plant growing within the influence oi
those roots. It is a common but very erroneous
jiotion, in England, that the trees, which grow in
the hedges that divide the fields, do injury by theii
shade only. I had a field of transplanted Rut&
Baga, in the hedge on tho North West side of which
there were five large spreading oak-trees, at some
distance from each other. Opposite each of thest
trees, which could not shade the Ruta Baga much,
there was a piece of the Ruta Baga, in nearly a
semi-circular form, in which the plants never grew
to any size, though those in all the rest of the field
were so fine as to draw people from a great distance
to look at them. One gentleman, who came out of
Sussex, and who had been a farmer all his life-time,
was struck with the sight of these semi-circles ; and,
looking over the hedge, into a field of wheat, which
had a ditch between it and the hedge, and seeing
that the wheat, though shaded by the trees, was
very little affected by them, he discovered, that it
was the roots and not the branches that produced
the mischief. The ditch, which had been for ages
in the same place, had prevented the roots of the
trees from going into the field where the wheat was
growing. The ground where the Ruta Baga was
growing had been well ploughed and manured ; and
the plants had not been in the ground more than
three months; yet, such was the power of the roots
of the trees, and so quickly did it operate, that it
almost wholly destroyed the Ruta Baga that stood
within its reach. Grass, which matts the ground
all over with its roots, and does not demand much
food from any depth, does not suffer much from the

1. 1 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 11

roots of trees; but, every other plant does. A
Kitchen-garden should, therefore, have no large
trees near it. In the spring and fall tall trees do
great harm even by their shade, which robs the
garden of the early and the parting rays of the sun.
ft is, therefore, on all accounts, desirable to keep
all such trees at a distance.

15. If it be practicable, without sacrificing too
much in other respects, to make a garden near to
running water, and especially to water that may be
turned into the garden, the advantage ought to be
profited of; but as to watering with a watering
pot, it is seldom of much use, and it cannot be prac-
tised upon a large scale. It is better to trust to ju-
dicious tillage and to the dews and rains. The mois-
ture which these do not supply cannot be furnished,
to any extent, by the watering-pot. A man will
raise more moisture, with a hoe or spade, in a day,
than he can pour on the earth out of a watering-pot
in a month.

SOIL.

16. The plants, which grow in a garden, prefer,
like most other plants, the best soil that is to be
found. The best is, loam of several feet deep, with
i bed of lime-stone, sand-stone, or sand, below.
But, we must take what \vefind, or. rather, what we
happen to have. If we have a choice, we ought to
take that which comes nearest to perfection, and, if
we possibly can, we ought to reject clay, and gra-
vel, not only as a top soil, but as a bottom soil,
however great their distance from the surface. See
paragraph 109.

17. Oak-trees love clay, and the finest and heavi-
est wheat grows in land with a bottom of clay ; but,
if there be clay within even six feet of the surface,
'.here will be a coldness in the land, which will, in

12 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

cpite of all you can do, keep your spring crops a
week or ten days behind those upon land which has
not a bottom of clay. Gravel is warm, and it would
be very desirable, if you could exchange it for some
other early in June ; but, since you cannot do this,
you must submit to be burnt up in summer, if you
have the benefit of a gravelly bottom in the spring

18. If the land, where you like to have a garden,
has rocks, great or small, they, of course, are to 1 e
carried off; but, if you have a stony soil, that is to
say, little short of gravel to the very surface, and,
if you can get no' other spot, you must e'en ham
mer your tools to pieces amongst the stones ; for it
lias been amply proved by experience, that to carry
away stones of the flint or gravel kind impoverishes
the land. However, we are not to frame out plans
upon the supposition of meeting with obstacles of
this extraordinary nature. We are not to suppose,
that, in a country where men have had to choone,
and have still to choose, they will have built, and
yet will build, their houses on spots pcculiaily
steril. We must suppose the contrary, and, upon
that supposition we ought to proceed.

19. Having fixed upon the spot for the garden,
the next thing is to prepare the ground. This may
be done by ploughing and harrowing, until the
ground, at top, be perfectly clean ; and, then, by
double ploughing^ : that is to say, by going, with a
strong plough that turns a large furrow and turns it
cleanly, twice in the same place, and thus moving
the ground to the depth of fourteen or sixteen inches,
for, the advantage of deeply moving the ground is
very great indeed. When this has been done in
one direction ; ;t ought to be done across, and then
the ground will have been well and truly moved.
The ploughing ought to be done with four oxen

I.j THE AMERICAN GARDEXKK. 13

ard the plough ought to be held by a strong and
careful ploughman.

20. This is as much as I shall, probably, be able
to persuade any body to do in the way of preparing
the ground. But, this is not all that ougJit to be
done ; and it is proper to give directions for the
best way of doing this and every thing else. The
best way is, then, to trench the ground ; which is
performed in this manner. At one end of the piece
of ground, intended for the garden, you make, with
a spade, a trench, all along, two feet wide and two
feet deep. You throw the earth out on the side
away from the garden that is to be. You shovel
out the bottom clean, and make the sides of the
trench as nearly perpendicular as possible. Thus
you have a clean open trench, running all along one
end of your garden-ground. You then take an-
other piece all along, two feet wide, and put the
earth that this new piece contains into the trench
taking off the top of the new two feet wide, and
turning that top down into the bottom of the trench,
and then taking the remainder of the earth of the
new two feet, and placing it on the top of the earth
just turned into the bottom of the trench. Thus,
when you have again shovelled out the bottom, and
put it on the top of the whole that you have put
into the trench, you have another clean trench two
feet wide and two deep. You thus proceed, till the
whole of your garden-ground be trenched ; and then
it will have been cleanly turned over to the depth
of two feet.

21. As to the expense of this preparatory opera-
tion, a man that knows how to use a spade, wil
trench four rod in a day very easily in the month c
October, or in the month of November if the grour
be not frozen. Supposing the garden to conteo.

2

?J4 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

<an acre, and the labourer to earn a dollar a day,
the cost of this operation will, of course, be forty
dollars ; which, perhaps, would be twenty dollars
above the expense of the various ploughings and
;harrowings, necessary in the other way ; but, the
difference in the value of the two operations is be-
yond all calculation. There is no point of greater
importance than this, Poor ground deeply moved
«is preferable, in many cases, to rich ground with
shallow tillage ; and when the ground has been
•deeply moved once, it feels the benefit for ever
after. A garden is made to last for ages ; what,
then, in such a case, is the amount of twenty dol-
lars? It is well known to all who have had experi-
ence on the subject, that of two plants of almost
any kind that stand for the space of three months
.in top soil of the same quality, one being on ground
deeply moved, and the other on ground moved no
^deeper than is usual, the former will exceed the lat-
ter one half in bulk. And, as to trees of all de-
scriptions, from the pear-tree down to the currant-
bush, the difference is so great, that there is room
'for no comparison. It is a notion with some pei-
sons, that it is of no use to move the ground deeper
ithan the roots of the plant penetrate. But, in the
;first place, the roots go much deeper than we gene-
rally suppose. When we pull up a cabbage, for
.instance, we see no roots more than a foot long ;
cut, if we were carefully to pursue the roots to
iheir utmost point, even as far as our eye would
assist us, we should find the roots a great deal
longer, and the extremities of the roots are much
4oo fine to be s-een by the naked eye. Upon pulling
tip a common turnip, who would imagine, that the
•side, or horizontal roots, extend to several feet ?
Yt* I have traced them to the length of four

I.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 15

r'eet ; and Mr. Tull proved, that they extended to
six feet, though he could not see them to that ex-
tent with his naked eye. But, though the roots
should not extend nearly to the bottom of the moved
ground, the plants are affected by the unmoved
ground being near at hand. If this were not the
case, plants with very short roots might be culti-
vated on a brick pavement with earth laid upon it
to the thickness of a foot; and yet, no plant will
live and thrive in such a state, while it will do very
well in ground along side the pavement, though
moved only a foot deep. Plants require a commu-
nication with, and an assistance from, beneath as
well as from above, in order to give them vigour
and fecundity. Plants will live, and will grow to a
certain extent in earthen pots, or in boxes made of
wood ; but, there must be holes in the bottom of
both, or the plants will die. See paragraphs 108
and 109.

22. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance,
that the ground be moved to a good depth, and, he
who is about to make a garden should remember,
that he is about to do that, the effects of which are
to be felt for ages. There is, however, one objec-
tion to trenching in certain cases. The soil may
not only not be good to the depth of two feet, bi"
it may be bad long before you come to that depth .
and, in this case, the trenching, in putting the good
soil at bottom, might bring a hungry sand, or even
a gravel or clay to the top, which must not be done
r. y any means ; for, even in the case of trees, they
would perish, or become stunted, because their
roots would not find their way from the bad soil to
the good. la such cases the top soil must, in the
trenching, be kept at the top ; and, in order to efFecf
this, your mode of proceeding, in the trenching

16 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

must be somewhat different from that described in
paragrapli 20.

23. "Your first trench must be opened in the man-
ner described in that paragraph ; but you must not
then proceed to turn the top of the next two feet
into the bottom of the trench. Let us suppose,
now, that you have your first trench, two feet wide
as before directed, open and clean. This being the
case, take a foot deep of the next two feet all the
way along, and, for this once, throw it over the open
trench to add to the earth that you have already
thrown out of that trench. Then you will have the
bottom foot of earth left. Dig out this and turn it
into the bottom of your open trench, and then the
first trench will be half filled up, and you will have
got your second trench open. Then go to a new
two feet wide, that is the third two feet. Take th<
top foot deep off from this, and throw it on the toj.
of the earth that you have just turned into the nVsi
trench ; and then, where that first trench was there
will be earth two feet deep ; the bad soil at bottom
and the good soil at top. Then you go on regu-
larly. The bottom foot of the fourth two feet wide
piece you turn into the bottom of the second trench,
and the top foot of the third two feet wide piece
you throw on the top of the earth which is at the
bottom of the second trench. And, thus, when you
have done, you will have moved all your ground
two feet deep, and will have the bad soil at bottom
and the good at top.

24. At the end of your work, you will, of course,
have an open trench and a half; and this must be
filled up by carrying the earth, which came out of
the first trench, round in a cart or wheel-barrow,
and putting it into the space that you will have open
at last. For trees and asparagus, you ought to

I.J THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 17

do siill more. See Asparagus in Chapter IV.

25. It must be observed, however, that, though
the soil be good in its naturae down to two feet
deep, that which comes to the top in the first mode
of trenching, will not be, immediately, so good for
use, as the soil which has been at top forages. It
is, in such a case, of great advantage to place the
old top soil at the bottom : because when roots find
the soil good to such a depth, the plants and tree?
thrive and bear surprizingly. But, then, the new
top soil must be exceedingly well worked and well
and judiciously manured, in order to make it equal
to the old top soil : which object is, however, very-
soon accomplished, if the proper means be made
use of.

26. The ground being trenched, in October, ought
to be well manured at top with good well-rotted
dung, or with soap-boiler' 's ashes, or some other
good manure ; and this might be ploughed, or dug
in shallowly. Before the frost is gone in the spring,
another good coat of manure should be put on ;
well-rotted manure from the yard ; ashes ; or, ra-
ther, if ready, from a good com.post. Then, when
the frost is gone, the ground will be instantly fit foi
digging and planting; and, it will bear almost any
thing that can be put into it.

27 Thus will the ground be prepared ; and here
I close my directions with regard to the nature and
preparation of the soil. But, it seems necessary to
add a few words on the subject of manures as
adapted to a garden. It is generally thought, and,
I believe, truly, that dung, of any sort, is not what
ought to be used in the raising of garden vegetables.
It is very certain, that they are coarse and gross
when produced with aid of that sort of manure,
compared to what they are when raised with the aid
2*

18 THE AMERICAN GARDENIK. [Chap.

of ashes, Hme, rags, and composts. And, besides,
dung, in hot soils and hot climates, adds to the
heat ; while ashes, lime, rags and composts do not;
but, on the contrary, they attract, and cause the
earth to retain, moisture.

28. All the ground in a garden ought always to
be good ; and it will be kept in this state if it be
well manured once every year. Perhaps it will
scarcely ever be convenient to any one to manure
the whole garden at one time : and this is not of so
much importance. Clay, or any earth, burnt, is
excellent manure for a garden. It has no seeds of
weeds or grass in it. A compost, made of such
ashes, some wood-ashes, a small portion of horse-
dung, rotten leaves, and mould shovelled up undei
trees, round buildings, or on the sides of roads
All these together, put into a heap, and turned over
several times, make the best manure for a garden.

29. A great deal more is done by the fermenta-
tion of manures than people generally imagine.
In the month of June take twenty cart loads of
earth, which has been shovelled off the surface of a
grassy lane, or by a road side, or round about barns,
stables, and the like. Lay these twenty loads about
a foot thick on some convenient spot. Go and cut
up twenty good cart-loads of weeds of any sort, and
lay these well shaken up, on the earth. Then cover
the weeds with twenty more cart-loads of earth like
the former, throwing the earth on lightly. In three
days you will see the heap smoke as if on fire. If
you put your hand into the ear.th, you will find it
too hot to be endured. In a few days the heat will
decline, and you will perceive the heap sink. Let
it remain a week, after this, and then turn it very
carefully. This will mix the whole well together.
You will find the weeds and grass in a putrid state

/.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 19

Another heating will take place, but less furious
than the former. Turn it a second time in seven
days : and a third time in seven days more. Anc
by this time you will have forty cart loads of ma
ure, equal in strength to twenty of yard dung, anc
a vast deal better for a garden, or, indeed, for anv
other land. It is not expensive to obtain this son
of manure ; and such a heap, or part of such a heap,
might at all times be ready for the use of the gai •
den. When such a heap were once formed, some
ashes, fish-shells or bones reduced to powder, 01
other enlivening matter, might be added to it, am'
mixed well with it; and thus would a store be al
ways at hand for any part of the garden that might
want it.

FENCING.

30. Here, as in the case of Situation, I am sup-
posing the garden about to be made. Those who
already have gardens, have fences. They may im-
prove them, indeed, upon my plan ; but, I am sup-
posing the cas-e of a new garden ; and, I am also
supposing a garden to be made in what I deem per-
fection. Those who cannot, from whatever circum-
stance, attain to this perfection, may, nevertheless,
profit from these instructions is far as circumstances
will allow.

31. The fence of a garden is an important mat-
ter ; for, we have to view it not only as giving pro-
tcction against intruders, two-legged as well as four-
legged, but as affording shelter in cold weather ana
shade in hot, in both which respects a fence may be
made of great utility in an American Garden, where
cold and heat are experienced in an extreme degree.

32. In England the kitchen-gardens of gentlemen
are enclosed with walls from ten to sixteen feet
high; but this, though it is useful, and indeed ne

20 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

r.essary, in the way of protection against two-legged
intruders, is intended chiefly to afford the means of
raising the fruit of Peaches, Nectarines, Apricots,
arid Vines, which cannot, in England, be brought
to perfection without walls to train them against ;
for, though the trees will all grow very well, and
though a small sort of Apricots will sometimes
ripen their fruit away from a wall, these fruits can-
not, to any extent, be obtained, in England, nor the
Peaches and Nectarines, even in France, north of
the middle ot that country, without the aid of walls.
Hence, in England, Peaches, Nectarines, Apricots,
and Grapes, are called Wall-Fruit. Cherries,
Plums, and Pears, are also very frequently placed
against walls ; and they are always the finer for it ;
but, a wall is indispensably necessary to the four
former.

33. In America a fence is not wanted for this pur-
pose ; but it is very necessary for protection ; for
shelter ; and for shade. As to the first, gardeners
may scold as long as they please, and law-makers
may enact as long as they please, mankind never
will look upon taking fruit in an orchard or a gar-
den as felony nor even as trespass. Besides, there
are, in all countries, such things as boys ; and every
man remembers, if he be not very forgetful, that he
himself was once a boy. So that, if you have a
mind to have for your own use what you grow in
your garden, the only effectual security is an insur-
mountable fence. This prevents the existence of
temptation, in all cases dangerous, and particularly
in that of forbidden fruit : therefore the matter re-
duces itself to this \ cry simple alternative: share
the produce of your garden good-humouredly with
the boys of the whole neighbourhood ; or, keep it
for your own use by a fence which they cannot get

L] TIIK AMERICAN GARDENER. 21

through, »under, or over. Such a fence, however
it is no trifling matter to make. It must be pretty
high ; and must present some formidable obstacles
besides its height.

34. With regard to the second point ; the shelter ;
this is of great consequence ; for, it is very well
known, that, on the south side of a good high fence,
you can have peas, lettuces, radish, and many other
things, full ten days earlier in the spring, than you
can have them in the unsheltered ground. Indeed,
this is a capital consideration ; for you have, by this
means, ten days more of spring than you could
have without it.

35. The shade, during the s"»rmer, is also valu
able. Peas will thrive in the snade long after they
will no longer produce in the sun. Currant trees
and Gooseberry trees will not do well in this cli-
mate unless they be in the shade. Raspberries also
are best in the shade ; and, during the heat of sum-
mer, lettuces, radishes, and many other things,
thrive best in the shade.

36. It will be seen presently, when I come to
speak of the form of a garden, that I have fixed
on an Oblong Square, twice as long as it is wide.
This gives me a long fence on the North side and
also on the South side. The form gives me a
line, warm extensive border in the spring, and the
latter a border equally extensive and as cool as I
can get it, in the heat of summer. Of the various
benefits of this shelter and this shade I shall, of
course, speak fully, when I come to treat of the cul-
tivation of the several plants. At present I shall
confine myself to the sort of fence that I would re-
commend.

37. I am aware of the difficulty of overcomir.g
long- habit and of introducing any thing that is new.

S3 THE AMERICAN GARDENLR. [Chap

Yet, amongst a sensible people, such as those, for
whose use this work is intended, one need not be
afraid of ultimate success ; and I, above all men,
ought not to entertain such fear, after what I have
seen with regard to the Ruta Baga. The people
of this country listen patiently ; and if they be not
in haste to decide, they generally decide wisely at
last. Besides, it is obvious to every one, that the
lands, in the populous parts of the country, must
be provided wit'h a different sort of fence from that
which is now in use ; or, that they must be, in a
few years, suffered to lay waste.

38. Yet, with all these circumstances in my fa-
vour, I proceed with fauHering accent to propose,
even for a garden, a live fence, especially when I
have to notice, that I know not how to get the
plants, unless I, in the outset, bring them, or their
seeds, from England ! However, I must suppose
this difficulty surmounted ; then proceed to describe
this fence that I would have, if I could.

39. In England it is called a Quick-Set Hedge.
The truth is, however, that it ought rather to be
called an Everlasting- Hedge ; for, it is not, as will
be seen by-and-by, so very quickly set ; or, at least,
so very quickly raised. If I could carry my read-
ers into Surrey, in England, and show them quick-
set hedges, I might stop here, and only provide the
seeds or plants. But, not being able to do that, I
must, as well as I can, describe the thing on paper.
The plants are those of the White Thorn. This
thorn will, if it be left to grow singly, attain the
bulk and height of an apple-tree. It bears white
(lowers in great abundance, of a very fragrant smell,
which are succeeded by a little berry, which, when
it is ripe in the fall, is of a red colour. Within the
red pulp is a small stone ; and this stone, being put

I.j THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

in the ground, produces a plant, or tree, in the same
manner that a cherry-stone does. The red berries
are called haws; whence this thorn is sometimes
called the haw-thorn ; as in GOLDSMITH'S Deserted
Village : " The haw-thorn bush, with seats beneath
the shade." The leaf is precisely like the Goose-
berry leaf, only a little smaller ; the branches are
every where armed with sharp thorns ; and the
wood is very flexible and very tough.

40. The haws are sown in drills, like peas, arid
they are taken from that situation and planted very
thick in rows, in a nursery, where they stand a
year or two, if not wanted the first year. Then
they are ready to be planted to become a hedge.
In England there are two ways of planting a hedge,
as to position of ground. One on a bank, with a
ditch on the side : the other on the level ground.
The latter is that, of which I have now to speak.

41. The ground for the Garden being prepared,
in the manner before described under the head of
Soil, you take up your quick-set plants, prune their
roots to within four inches of the part that was at
the top of the ground ; or, in other words, leave the
root but four inches long, taking care to cut away
all the fibres, for they always die ; and they do
harm if they be left. Make the ground very fine
and nice all round the edges of the piece intended
for the garden. Work it well with a spade and
make it very fine, which will demand but very little
labour. Then place a line along very truly ; for,
mind, you are planting for generations to come !
Take the spade, put the edge of it against the line ;
drive it down eight or ten inches deep ; pull the
eye of the spade towards you, and thus you make,
all along a little open cut to receive the roots of
the plants, which you will then put ULUJ the cat,

24 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

very upright, and then put the earth against them
with your hand, taking care riot to plant them deeper
in the ground than they stood before you took them
up from the nursery. The distance between each
plant is twelve inches. When this line is done,
plant another line all the way 'along by the side of
it, and at six inches from it, in exactly the same
manner : but, mind, in this second line, the plants
are not to stand opposite the plants in the first line,
but opposite the middles of the intervals. When
both lines are planted, tread gently between them
and also on the outsides of them, and then hoe the
ground a little, and leave it nice and neat.

42. This work should be done in the first or se-
cond week of October, even though the leaves should
yet be on the plants. For, their roots will strike
in this fine month, and the plants will be ready to
start off in the spring in a vigorous manner. If you
cannot do it in the fall, do it the moment the ground
is fit in the spring ; because, if you delay it too
long, the heat and drought comes, and the plants
cannot thrive so well.

43. In both cases the plants must be cut down
almost close to the ground. If you plant in the fall,
cut them down as soon as the frost is out of the
ground in the spring, and before the buds begin to
swell; and, if you plant in the spring, cut down as
soon as you have planted. This operation is of in-
dispensable necessity ; for, without it you will have
no hedge. This cutting down to within half an
inch of the ground will cause the plants to send out
shoots that will, in good ground, mount up to the
length of three or four feet, during the summer.
But, you must keep the ground between them and
all about them very clean and frequently hoed;

I.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. £5

for the quick-sets love good culture as well as
other plants.

44. Some people cut down again the next spring:
but, this ft not the best way. Let the plants stand
two summers and three winters, and cut them all
close down to the ground as you can in the spring,
and the shoots will come out so thick and so strong,
that you need never cut down any more.

45. But, you must, this year, begin to clip. At
Midsummer, or rather, about the middle of July,
yon must clip off the top a little and the sides near
the top, leaving the bottom not much clipped ; so
that the side of the hedge may slope like the side
of a pyramid. The hedge will shoot again imme
diately, and will have shoots six inches long, per-
haps, by October. Then, before winter, you must
clip it again, leaving some part of the new shoots,
that is to say, not cutting down to your last cut,
but keeping the side always in a pyramidical slope,
so that the hedge may always be wide at bottom
and sharp at the top. And thus the he-dge will go
on getting higher and higher, and wider and wider
and wider, till you have it at the height and thick-
ness that you wish; and when it arrives at that
point, there you may keep it. Ten feet high, and
five feet through at bottom, is what I should choose ;
because then I have fence, shelter and shade ; but,
in the way of fence, five feet high will keep the
boldest boy off from trees loaded with fine ripe
peaches, or from a patch of ripe water-melons ; arid,
if it will do that, nothing further need be said upon
the subject! The height is not great; but, unless
the assailant have wings, he must be content with
feasting his eyes ; for, if he attempt to climb the
hedge, his hands and arms and legs are full of thorns
in a moment; and he retreats as the fox did from

3

20 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

the grapes, only with pain of body in addition to
that of a disappointed longing. I really feel some
remorse in thus plotting against the poor fellows ;
but, the worst of it is, they will not be content with
fair play : they will have the earliest in the season,
and the best as long as the season lasts; and, there-
fore, I must, however reluctantly, shut them out
altogether.

46. A hedge five clear feet high may be got in
six years from the day of planting. And, now let
us see what it has cost to get this fence round my
proposed garden, which, as will be seen under the
next head, is to be 300 feet long and 150 feet wide,
and which is, of course, to have 900 feet length of
hedge. The plants are to be a foot apart in the
line, and there are to be two lines; consequently,
there will be required 1800 plants, or suppose it to
be two thousand. I think it will be strange indeed,
if those plants cannot be raised and sold, at two
years old, for two dollars a thousand. I mean fine
stout plants ; for, if your plants be poor, little slen-
der things that have never been transplanted, but
just pulled up out of the spot where they were
sown, your hedge will be a year longer before it
come to a fence, and will never, without extraordi-
nary care, be so good a hedge ; for, the plants
ought all to be as nearly as possible of equal size ;
else some get the start of others, subdue them, and
keep them down, and this makes an uneven hedge,
with weak parts in it. And, when the plants are
first pulled up out of the seed-bed, they are too
small to enable you clearly to ascertain this ine-
quality of size. When the plants are taken out of
the seed-bed and transplanted into a nursery, they
are assorted by the nursery men, who are used to
the business. The strong ones are transplanted

I.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 27

into one place, ami the weak ones into another: so
that, when they come to be used for a hedge, they
are already equalized. If you can get plants three
years old they are still better. They will make a
complete hedge sooner ; but, if they be two years
old, have been transplanted, and, are at the bottom,
as big as a large goose quill, they are every thing
that is required.

47. The cost of the plants is, then, four dollars.
The pruning of the roots and the planting is done,
in England, for about three half pence a rod; that
is to say, about three cents. Let us allow twelve
cents here. I think I could earn two dollars a day
at this work; but, let us allow enough. In 900
feet there are 54 rod and a few feet over: and,
therefore, the planting of the hedge would cost
about seven dollars, To keep it clean from weeds
would require about two days work in a year for
five or six years : twelve dollars more. To do the
necessary clipping during the same time, would re-
quire about thirty dollars, if it were done in an ex-
traordinary good manner, and with a pair of Garden
Shears. So that the expenses to get a complete
hedge round the garden would be as follows :

D. c.

Plants .... 4 00
Planting ... 7 00
Cultivation . . 12 00
Clipping ... 30 00

Total . . 53 00

49. And thus are a fence, shelter and shade, of
everlasting duration, for a garden, containing an
acre of land, to be obtained for this trifling sum !
Of the beauty of such a hedge it is impossible for
any one, who has not seen it, to form an idea : con-

28 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

trusted with a wooden, or even a brick fence, it is
like the land of Canaan compared with the deserts
of Arabia. The leaf is beautiful in hue as well as
in shape. It is one of the very earliest in the
spring. It preserves its bright green during the
summer heats. The branches grow so thick and
present thorns so numerous, and those so sharp, as
to make the fence wholly impenetrable. The shelter
it gives in the early part of spring, and the shade it
gives (on the other side of the garden) in the heat
of summer, are so much more effectual than those
given by wood or brick or stone fences, that there
is no comparison between them. The Primrose
and the Violet, which are the earliest of all the
flowers of the fields in England, always make their
first appearance under the wings of the Haw-Thorn.
Goldsmith, in describing female innocence and sim-
plicity, says : " Sweet as Primrose peeps beneath
the Thorn." This Haw-Thorn is the favourite
plant of England : it is seen as a flowering shrub
in all gentlemen's pleasure-grounds ; it is the con-
stant ornament of paddocks and parks ; the first ap-
pearance of its blossoms is hailed by old and young
as the sign of pleasant weather ; its branches of
flowers are emphatically called " May," because,
according to the Old Style, its time of blooming was
about the first of May, which, in England is called
" May-Day ;" in short, take away the Haw-Thorn,
and you take away the greatest beauty of the En-
glish fields and gardens, and not a small one from
English rural poetry.

49. And why should America not possess this
most beautiful and useful plant ? She lias English
ge\v-gaws, English Play-Actors, English Cards and
English Dice and Billiards ; English fooleries and
English vices enough in all conscience ; and why

I.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 29

not English Hedges, instead of post-and-rail and
board fences ? If, instead of these steril-looking and
cheerless enclosures the gardens and meadows and
fields, in the neighbourhood of New York and other
cities and towns, were divided by quick-set hedges,
what a difference would the alteration make in the
look, and in the real value too, of those gardens,
meadows and fields!

50. It may be said, perhaps, that, after you have
g-ot your hedge to the desired height, it must still
be kept clipped twice in the summer ; and that,
therefore, if the fence is everlasting, the trouble of
it is also everlasting. But, in the first place, you
can have nothing good from the earth without an-
nual care. In the next place, a wooden fence will
soon want nailing and patching annually, during the
years of its comparatively short duration. And,
lastly, what is the annual expense of clipping, when
you have got your hedge to its proper height and
width, and when the work may be done with a long-
handled hook instead of a pair of shears, which is
necessary at first? In England such work is done
for a penny a rod, twice in the summer. Allow
three times as much in America, and then the an-
nual expense of the garden hedge will be less than
four dollars a year.

51. Thus, then, at the end of the first twenty
years, the hedge would have cost a hundred and
nine dollars. And, for ever after, it would cost
only eighty dollars in twenty years. Now, can a
neat boarded fence, if only eight feet high, and to
last twenty years, be put up for less that six dol-
lars a rod ? I am convinced that it cannot ; and,
then, here is an expense for every twenty years, of
three hundred and forty-eight dollars. A Locust
fence, I allow, will last for ever ; but, then, what

3*

30 THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

will a, fence all of Locust, cost 1 Besides the differ-
ence in the look of the tiling ; besides the vast (in-
ference in ine nature and effect of the shelter r.nd
the shade ; and besides, that, after all, you have, in
the wooden lerice, no effectual protection against
invader s.

52. However, there is one thing, which must not
be omitted; and that is, that the hedge will not be
& fence, or, at least, I would not look upon it as
such, until it had been planted six years. During
these six years, there must be a fence all round on
the outside of it, to keep off pigs, sheep and cattle :
for, as to the two-legged assailants nothing will keep
them off except a quick-set hedge. If I had to make
this temporary fence, it should be a dead hedge,
made of split hickory rods, like those that hoops
are made of, and with stakes of the stoutest parts of
the same rods, or of oak saplings, or some such
things. The workmanship of this, if I had a
Hampshire or Sussex hedger, would not cost me
more than six cents a rod : perhaps, the stuff would
not cost more than a quarter of a dollar a rod ; and
this fence would last, with a little mending, as long
as I should want it. But, as few good hedgers come
from England, and as those who do come appear
to think, that they have done enough of hedging in
their own country, or, if they be set to hedging here,
seem to look upon themselves as a sort of conjurors,
and to expect to be paid and treated accordingly,
the best way, probably, is, to put up a temporary
post-and-nil fence, sufficient to keep out a sucking
pig : and to keep this fence standing until the hedge
has arrived at the age of six years, as before men-
tioned.

53. There yet remains one advantage, and that
not a small one, that a quick-set hedge possesses

1.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 31

over every other sort of fence ; and that is, that it
effectually keeps out poultry, the depredations of
which, in a nice garden, are so intolerable, that it
frequently becomes a question, whether the garden
shall be abandoned, or the poultry destroyed. Fowls
seldom, or never, fly over a fence. They, from mo-
tives of prudence, first alight upon it, and then drop
down on the other side ; or, if they perceive dan-
ger, turn short about, and drop back again, making
a noise expressive of their disappointment. Now,
Fowls will alight on wooden, brick, or stone fences;
but never on a quick-set hedge, which affords no
steady lodgment for their feet, and which wounds
their legs and thighs and bodies with its thorns.

54. What has been said here of forming a hedge
applies to meadows and fields as well as to gardens ;
observing, however, that, in all cases, the ground
ought to be well prepared, and cattle, sheep and
pigs kept effectually off, until the hedge arrive at
its sixth year.

55. If I am asked how the white thorn plants are
to be had in America, I answer, that I saw a Tree
of Hawthorn at McAllister's Tavern, near Harris-
burg, in Pennsylvania, loaded with red berries. In
short, one large tree, or bush, would soon stock
the whole country ; and they may be brought from
England, either in plant or in berry. But, there
are many here already. If more are wanted, they
can be had any month of December, being shipped
from England, in barrels, half sand and half berries
in November. The berries, which are called haws
are ripe in November. They are beaten down from
the tree, and cleared from leaves and bits of wood.
Then they are mixed with sand, or earth, four
bushels of sand, or of earth, to a bushel of haws.
They are thus put into a cellar, or other cool place ;

32 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

and here they remain, always about as moii;: as
common earth, until sixteen months after they arc
put in ; that is to say, through a winter, a summer,
and another winter ; and then they are sown (in
America) as soon as the frost is clean out of the
ground. They ought to be sown in little drills;
the drills a foot a part, and the haws about as thick
as peas in the drills. Here they come up ; and,
when they have stood 'till the next year, you pro-
ceed with them in the manner pointed out in para-
graph 40.

56. These haws may be had from Liverpool, from
London, or from almost any port in Great Britain
or Ireland. But, they can be had only in the months
of November and December. Seldom in the latter ;
for, the birds eat them at a very early period. They
are ripe early in November ; and, half haws half
sand, may be had, I dare say, for two dollars a bar-
rel, at any place. Three barrels would fence a
farm ! And, as America owes to Europe her Wheat,
why be ashamed to add fences to the debt ? But
(and with this I conclude,) if there be a resolution
formed to throw all lands to common, rather than
take the trifling trouble to make live fences, I do
hope that my good neighbours will not ascribe these
remarks to any disposition in rue to call in question
the wisdom of that resolution. Figure I, in Plate
IV. exhibits a piece of the Garden-Hedge in eleva-
tion, in the winter season. See this Plate IV. in
Chapter V.

LAYING-OUT.

57. The Laying-out of a Garden consists in the
division of it into several parts, and in the allotting
of those several parts to the several purposes for
which a garden is made. These parts consist o/

THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

33

34 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

Walks, Paths, Plats, Borders and a Hot-Bed
Ground,.

58. To render my directions more clear as well
as more brief, I have given a plan of my proposed
garden, PLATE I. This is not, strictly speaking, a
plan ; because it exhibits trees in elevation ; but it
will answer the purpose. Of the sorts of which
these trees are, and of other circumstances belong-
ing to them, I shall speak fully under the head of
Fruits. The precise description of the Hot-Beds
will be found under that head. At present my ob-
ject is to explain the mode of Laying-out the Ground.

59. The length of the Garden is 100 yards, the
breadth 50 yards, and the area contains a statute
acre ; that is, 160 Rods of 161 feet to the Rod. In
order to bring my length and breadth within round
numbers, I have been obliged to add 6 rod and 58
square feet ; but, with this trifling addition here is
a spot containing an acre of land. Before, how-
ever, I proceed further, let me give my reasons for
choosing an Oblong Square, instead of a Square of
equal sides. It will be seen, that the length of my
garden is from East to West. By leaving a greater
length in this direction than from North to South,
three important advantages are secured. First, we
get a long and warm border under the North fence
for the rearing of things early in the spring. Se-
cond, we get a long- and cool border under the South
fence for shading; during the great heats, things, to
which a burning sun is injurious. Fourth, by this
shape of the area of the Garden a larger portion of
the whole is sheltered, during winter and spring,
from the bleak winds.

60. Having such a spot before us, liltle difficulty
can arise in Laying it out* Indeed, it is only ne-
cess&ry to state the dimensions. The several parts

I.] HE AMERICAN GARDENER. 3?>

are distinguished by numbers. The long walk,
running from East to West, is 6 feet wide, as is
also the cross walk, in the middle. All the paths
are 3 feet wide. The borders, Nos. 2 and 3, are 9
feet wide. The dimensions of the Plats Nos. 5, 7,
8, 9, 10, and 11, are (each) 70 feet from East to
West and 56 from North to South. Plat, No. 6, is
56 feet by 50. Plat, No. 4, is 60 feet by 36. The
Hot-bed Ground, No. 1, is 70 feet by 36. I leave
trifling fractions unnoticed. In the English garden-
ing books, they call those parts of the garden
" Quarters,"' which I call Plats ; but, for what rea-
son they so call them it would be difficult to conjec-
ture. I call them plats, which is the proper word,
and a word, too, universally understood. A plat is
a piece of ground : and it implies, that the piece is
small, compared with other htrger portions, such as
fields, lots, and the like. I will just anticipate here,
that when beds for asparagus, onions, and other
things, are made, they should run across the plats
from North to South ; and that rows of Corn, Peas,
and Beans, and other larger things in rows, should
have the same direction. But, when beds are sown
with smaller things, the rows of those things must
go across the beds ; as will be seen when we come
to speak of sowing.

61. As to the art of Laying-out, it would be to
tn-sult the understanding of an American Farmer to
suppose him to stand in need of any instructions.
\ chain, or a line, and pole, are all he can want for
the purpose, and those he has always at hand. To
form the walks and paths, is, in fact, to lay out the
Garden ; but, the walks and paths must be made
not only visible, but must be dug out. The way is
to take out the earth about four inches deep, and
spread it ovei the adjoining ground, some on each

36 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

side of the walk or path, taking care to fling, or
carry, the earth, so dug out, to such a distance, that
every part of the ground, which i-« not walk or path,
receive an equal proportion of what is thus dug out.
Gravel may be put in the walks and paths : it makes
the whole look neater ; but, in a country where the
frost is so hard in winter and the ground so dry in
summer, gravel can hardly be said to be necessary ,
while it maybe troublesome; for, in spite of all
you can do, a part of it will get into the borders ;
and, there it must do harm.

62. It will be seen, that about a third part of the
Garden is appropriated to Fruit Trees. The rea-
son for this, and the uses of the other parts of the
ground, will be fully stated in the Chapters on Cul-
tivation. I have here treated merely of the form
and the dimensions, and of the division, of the Gar-
den. It is in treating of the cultivation of the seve-
ral sorts of plants that our attention will be brought
back to a close contemplation of the several parts
included in this division.

CHAPTER II.

On the Making and Managing of Hot Beds and
Green-houses.

HOT-BEDS.

63. I AM not about to lay down rules for person?
who can afford to have cucumbers in March. This
amounts to something little short of folly in Eng-
land : in America, it would be something worse.
But, Hot-Beds, as things of real use, are more ne-
cessary in America than in England ; because in the
former country, the winter will not suffer to exisi

II.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 37

in the open air many plants, which are wanted to
start with the warm sun, and which plants the win-
ter will suffer to exist in the open air in England
The American Spring bears no resemblance to thai
of England, which comes on by degree* from the
end of February to the beginning of June; while
the American Spring cannot be said to be of a fort-
night's duration. There is, in fact, no Spring : there
is a Winter, a Summer and an. Autumn, but no
Spring; and none would ever have been thought
of, if the word had not come from Europe along
with many others equally inapplicable.

64. This sudden transition from a winter, which
not only puts a total stop to, but effaces all traces,
of, vegetation, to a summer, which, in an instant,
creates swarms of insects, or warms them into life,
sets the sap in rapid motion, and, in six days, turns
a brown rye-field into a sheet of the gayest ver-
dure ; this sudden transition presents the gardener,
or the farmer, with ground well chastened by the
frost, smoking with fermentation, and with a sua
ready to push forward every plant ; but, alas ! he
has no plants ! I know, that there are persons,.
who do preserve lettuce, cabbage, and other plants,
during the winter, and that there are persons, wha
rear them on Hot-beds in the Spring; but, what I
aim at, is, to render the work easy to farmers in
particular ; not only as the means of supplying
their tables, but the stalls of their cattle, and the
yards qf their sheep and pigs. In the summer (a
cruelly dry one) of 1819, who, within many mile*
of my house in Long Island, had a loavcd cabbage,
except myself? During June, July and August, I
allowed fifteen a, day for my own family : I gave
ten a day to one neighbour ; to others I gave about
five hundred, perhaps, first and last ; and, the plants
4

38 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap,

were all raised in one single light, four feet by
three and a half, on a hot-bed, made on the IQth of
March. The hot-bed had six lights altogether, and
was about twenty feet long ; but, the part appro-
priated to these cabbages was only four feet by three
and a half. The plants came out of this bed on
the 20£A of April and were planted three inches
apart on another bed, without glass, but covered at
night with a cloth. On the 2Qth of May, they were
planted out in the open ground ; and, on the llth
of June we began to eat them. All these cabbages,
Early Dwarfs, Early Yorks, Sugar Loaves, and
Battersea, (coming in one sort after the other)
amounting to about four thousand in number, stood,
when planted out, upon rather less than thirty rods
of ground ; and the earliest sorts, while we were
using them so liberally, were selling in New York
market at from 6 to 4 pence a piece.

65. To preserve, during Winter, such a number
of plants, or, indeed, any number, however small, is
a work of great difficulty, and is merely chance-
work after all. Besides, fall-sown plants are not so
good as spring-sown. They become stunted; and
they very frequently go off to seed, instead of pro-
ducing loaves. However, it is not my business to
treat here of cultivation : I am here to speak of the
Making and Managing of hot-beds. This must,
of course, include a description of the Wood and
Glass, when formed into Frames and Lights. But,
first of all, I must treat of the making of the

;bed.

66. The materials of which the bed is to be com-
; posed, and the manner of preparing those mate-
trials, are first to be spoken of.

67. Dung of horses, cattle, sheep or pigs, is used
o make the bed of. Either riay be made to do.

II] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 39

with a greater or less degree of care and trouble ;
but, the best possible thing is dung from the stable,
taken away before it has been rotted, short and long
promiscuously, but rather long than short. If there
be a large proportion of short, it may have any lit-
ter added to it ; any broken straw or hay or corn
stalks, in order to make a due mixture of long and
short.

68. This choosing of the materials being a very
important point, I shall, in order to make rny in-
structions clear, suppose a case, and such a case as
will be very clear to every American Farmer.

69. By the month of March he has always a heap
of dung, which has, from time to time, been thrown
out of his stable, during the winter and fall. This
is some long and some short. Let the whole of
this (supposing there to be three horses kept) be
taken ; and, in addition, a pretty good wagon load
of long stained stuff from the cow-yard, or sheep-
yard. Toss it down in a heap, near where you are
going to make the bed. Then begin on one side of
it, and take the stuff and begin making a fresh
heap of it. Shake every fork full well to pieces,
and mix well the long with the short ; and thus go
on, till you have the whole in a round heap rising
to a point.

70. The second day after this heap is made it will
begin to send forth steam. Let it remain three
days in this state ; that is to say, four clear days
after the day of making the heap. Then turn the
heap back again ; shaking all well to pieces, as be-
fore, and bringing to the inside that part of the stuff
which was before on the outside of the heap. Let
it remain now three clear days after the day of turn-
ing. Then turn it again ; shaking well to pieces,
as before, and bringing again the outside stuff t3

40 THE AMERICAN GARDENl R. [Chap

the inside. When it has remained two clear days
in this state, it is fit to make the bed with.

71. In the making the bed you will proceed as
directed below; but I must first describe the Frame
and the Lights. Were I speaking to persons liv
ing in a country, where there is no such thing as a
hot-bed frame, I should be obliged to enter into a
detailed mechanical description. But, as Frames
and Lights are to be seen in almost every consider-
able town in America ; and, as I have known very
few American Farmers, who are not able to make
both with their own hands, without any help from
either carpenter or glazier, it will be necessary
merely for me to say, that the Frame is of the best
shape when it is eighteen inches deep at the back,
and nine inches deep at the front. This gives slope
enough, and especially in a country where there is
so little rainy weather. The Frame is the wood
work, on which the Lights, or glass-work, are laid.
There needs no more than a good look at a thing of
this sort to know how to make it, or to order it to
be made. And, as it is useless to make a hot-bed
without having the Frame and the Lights ready, I
shall suppose them to be prepared. I suppose a
three-light Frame, four feet wide and nine feet
long, which, of course, will make every Light three
feet wide sand four long; because, the long way of
the Light fits, of course, the cross way of the
Frame.

72. Now, then, to the work of making- the bed.
The frcvnt of the bed is, of course, to be full South,
so that the noon sun may come right upon the glass.
The length and width of the bed must be those ot
the Frame. Therefore, take the Frame itself, and
place it O7i the spot which you mean the bed to stand
on. See that you have it rightly placed ; and then,

II.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 41

with a pointed stick, make a mark in the ground all
round the outside of the Frame. Then take the
Frame away. Then take some sharp-pointed
straight stakes, and drive them in the ground, at
each corner of this marked-out place for the bed, and
one or two on the back and on the front side. Let
these be about four feet high. They are to be your
guides in building the bed ; and, they ought, there-
fore, to be very straight, and to be placed perfectly
upright. Each stake may be placed about an inch
further out than the mark on the ground ; for fear
of having the bed too narrow ; though, observe,
the bed should be as nearly the same length and
breadth as the Frame as it is practicable to make it.

73. In order to begin the work well, it is a very
good way, to put some boards on their edges, on
the ground, at the ends and sides, on the insides of
the stakes ; so as to have a sort of open box to be-
gin to make the bed in. The eye of a gardener
scorns such assistance ; but it is very useful to per-
sons unused to the work.

74. Thus, all being prepared, you begin making
the bed. Begin taking the dung on the side of your
heap nearf st to the spot where you are building the
bed. Keep taking up clean to the ground. Have
shovel as well as fork. Take long and short fairly,
and mix them well as you put them in. Shake the
stuff in such a way as not to suffer any lumps.
Shake every straw from every other straw. Let the
bed rise in all parts together as nearly as possible.
That is to say, do not put much in one part at one
time. Beat the whole down with the fork as you
proceed. When you have shaken on dung to the
thickness of four or five inches, beat all over well
again ; and so on, till the work be finished. But
wind: you must be verv careful to keep the edge*

4*

42 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

of the bod well beaten ; or else they will be more
hollow, and wiJl sink more, than the rest, and then
the earth on the bed will crack in the middle. Beat
them well ; keep them well up as you proceed ;
beat wnll the sides of the bed, as it goes on rising.
Comb the sides frequently down with the spanes of
the fork. And, in short, make the sides upright,
and smooth and neat as a wall. As you proceed,
measure the height frequently ; in the different
parts of the bed, to see that you are keeping the
height every where the same. At last, shovel and
sweep up all the short earthy stuff round the bed
and where your dung-heap was, and lay it very
smoothly on the top of the bed ; and make all as
smooth and as level as a die with the back of your
shovel.

75. Thus the bed is made. Then put on the
Frame, and fix it nicely. Then put the Lights upon
the Frame. If you finish your bed by noon, the
heat will begin to rise by the next morning ; and,
by the noon of the second day after the bed is
made, the heat will be up. Poke your finger as
deep as you can into the middle of the bed, when
you have taken off one of the Lights. If the heat
be so great as to burn your finger ; that is to say,
if you cannot endure the heat ; then it is too great
to receive the earth ; but, if not, put on the earth all
over the bed. If the heat be too great, give the bed
a little air, and wait till a little of the heat be
gone off.

76. The earth should be dry ; not like dust ; but,
not wet. I made provision for my bed, by putting
earth in my cellar, in November. It is not much
that is wanted. The bed is to be covered all over,
about six inches deep. When the earth has been
on twenty-four hours, take «ff the lights, and stir

II.) THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 43

the earth well with your hands ; for, hands are the
only tools used in a hot-bed. When you have
stirred the earth well, and made it level and smooth,
you may sow your seed, if you do not find the earth
too hot. But, observe, the earth is to be level, and
not sloping like the glass. The glass is sloping to
meet the sun, and to turn off the wet ; but, the earth
must lie perfectly level ; and this, you will observe,
is a very great point.

77. Next comes the act of sowing, The more
handsomely this is done, the better it is done. A
handsome dress is better than an ugly one, not be-
cause it is warmer, or cooler, but because, liking it
better, being more pleased with it, we take more
care of it. Those who have seen two or three wo-
men together, crossing dirty streets, or in danger
from horses or carriages, where the volunteer as-
sistance of men became useful ; those philosophers,
who have been spectators of scenes like this, cannot
have failed to discover, that humanity, like smote,
is very apt to fly to the fairest ; and I much ques-
tion whether Nicodernus Broadbrim himself, if he
saw a pretty girl and an ugly one stuck in the mud,
would not give his hand to the former. He would
hand them both out to a certainty ; but, he would
extricate the pretty one first. There is a great
deal in the look of our gardens and fields ; and,
surely, in so diminutive a concern as a hot-bed, all
ought to be neat and regular. Seeds are great tell-
tales ; for, when they come up, we discover all the
carelessness that may have prevailed at the sowing
of them.

78. When you have taken off all the lights, make
little drills with your finger, from the back of the
bed to the front, half an inch deep and about an
in< k apart. Make them equi-distant, parallel, and

44 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

straight. Then drop in your Cabbage seeds along
the drills, very thin ; but, twenty seeds, perhaps in
an inch ; for, some will not grow, and some may
be pulled up when they appear. It is better to have
rather too many than too few. . When you have
dropped in your seeds all over the bed, and distin-
guished the several sorts of Cabbages by names, or
numbers, written on a bit of paper, and put into
the cleft of a little stick, stuck in the ground ; then
cover all the seeds over neatly and smoothly. Put
on the lights ; and look upon your spring work as
happily begun.

79. But, now we come to the management of a
hot-bed. And, observe, that the main principle is,
always to give as much air as the plants will en-
dure. I have always observed, that the great and
prevalent error is, an endeavour to obtain, by exclu-
sion of air, something to make up for the want of
bottom heat. It is not thus that nature operates.
She gives the air as well as the heat ; and, without
the former she gives nothing. I suppose the hot-
bed, made as above, to be about four feet high,
when just finished. It will sink as it heats ; and
will, at last, come to about a foot and a half. Its
heat will gradually diminish ; but, it will give a
great heat for about six weeks ; and some heat for
four months. It is this bottom heat that makes
things grow. The sun is often hot in May ; but,
it is not till the earth is warm that vegetation ad-
vances with rapidity.

80. Having secured the bottom, heat, make free
with the air. Even before the seeds begin to ap-
pear, give air to the bed e 7ery day, unless it be very
cold weather indeed. The usual way of giving air
is by bits of thick board, cut in the shape of a tri-
angle, or. rather, like a wedge, broad at one end,

Il.J THE AMERICAN GARDEN! I. 45

and coming to a point at the other. Each light is
lifted up, either at back or front of the frame, as
the wind may be, and the wedge, or tilter, as it is
called, is put in, to hold the light up. But, if more
air be wanted, the lights may be shoved up, or
down ; and, in a fine day, actually taken off.

81. When the plants come up, they will soon tell
you all about air ; for, if they have not enough,
they will draw up long-legged, and will have small
seed leaves, and, indeed, if too much deprived of
air, will drop down and die. Take care in time to
prevent this. Let them grow strong- rather than
tall. Short stems, broad seed leaves, very green ;
these are the signs of good plants and proper ma-
nagement.

82. It will be necessary to water. Take off a
light at a time, and water with a watering pot that
does not pour out heavily. Water just about sun-
set : and then shut down the lights ; and the heat
will then rise, and make the plants grow prodi
giously.

83. As soon as the plants are fairly up, thin
them, leaving/owr in an inch; and stir the ground
about, at the same time with your finger. This
will leave in the frame from twenty-jive to thirty
thousand plants. If you want less, sow in wide
rows and thinner in the row. But, above all things,
give air enough. Do not attempt to make the
plants grow fast. You are sure to destroy them,
if you make this attempt. Have patience. The
plants will be ready soon enough. Get them strong
and green ; and, to do this, you must give them
plenty of air. Remember, that, out of a thousand
failures in hot-bed culture, nine hundred and ninety
fine arise from the giving of too little air.

84 Before I p oceed to the time of taking the

16 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

plants out of the bed, I must make a remark or
two respecting- shelter for hot-beds ; and this leads
me back to the Plan of the. Garden. In that plan
(Plate I.) is the Hot-bed Ground, No. 1, which is
70 feet by 36. The fence to the North and West
is the hedge, and that to the South and East ought
to be made of Broom Corn Stalks, in this manner :
Put some Locust-Posts along at eight or ten feet
apart. Let these posts be ten feet high and
squared to three inches by three inches. Lay a
bed of bricks, or smooth stones, along the ground
from post to post, and let this bed be about
seven or eight inches wide. This bed is for the
bottoms of the Broom-Corn Stalks to stand on.
Go on one side of the row of posts, and nail three
rows of strips, or laths (best of Locust,) to the
posts. The first row at a foot and a half from the
ground ; the second row at six feet from the
ground ; and third row within six inches of the top
of the posts. Then do the same on the other side
of the posts. Thus you will have a space of three
inches wide, all the way along, between these op-
posite rows of strips. Then take fine, long, straight
Broom-Corn Stalks, and fill up this space with them,
full and tight, putting them, of course, bottoms
downwards, and placing these bottoms upon the
bricks. When the whole is nicely filled, strain a
line from top of post to top of post, and according
to that line, cut off the tops of the Broom-Corn
Stalks ; and, while the fence will look very hand-
some, it will be a shelter much more effectual than
pales or a wall ; and, in my opinion, will last as
long as the former, unless the former be made
wholly of Locust. Stalks, rushes, reeds, strvw,
twigs, bows, any thing of this kind, formed into a
fence, or put up as shelter, is preferable to any

II J THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 47

thing smooth and solid. Grass will shoot earlier
under a bush, than under a wall, or even a house.
A wall will not save your ears from the sharp winds
so effectually as even a thin hedge. The American
farmer knows well the warmth that walls of Corn-
Stalks afford.

85. However, it is not to be presumed, that a
Hot- Bed Ground will be made by every farmer ;
and, therefore, before I proceed further with my
instructions about it, let me proceed upon the sup-
position, that the aforementioned bed is made in
some open place. In this case it will be necessary
to use some precautions as to shelter.

86. While the dung is working, before it be made
into the bed, it must, in case of very sharp frost,
be covered, especially on the North and North
West sides. If it be not, it will freeze on these
sides, and, of course, will not ferment. However,
this is no troublesome job : you have only to throw
on a parcel of straw, or stalks ; and take them off
again, when the frost relaxes. When the bed is
made, this is what I did. I drove some stakes
down, four feet distant from the bed, opposite the
North Side and the West End. I tacked a pole
from stake to stake ; and then I placed up along
against this pole, three or four rows of sheaves of
tall Corn-Stalks. This sheltered the bed from the
North West winds, and prevented it from freezing
on that quarter. Some sheaves might, besides, if
necessary, be laid against the bed itself. But, ob-
serve, you must be able to get at the Lights con-
stantly to give air, and to see how things go on ;
and, therefore, it is better to have your shelter at
some feet distance from the bed.

87. We now return to the bed and the plants. I
suppose the seed to have been sown on the 10th of

48 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

March (Long Island, mind,) and that you have
been very attentive to give air and water. By the
10th of April, the plants will have eight leaves,
and they will form one solid patch of green. They
will be a little drawn up, though you have given
them plenty of air. And now they must be re-
moved into a new bed. Dig out the ground a foot
deep, four feet wide, and to as great a length as is
required by your number of plants. Fill this hol-
low up with the best dung you have, cover it over
with four inches of good earth ; and plant your
plants upon it in rows four inches apart, and two
inches apart in the row. When you have put out
the plants, water them lightly ; and shade them for
two or three days from the sun. They must also
be sheltered every night, in this manner. Take
some rods, put one end of each rod into the ground
on one side of the bed, and the other end on the
other side ; put these rods at about two feet asunder
all along the bed ; then tie some rods long ways to
these arched rods ; so that, when you have done,
your bed has an arch over it formed by these rods.
Every evening about sun-set, cover this arch with
mats, with old carpets, or with a slight covering ot
any sort, which take off again at sun-rise in the
morning.

88. To put out all your plants in this way will
require a very long bed, or many short ones. If,
therefore, your number of plants be very large, the
best way will be to put out a part of them in this
way, leave the remainder in the hot bed a week
longer, (taking off the lights in the day time,) and
then to plant all the remainder out in beds of fine
rich earth, in the natural ground, and without any
covering.

89, Now here we drop, for the present, the

II.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 49

subject of Cabbage-Plants ; because I am to speak
of their culture, under the word, Cabbage, in that
part of the work, which will treat of the cultiva-
tion of Vegetables. I am, in this part of my work,
to confine myself to the making and managing of
Hot-Beds ; and, I have selected the Cabbage-Plant,
as a subject for explaining my meaning, because 1
think that the raising of that plant is one of the
most useful purposes, to which a hot-bed can be
applied in America.

90. But, a Hot-Bed may be applied to many other
purposes. Lettuces may be raised in it. Pepper-
grass, Radishes, young Onions, may be raised.
Parsley-roots may be put in, and fine parsley ob-
tained in March. Asparagus may be raised in this
way. It is not worth while to attempt to bring
Cucumbers and Melons to fruit in a hot-bed : but
the plants may be raised there, and afterwards put
out in the ground with great advantage in point of
time. Several sorts of annual flowers and of Green-
house plants may be got forward by a hot-bed,
which, without it, can hardly be got at all to any
great degree of perfection. Of the management
of these sorts of plants in a hot-bed I shall speak
under their several names ; but, on the manage-
ment of hot-beds, there yet remain to be made
some observations, which have a general applica-
tion.

91. As to heat and air it will demand but little
attention to manage well. But, a little Termo-
metre, hung up, or laid down, in the bed, will be
of use. The heat should not exceed seventy-Jive
degrees in the day time, and sixty at night. If it
oome down to fifty at night it is better. If you
cannot keep it down to sixty without giving a little
air at night, give it, by putting something under a

5

50 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

light, or two lights, to let in a little of the cold.
For, always bear in mind, that, when plants, of
whatever kind, be drawn up, they are nearly spoiled.

92. When the Sun comes upon the glass, it soon
augments the heat ; and the air must be given im-
mediately if possible, so as to keep down the heat.
Changes are very sudden in March, April, and
May ; and, therefore, somebody should always be
at hand to attend to the hot-bed. But, if the mas-
ter be from home, there is, surely, some man ; or,
at any rate, a wife, a son, or a daughter. The la-
bour is nothing, the trouble very little indeed, and
all that is wanted is a small portion of care.

93. It may happen that the bed will get too cool
It may lose its heat sooner than you could wish,
especially if you use it for Cucumber and Melon-
plants after you have used it for things that you
want earlier ; and, I shall show, that this may be
very useful in certain cases. Now, if the huat be
too much diminished, you may easily restore it,
thus : make a little narrow hot-bed, a foot and a
half wide, all round the bed. Put the dung together
as before ; place it close to the bed ; beat it well ;
and build it up, all round, as high as the top of the
Frame. This is called lining ; and it will give the
bed nearly as much heat as it had at first. If you
do not want so much heat, line only the back of the
bed ; or the back and the two ends. In short, take
as much heat as you may want.

94. Before I dismiss the subject of hot-beds. I
must notice, that there are other contrivances than
frames resorted to in this kind of garden work. A
frame is, as we here see, a wooden construction,
for lights of glass to be placed on. For smaller
concerns there are very convenient things, callp^
hand-lights, or hand-glasses. A hand-glass is ">

II.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 51

square glass-house in miniature. Its sides are
about eight inches high from the ground to the
eves. The roof rises from each side in a triangular
form, so that it comes to a point at the top, as a
pyramid does, the base of which is a square. At
this point is a stout ring, to lift the hand-glass about
by. The panes of glass are fixed in lead ; and the
rim round the bottom is made of iron or of wood.
Any glazier can make these hand-lights, and they
are by no means expensive. Here, where the tax
upon glass is so slight, they cannot be more ex-
pensive than in England ; and there they do not
cost much more than a dollar each. They may be
made of almost any size. About 18 inches square
at the base is a very good size. In the gardens
near London there are acres of ground covered
with such glasses. It is the custom there to plant
out cauliflowers in the fall, and to cover them, in
severe weather, during winter, with hand-glasses.
A hand-glass may, in April, be put over a hot-bed
made with a wheel-barrow full of dung. It would
bring on cabbage plants enough for two or three
gardens. It is handy to sow things under in the
natural ground, in the spring, especially flowers
that are to be transplanted ; for, on the natural
ground, it adds to the heat in the day, and keeps
off cold and slight frost in the night. Air is given,
by putting a brick, or bit of wood, under one of
the sides of the hand-glass.

95. Now, look back at the Plan of the garden.
No. I, is the Hot-bed Ground. It is seventy feet
long and thirty-six wide. It is wide enough to con-
tain four rows of hot-beds, with room for linings.
But, though a tenth part of this should not be
wanted, the place is a warm place, and :s better for
tender things than a colder place. The entrance to

52 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

it from the Western door of the garden is conve-
nient for the carrying in of dung, and for carrying
it out again for the use of the garden.

96. Here would be room for a greal deal mo^e
beds, certainly, than can ever be wanted even in a
gentleman's garden. But, observe, the room is no
evil. Whatever is not used for hot-beds may be
applied to other purposes. This is a sheltered
spot ; and, it will, by and by, be seen, that, even if
not used for hot-beds at all ; such a spot must be
of great utility.

GREEN-HOUSES.

97. My object is not to treat of any thing very
expensive, or very curious. There are persons,
whose taste greatly differs from mine in regard to
shrubs and flowers ; and I by no means pretend to
say that mine is the best. But, I can treat of no-
thing that I do not understand, that is to say, of
nothing with regard to which I have not had expe-
rience. My study, as to gardening, has always been
directed towards things that please the senses : in
vegetables, things that please the palate, and that,
to use the common saying, are good to eat : in shrubs
and flowers, things that delight the sight, or the
smell. Mere botanical curiosities, as they are call-
ed, I never took delight in. If the merit of a plant
or a flower is not to be discovered without close
and somewhat painful examination, it has always
appeared to me not worth the looking for. There
is, in fact, nothing more curious in one plant, cr
flower, than in another. They are all equally cu-
rious ; they are equally objects of wonder. There
is more of rareness, in England, in the Indian Corn
than in the Cowslip ; but here, the Cowslip would
have the merit of rareness. The ice-plant, the egg-
olant, and many others, have oddity to recommend

II. 1 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 53

them ; but, after all, oddity is but a poor recom-
mendation. What are thousands of these when
compared to a single rose bush in bloom !

98. I am rather anticipating here ; but, I wished
to explain why I do not recommend any very great
pains in the affair of a green-house. The plants
to keep in such a place I will talk of hereafter. At
present I am to speak of the making and the ma-
naging of such a place.

1 99. A green-house is for the purpose of having
plants and flowers flourishing, or, at least, in ver-
dure and in bloom, in winter. The best place for
a green-house, is, near the dwelling house, and, it
should be actually joined to the dwelling house,
one of the rooms of which should have windows
looking into the green-house, which latter, how-
ever, must face the South. When the thing can be
thus contrived, it is very pretty. It renders a long
winter shorter in appearance ; and, in such cases,
appearances are realities. A door, opening from a
parlour into a green-house, makes the thing very
pleasant and especially in a country like America,
where, for six months, every thing like verdure is
completely absent from the fields and gardens. And,
if the expense be but small, such a pleasure may,
surely, be afforded to the females of a family,
though, to afford it, may demand some deduction in
the expenditure for the bottle, in the pleasures of
which (if, alas! pleasures they be !) the amiable la-
dies of this county do not partake.

100. I hope, thiit no man, who has the means to
provide such pleasures for his wife, or daughters,
will talk to me about the uselessness of a green-
house. Of what use, then, is fine linen, when coarse
is cheaper and will last longer? Of what use is
beauty in a horse, a house, or in any thing else'?
5*

54 THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

Ot'what use are sporting dogs and guns? The use
of these things is, that they give pleasure ; that
they render life pleasanter than it would be without
them. And, why not, on the same principle, call a
green-house useful? Of what use is money, that
thing which every one seeks to possess ? Of what
use indeed, but to be expended on things, which
tend to make life easy and pleasant ? Therefore, a
green-house comes fairly within the scope of use-
fulness ; for, from it the females of a family would
receive constant amusement and delight, during a
season when they are cut off from almost all other
recreation.

101. Let me not, however, in using these argu-
ments, be supposed to doubt of the disposition of
American husbands to gratify their wives in this
respect ; for, many and striking as are the traits,
that distinguish the American character, none is so
striking, and none exalts it so much, as the respect
and deference of the male towards the female sex.
They talk to us about French politeness; and we
near enough of the sentimental trash of romances,
where Princes and Nobles are the heroes. But, in
no part of this whole world are the women so kind-
ly and so respectfully treated by the men as in
America. Here women, in no state of life, are
treated badly or churlishly. To insure indulgence,
assistance, forbearance, from every man, and under
any circumstances, it is sufficient that the party is
a woman. In this respect no country on earth will
bear a comparison with America. This is, too, the
natural bent of the human heart when uncorrupted
by vicious courses and unhardened by penury. For,
count our real pleasures ; count the things that de-
light us through life : and you will find, that ninety-
nine out of everv hundred are derived from women.

IJ j THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 55

TV/ be the object of no woman's care or good wishes
is ft sentence the most severe that can be pro-
nounced upon man.

102. As to the erection of a green-house, carpen-
ters and glaziers are never wanted, and, where Lo-
cust wood, for the sills, is every where to be had,
and glass with scarcely any tax, how elegant, how
cheap, and how durable, may such a thing as a
green-house be !

103. In America there must be heat ; but, how
easily will any of the ingenious men in this country
find the means of furnishing the necessary heat
with hardly any expense or trouble ! In most cases
the warmth might go from the parlour 5re place ;
for, all that is wanted, is completely to keep out
frost. There is, here, no want of Sun even in the
coldest weather ; and, if the green-house were on
the Eastern side of the dwelling-house, the cold
would not be any great annoyance. But, at any
rate, the heat necessary to keep out frost might
easily be obtained. A Termometre should be kept
in the green-house. The heat should be about sixty
degrees in the day time, and forty-Jive in the night.

104. In England they need very little fire in their
green-houses, except in very cold weather, which,
indeed, they seldom have. Their great want is that
of -57/Ti ; for, nothing will do well without sun ; and
America has plenty of this even in the coldest wea-
th*r. So that, if the frost were effectually kept out.
that alone would give beautiful plants in winter.
By an additional heat, a growth and a bloom would
be constantly kept up ; and a green-house might be
made one of the most beautiful and most pleasant
things in tv« world.

105. Ot the different plants suitable for a green-
house, and of the particular treatment .-f each, I

50 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

shall speak under the head of FLOWERS ; and shall,
in this place, only add some directions as to ma-
nagement, which are applicable to the whole as-
semblage.

106. Air is the main thing, after the keeping out
of the frost. Air is given by pushing up, or draw-
ing down, the Lights, which form the top or roof
of the green-house. Always give air, when there
is no fear of frost. Give heat and air at the same
time, if the weather be not mild enough to dispense
with the heat. For, without air, the plants will be-
come sickly. They have lungs as well as we ; and,
though they may live, for a while, without air, they
will be an eye-sore instead of a delight to the be-
holder. If the sides and front, as well as the top,
of the green-house, be of glass, (which is best,) then
air maybe given there, instead of giving it by push-
ing up, or pulling down, the lights at top.

107. The plants, of whatever sort or size, must
be in what the English call pots, and what the
Americans call jars. Perhaps I may as well speak,
once for all, about the shape and size, and manner
of planting in, these pots. The shape is generally
well known ; but, the pots ought never to be glazed.
Plain earthen pots are best as well as cheapest.
There must be a hole in the middle of the bottom
of every pot, or no plant will live in it for any con-
siderable length of time, and will never grow in it
at all. This hole should be in proportion to the
size of the pot ; and the pots may be from 4 inches
to IS inches over at top, and from 4 inches tr 18
inches deep ; being one third less across at bottom
than at the top. The smallest hole ought to be of
the size of half a dollar.

108. Besides the pot, there is what the English
call a pan, for the pot to stand in, which should be

II.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 57

about 2 inches deep, and as wide over as the top of
the pot, and, of course, a third part wider than the
bottom of the pot. This pan shouh1 be mado of the
same materials with the pot itself.

109. I have, in paragraph 21, mentioned, inci-
dentally, wooden boxes, as things wherein to place
plants ; but, I must here caution the reader against
the practice, wherever it can be avoided, especially
for small plants. We see plants, thus cultivated,
placed on window sills ; and they sometimes grow
there pretty well. Orange Trees, Large Myrtles,
and other large exotics, are planted in tubs. There
would be great difficulty in getting earthen things
of sufficient dimensions for these purposes ; be-
sides the constant danger of breaking. But, I am
quite satisfied, that where earthenware can be got
and used, it is greatly preferable to wood ; and this
opinion is foi<nded on actual experience. In my
hot-bed of 1819, I sowed several sorts of seeds in
little wooden boxes. I had no pots at hand, and to
get them from New York required more time than
I was willing to spare. The seeds all came up ;
but, by the time that they were an inch or two high,
they rotted at the stem, and fell down. They were
not less than twenty sorts of seeds; some of culi-
nary vegetables, some of field-plants, and some oi
forest-trees. They all died. In one box there were
planted some geranium-cuttings. They cf-.me out
into bud and leaf; but died soon afterwards. I had
soon afterwards got some pots. I repeated my sow-
ing and planting ; all the seeds and plants grew and
flourished. And, let it be observed, that the boxes
stood in the same bed, where cabbages and cauli-
flowers were sown without either pots or boxes ;
and that the plants of these grew, and flourished
exceedingly. The cause of the plants ro ting .11

6& THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

the boxes was this : though there were several
hoJes at the bottom of each box, and though these
were properly covered with oyster-shells, the wood
itself* sides as well as bottom, imbibed, and retain-
ed too long, part of the water poured on the top,
and, as the boxes were plunged into the earth ot
the bed, they imbibed moisture from the watering
of the bed also. There was constantly stag-riant
and sour water near the roots of the plants, and
this killed them. These boxes were of deal. If
tubs, or boxes, must be resorted to, they ought to
be of Locust, or some other hard and close wood.
Locust is best, because imperishable. See para-
graph 16.

110. Some care is necessary in sowing and plant-
ing in pots. The mould should be good, and made
very fine. The first thing is to put an oyster shell,
or piece of broken earthen ware, into the pot, to
cover the hole at the bottom ; and the hollow part of
the shell, or other thing, should be downwards.
The use of this is, to keep the hole open, that the
water may find its way out of the pot, and not lie
stagnant at the bottom, where it would become sour
and injure, if not kill, the plant. The earth, if
there were no shell, would fill up the hole, and,
would, in time, become solid, and thus prevent the
water from getting out. The shell, or broken
earthen ware, keeps the earth hollow, and the water
creeps under the edges of it, and thus escapes into
the pan, whence it evaporates. In fields, we al-
ways desire an open under -soil; and, in a rainy
reason, you will see the crops stunted and looking
yellow, where there is a bottom of clay, while, at
the very same time, a bottom of sand, gravel, lime
stone, or other open matter, exhibits them green
and flourishing. It is upon this principle, founded

II.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 59

on experience, that holes have been made in the
bottom of flower-pots. The uses of pans, are,
first, to prevent the water from running about the
places where pots are placed ; and next to hold the
water up to a level with the roots, in hot situations,
a little longer than it would otherwise remain up to
that level. See paragraph 21.

111. As to the mere operation of sowing, or
planting, things in pots, though a simple operation
enough, some little attention to method is necessa-
ry. Your mould always ought to be^me, and even
tiffed, if convenient; for, when the quantity is to
be reckoned by gallons, the labour cannot be great ;
and the desire to possess green-house plants neces-
sarily implies pleasure, rather than pain, in employ-
ing the means to obtain them. In order to make
myself clearly understood, I shall suppose an in-
stance of sowing and one of planting.

112. Suppose you have the seeds of Stocks to
sow. Put earth into the pot enough to fill it to
within an inch of the top, and make the top of the
earth very smooth. Then scatter your seeds upon
it, and not too thickly. Then crumble some earth
over the seeds to the depth of about half an inch.
Make the top very smooth again. Then take the
pot in your two hands, and give five or six gentle
taps with the bottom of the pot upon the ground,
or upon a block, or some solid thing. This settles
the earth down ; and it needs no pressing at the
top, nor any other thing done to it. After this
settling, the top of the earth should be about an
inch lower than the top of the pot ; else you could
not, when necessary, give water ; for the water
Mould run off, there being no place to hold it.

113. Suppose you have a Geranium to plant,
which has been raised from a cutting, and the root

(50 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

of which cannot be very large. Put some earth in
the pot. Hold the root of the plant upon it to see
that it will be of the right depth, if its root stand on
that earth. Then, when you have got the earth to
the right height, hold the plant with one hand, and
fill up the pot, round the plant, with the other.
Then, tap the bottom of the pot on some solid
thing, as before mentioned, leaving the earth, as be-
fore, an inch lower than the top of the pot. Put the
pot in the pan ; and, in this case, water the plant
moderately ; for, observe, that a plant in a pot has
not an under-soil and dews and a mass of ferment-
ing earth to supply it with moisture, as a plant in
the open air has. Yet, even in the case of pots, it
is best, unless the plant be of a very juicy nature,
to suffer the ground to get dry at top before you
water ; because, water falling upon freshly-moved
earth, always makes it bake hard at top, which is
very injurious to every kind of plant.

114. These two instances will suffice for the ope-
ration of sowing and planting in pots ; for, though
some seeds and some plants will be larger, or
smaller, than those here mentioned, the principle is
the same, and the difference in minute particulars
will point itself out. If, for instance, you have
stocks, or other little things, to transplant into pots.
you will nearly fill the pot with earth, and then
make holes with a little stick, or with a finger, to
put in the roots ; and then proceed as before, and
settle down the earth. Such little things, being
nearly all juice, will require water directly, and
shading for a day or two. But, about these matters
I shall say more by-and-by, when I come to the
cultivation of the several sorts of plants and flowers.

115. The benches of the green house remain to
be spoken of. They should rise one above another

II.] 1HE AMERICAN GARDENER. 61

like the steps of a stairs, that the whole of the
plants may share in the benefit bestowed by the
sun ; but, there may be some on the ground, or
floor ; and, indeed, the precise arrangement must
be left to the taste of the owner, The arrangement
ought, however, to be such as to make it convenient
to get at every pot ; not only for the purpose of
watering, but for that of picking off the dead, or
dying leaves ; for that of stirring the earth frequent-
ly round the stems of the plants ; and for that of
sweeping, and even washing, the benches and the
floor. For, let it be observed, that, besides the
neatness of keeping, due to so choice and elegant a
matter as a green-house, cleanliness is greatly con-
ducive to the health of plants in a confined situa-
tion. In short, it is beauty that is here sought ;
and, can there be beauty without cleanliness !

116. In the month of June (Long Island, observe)
the plants come out of this their winter abode.
How they are then to be disposed of will be treated
of hereafter, under the head of flowers ; where it
will be seen, that the green-house, besides being a
most charming object in winter, when all without
is dreariness, is the best security for giving you a
beautiful garden in summer; and that without a
green-house, or, at least, a hot-bed, it is quite im-
possible to have in perfection, either in America or
in England, certain plants and flowers, some of
which are the very greatest beauties of the beauti-
ful family of Flora.

117. Nor must we forget some things, with regard
to which a green-house would be of great use, even
according to the most vulgar notions of utility. All
sorts of Herbs might be potted, and kept green and
growing in the green-house during the winter. Some
Herbs dry well ; but, none of them are quite so good

6

03 THE AMERICAN GARDENER [Chap.

as when green ; and, as to Parsley, which is wanted
almost every day in the year, it loses all its virtue
in the drying, smell and all. Six large pots of
parsley, the plants taken out of the ground and put
in pots in September, and put into the green-house
in November, will supply a large family well ; and
this is no trifling thing, when, for love or money, a
sprig of parsley is not to be got for months. A Sage
tree, a tree of Rue, one of Rosemary, one of La-
vender, a root of Hyssop, Thyme, Penny-royal,
some Mint, and, indeed, of every pot and medicinal
Herb, that is usually grown in the garden, would
be useful, as well as pleasant to the eye, during
winter.

118. Even when the plants are out of the green-
house, the latter is of use. An excellent place for
the drying of cherries, apples, pears, quinces,
peaches, and other fruits ; and also for the drying
of yeast-cakes, one of the most useful articles that
sensible and provident house-wives ever invented.

119. All this work of drying can, indeed, be per-
formed by the help of the fine hot sun, in the open
air ; but, then, wet days come ; and, sometimes,
the being compelled to take the things into the
house, to place them in a confined space, and in the
shade, at best, and away from strong light, greatly
injures, and, sometimes, spoils them ; and, at any
rate, they must always be taken in at night and put
out again in the day time. All these are impedi-
ments ; and all these impediments would be, at
once, removed by having a green-house. Once the
articles were placed properly in that, the process of
drying would be completed without more trouble,
and in about half the time required to obtain even
an imperfect operation in the open air.

120 For these purposes, too, only on a smallei

II.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 63

scale, a hot-bed frame, when done with, for raising
plants for the year, would be useful. The franifc
and lights might be placed upon boards, and the
fruits, or cakes, put upon these boards. Being
shut in, neither rains nor dews could affect them.
They would be dried quicker, more effectually, and
with a tenth part of the trouble that attends the dry-
ing in the open air.

121. Thus, then, I think, that there is use, even
in the vulgar sense of the word, as well as on.a-
ment, in a green-house. But, I must confess, that
its value, in my eyes, consists in its moral effects.
It is a source of pleasure to the Mistress of the
mansion ; to her, who has so strong a claim to at-
tention and indulgence. I will not praise pursuits
like these, with LORD BACON, because, " God Al-
mighty first planted a garden;11 nor with COWLEY,
because " a garden is like Heaven ;" nor with AD-
DISON, because " a garden was the habitation of our
first parents before the fall ;" all which is rather
far-fetched, and puts one in mind of the grave dis-
pute between the Gardeners and Tailors, as to the
antiquity of their respective callings ; the former
contending that the planting of the garden took
place before the sewing of the fig-leaves together ;
and the latter contending, that there was no garden-
ing at all, till Adam was expelled and compelled to
work ; but, that the sewing was a real and bona fide
act of tailoring. This is vulgar work to be sure ; it
is grovelling ; but, who can blame such persons,
when they have LORD BACON to furnish them with
a precedent?

122. I like, a great deal better than these writers.
SIR WILLIAM, who so ardently and yet so ration-
ally and unaffectedly praises the pursuits of garden-
*ng, in which he delighted from his youth to his old

64 THE AMERICAN GARDENER, LC/iaj'

age. But, I look still further, as to effects. There
must be amusements in every family. Children ob-
serve arid follow their parents in almost every thing.
How much better, during a long and dreary winter,
for daughters, and even sons, to assist, or attend,
their mother in a green-house, than to be seated
with her at cards, or at any other amusement that
can be conceived ! How much more innocent, more
pleasant, more free from temptation to evil, this
amusement than any other ! How much more in-
structive too ! " Bend the twig when young :" but,
here, there needs no force ; nay, not even persua-
sion. The thing is so pleasant in itself; it so natu-
rally meets the wishes ; that the taste is fixed at
once, and it remains, to the exclusion of cards and
dice, to the end of life.

123. This is, with me, far more than sufficient to
outweigh even a plausible objection on the score ol
expense. Such husbands and fathers as are acces-
sible by arguments like these, will need nothing
more to induce them to yield to my recommenda-
tion • with such as are not, no arguments within
the reach of my capacity would be of any avail.

CHAPTER III.

On Propagation and Cultivation in general.

124. IN order to have good Vegetables, Herbs,
Fruits, and Flowers, we must be careful arid dili-
gent in the Propagation and Cultivation of the
several plants ; for, though na ure does much, she
will not do all. He, who trusts to chance for a crop,
deserves none, arid he generally has what he deserves.

125. The PROPAGATION of plants is the bringing

III.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 65

of them forth, or the increasing- and multiplying
of them. This is effected in several different ways :
by seed, by suckers, by offsets, by layers, by
cuttings. But, bear in mind, that all plants, from
the Radish to the Oak, may be propagated by the
means of seed ; while there are many plants which
can be propagated by no other means ; and, of
these, the Radish and the Oak are two. Let me
just qualify, here, by observing, that I enter not
into the deep question (which so many have puz-
zled their heads with) of equivocal generation. I
confine myself to things of which we have a cer-
tain knowledge.

With regard to Propagation by means other than
that of seed, I shall speak of it fully enough under
the names of the several plants, which are, as to
the way of propagating them, to be considered as
exceptions to the general rule. Therefore, I shall,
in the present Chapter, treat of propagation by
seed only.

126. CULTIVATION must, of course, differ in some
respects, to suit itself to certain differences in the
plants to be cultivated ; but, there are some prin-
ciples and rules, which apply to the cultivation of
all plants ; and it is of these only that I propose to
speak in the present Chapter.

127. It is quite useless, indeed it is grossly ab-
surd, to prepare land, and to incur trouble and ex-
pense, without duly, and even very carefully, at-
tending to the seed that we are going to sow. The
svrt, the genuineness, the soundness, are all mat-
ters to be attended to, if we mean to avoid morti-
fication and loss. Therefore, the first thing is, the

SORT OF SEED.

128. We should make sure here ; for, what a loss
o have late cabbages instead of early ones ! As to

*>

66 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

beans, peas, and many other things, there cannot
easily be mistake or deception. But, as to cab-
bages, cauliflowers, turnips, radishes, lettuces,
onions, leeks, and numerous others, the eye is no
guide at all. If, therefore, you do not save yo^r
own seed, (of the manner of doing which I shall
speak by and by,) you ought to be very careful as
to whom you purchase of; and, though the seller
be a person of perfect probity, he may be deceived
himself. If you do not save your own seed, which,
as will be seen, cannot always be done with safety,
all you can do, is, to take every precaution in your
power when you purchase. Be very particular,
very full and clear, in the order you give for seed.
Know the seedsman well, if possible. Speak to
him yourself, on the subject, if you can ; and, in
short, take every precaution in your power, in order
to avoid the mortifications like those of having one
sort of cabbage, when you expected another, and ol
having rape when you expected turnips or ruta-baga.

TRUE SEED.

129. But, besides the kind, there is the genuine-
ness to be considered. For instance, you want su-
gar-loaf cabbage. The seed you sow may be cab-
bage : it may, too, be sugar-loaf, or more that than
any thing else : but, still, it may not be true to its
kind. It may have become degenerate ; it may have
become mixed, or crossed, in generating. And thus,
the plants may very much disappoint you. True
seed is a great thing : for, not only the time of the
crop coining in, but the quantity and quality of it,
greatly depend upon the trucness of the seed. You
have plants, to be sure ; that is to say, you have
something grow ; but you will not, if the seed be
jjot true, have the thing you want.

130. To insure truth in seed, you must, if you

fll.j THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 67

purchase, take all the precautions recommended as
to sort of seed. It will be seen presently, that, to
save true seed yourself, is by no means an easy mat-
ter. And, therefore, you must sometimes purchase.
Find a seedsman that does not deceive you, and
stick to him. But, observe, that no seedsman can
always be sure. He cannot raise all his seeds him-
self. He must trust to others. Of course, he may
himself, be deceived. Some kinds of seed will keep
a good many years ; and, therefore, when you find
that you have got some very true seed of any sort,
get some more of it : get as much as will last you
for the number of years that such seed will keep ;
and, to know how many years the seeds of vegeta-
bles and herbs will keep, see paragraph 150.

SOUNDNESS OF SEED.

131. Seed may be of the right sort ; it may be
true to its sort ; and, yet, if it be unsound, it will
not grow, and, of course, is a great deal worse than
useless, because the sowing of it occasions loss of
time, loss of cost of seed, loss of use of land, and
loss of labour, to say nothing about the disappoint-
ment and mortification. Here, again, if you pur-
chase, you must rely on the seedsman ; and, there-
fore, all the aforementioned precautions are neces-
sary as to this point also. In this case (especially
if the sowing be extensive) the injury may be very
great; and, there is no redress. If a man sell you
one sort of seed for another ; or, if he sell you un-
true seed ; the law will give you redress to the full
extent of the injury proved ; and the proof can be
produced. But, if the seed does not come up, what
proof have you ? You may prove the sowing ; btu,
who is to prove that the seed was not chilled, or
scorched in the ground? That it was not eaten by

68 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

insects there ? That it was not destroyed in coming
up, or in germinating ?

132. There are, however, means of ascertaining,
whether seed be sound, or not, before you sow it in
the ground. I know of no seed, which, if sound
and really good, will not sink in water. The un-
soundness of seed arises from several causes. Un-
ripeness, blight, mouldine-ss, and age, are the most
frequent of these causes. The two first, if exces-
sive, prevent the seed from ever having the germi-
nating quality in them. Mouldiness arises from the
seed being kept in a damp place, or from its having
heated. When dried again it becomes light. Age
will cause the germinating quality to evaporate ;
though, where there is a great proportion of oil in
the seed, this quality will remain in it many years,
as will be seen in paragraph 150.

133. The way to try seed is this. Put a small
quantity of it in luke-warm water, and let the wa-
ter be four or five inches deep. A mug, or basin,
will do, but a large tumbler glass is best; for then
you can see the bottom as well as top. Some seeds,
such as those of cabbage, radish, and turnip, will,
if good, go to the bottom at once. Cucumber, Me-
lon, Lettuce, Endive, and many others, require a
few minutes. Parsnip and Carrot, and all the
winged seeds, require to be worked by your fingers
in a little water, and well wetted, before you put
them into the glass ; and the carrot should be rubbed,
so as to get off part of the hairs, which would other-
wise act as the feathers do as to a duck. The seed
of Beet and Mangel Wurzel are in a case, or shell.
The rough things that we sow are not the seeds, but
the cases in which the seeds are contained, each
case containing from one to Jive seeds. Therefore
the trial by water is not, is to these two seeds, coil'

III.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 69

though, if the seed be very good ; if there
be four or five in a case, shell and all will sink in
water, after being in the glass an hour. And, as it
is a matter of such great importance, that every
seed should grow in a case where the plants stand
so far apart ; as gaps in rows of Beet and Mangel
Wurzel are so very injurious, the best way is to re-
ject all seed that will not sink case and all, after
being put into warm water and remaining there
an hour.

134. But, seeds of all sorts, are, sometimes, if not
always, part sound and part unsound; and, as the
former is not to be rejected on account of the latter,
the proportion of each should be ascertained, if a
separation be not made. Count then a hundred
seeds, taken promiscuously, and put them into wa-
ter as before directed. If fifty sink and fifty swim,
half your seed is bad and half good ; and so, in
proportion, as to other numbers of sinkers and
swimmers. There may be plants, the sound seeds
of which will not sink ; but I know of none. If to
be found in any instance, they would, I think, be
found in those of the Tulip-tree, the Ash, the Birch,
and the Parsnip, all of which are furnished with so
large a portion of wing. Yet all these, if sound,
will sink, if put into warm water, with the wet
worked a little into the wings first.

135. There is, however, another way of ascer
taining this important fact, the soundness, or un
soundness of seed ; and that is, by sowing them.
If you have a hot-bed ; or, if not, how easy to
make one for a hand-glass (see Paragraph 94),
put a hundred seeds, taken as before directed, sow
them in a flower pot, and plunge the pot in the
earth, under the glass, in the hot-bed, or hand-glass.
The climate, under the glass, is warm ; and a rerv

?0 THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

few days will tell you what proportion of ycur seed
is sound. But, there is this to be said .; that, with
strong heat under, and with such complete pro-
tection above, seeds may come up that would not
come up in the open ground. There may be enough
of the germinating principle to cause vegetation in
a hot-bed, and not enough to cause it in the open
air and cold ground. Therefore I incline to the
opinion that we should try seeds as our ancestors
tried Witches ; not by fire, but by water; and that,
following up their practice, we should reprobate and
destroy all that do not readily sink.

SAVING AND PRESERVING SEED.

136. This is a most important branch of the Gar-
dener's business. There are rules applicable to
particular plants. Those will be given in their pro-
per places. It is my business here to speak of such
as are applicable to all plants.

137. First, as to the saving of seed, the truest
plants should be selected ; that is to say, such as
one of the most perfect shape and quality. In the
Cabbage we seek small stem, well-formed loaf, few
spare, or loose, leaves ; in the Turnip, large bulb,
small neck, slender-stalked leaves, solid flesh, or
pulp ; in the Radish, high colour (if red or scarlet,)
small neck, few and short leaves, and long top,
the marks of perfection are well known, and none
but perfect plants should be saved for seed. The
case is somewhat different as to plants, which are
some male and others female, but, these present ex-
ceptions to be noticed under the names of such plants.

138. Of plants, the early coming of which is a
circumstance of importance, the very earliest should
be chosen for seed ; for, they will almost always be
ibund to include the highest degree of perfection in
other respects. They should have great pains take»

fll.) THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 71

with them ; the soil and situation should be good ;
and they should be carefully cultivated, during the
time that they are carrying on their seed to per-
feciion.

139. But, effectual means must be taken to pre-
vent a mixing of the sorts, or, to speak in the lan-
guage of farmers, a crossing of the breeds. There
can be no cross between the sheep and the dog :
but there can be between the dog and the wolf:
and, we daily see it, between the greyhound and
the hound ; each valuable when true to his kind :
and a cross between the two, fit for nothing but the
rope ; a word which, on this occasion, I use, in pre-
ference to that of halter, out of respect for the my
dern laws and usages of my native country.

140. There can be no cross between a cabbage
and a carrot : but there can be, between a cabbage
and a turnip ; between a cabbage and a cauliflower
nothing is more common ; and, as to the different
sorts of cabbages, they will produce crosses, pre-
senting twenty, and perhaps a thousand, degrees,
from the Early York to the Savoy. Turnips will
mix with radishes and ruta-baga ; all these with
rape ; the result will mix with cabbages and cauli-
flowers ; so that, if nothing were done to preserve
plants true to their kind, our gardens would soon
present us with little besides mere herbage.

141. As to the causes, I pretend not to dive into
them. As to the " affectionate feelings" from
which the effect arises, I leave that to those who
have studied the " loves of the plants." But, as to
the effect itself I can speak positively ; for, I have
now on the table before me an ear of Indian Corn
having in it grains of three distinct sorts ; WHITE
CORN, that is to say, colour of bright rye-straw
YELLOW COR K, that is to say, colour of a deep

72 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

coloured orange ; SWEPT CORN, that is to say, co-
lour of drab, and deep-wrinkled, while the other
two are plump, and smooth as polished ivory. The
plant was from a grain of White Corn ; but, there
were Yellow, and Sweet, growing in the same field,
though neither at less than three hundred yards dis-
tant from the white. The whole, or, at least, the
greater part, of the White Corn that grew in the
patch was mixed (some ears more and some less)
in the same way ; and each of the three sorts were
mixed with the other two, in much about the same
proportion that the White Corn was.

142. Here we have the different sorts assembled
in the same ear, each grain retaining all its distinc-
tive marks, and all the qualities, too, that distin-
guish it from the other two. Sometimes, however,
the mixture takes place in a different way, and the
different colours present themselves in streaks in
all the grains of the ear, rendering the colour of
the grains variegated instead of their being one-
coloured.

143. It is very well known, that effects like this
are never perceived, unless in cases where different
sorts of Indian Corn grow at no great distance
from each other. Probably, too, to produce this
intermixture, the plants of the several sorts must
be all of the same age ; must all be equal in point
of time of blowing and kerning. But, be this as it
may, the fact of intermixture is certain : and, we
have only to know the fact to be induced to take
effectual measures to provide against it.

144. As to bees carrying the matter, and impreg-
nating plants with it, the idea appears nonsensical ;
for, how comes it that whole fields of Indian Corn
are thus mixed ? And, in the Indian Corn, let it be
observed, the ear, that is to say, the grain-stalk, is

III.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 73

at about four feet from the ground, while the flower
is, perhaps, eight or ten feet from the ground !
What, then, is the bee (which visits only the flower)
to carry the matter to the flower, and is the flower
then to hand it down to the car? Oh, no! this is
much too clumsy and bungling work to be believed
in. The effect is, doubtless, produced by scent, or
smell; for, observe, the ear is so constructed, and
is, at this season, so guarded, so completely enve-
lopetl, that it is impossible for any matter whatever
to get at the grain, or at the chest of the grain,
without the employment of mechanical force.

145. Away, then, I think we may send all the
nonsense about the farina of the male flowers be-
ing carried to the female flowers, on which so much
has been said and written, and in consequence of
which erroneous notion gardeners, in dear Old
England, have spent so much time in assisting Cu-
cumbers and Melons in their connubial intercourse.
To men of plain sense, this is something so incon-
ceivable, that I am afraid to leave the statement un-
supported by proof, which, therefore, I shall give
in a quotation from an English work on Gardening
by the Rev. CHARLES MARSHALL, Vicar of Brix-
worth in Northamptonshire. " Setting the fruit is
the practice of most good gardeners, as generally
insuring the embryos from going off, as they are
apt to do at an early season ; when not much wind
can be suffered to enter the bed, and no bees or in-
sects are about, to convey the farina from the male
flowers to the female. The male flowers, have been
ignorantly called false blossoms, and so have been
regularly pulled off(as said) to strengthen the plants ;
but they are essential to impregnate the female
flowers ; i. e. tho se that shew the yo«ung fruit al
their base: This impregnation, called setting the

74 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

fruit, is artificially done thus : as soon as any fe-
male flowers are fully open, gather a newly opened
male flower, and stripping the leaf gently oft' from
the middle, take nicely hold of the bottom, and
twirling the top of the male (reversed) over the
centre of the female flower, the fine fertilizing
dust from the male part will fall off, and adhere to
the female part, and fecundate it, causing the fruit
to keep its colour, swell, and proceed fast towards
perfection. This business of setting the fruit may
be practised through the months of February,
March, and April, but afterwards it will not be ne-
cessary ; for the admission of so much air as may
afterwards be given, will disperse the farina effect-
ually ; but if the weather still is bad, or remarkably
calm, setting may be continued a little longer. If
short of male flowers, one of them may serve to
impregnate two females /"

146. Lest the American reader should be disposed
to lament, that such childish work as this is made
to occupy the time of English Gardeners, it may
not be amiss to inform him, that those to whom the
Reverend Gentleman recommends the practising ol
these mysteries, have plenty of beef and pudding
and beer at their masters' expense, while they are
engaged in this work of impregnation ; and that
their own living by no means depends, even in the
smallest degree, upon the effect of the application
of this " fine fertilizing dust" To say the truth,
however, there is nothing of design here, on the
part of the gardener. He, in good earnest, be-
lieves, that this operation is useful to the growth of
the fruit of his cucumber plants : and, how is he to
'believe otherwise, when he sees the fact gravely
taken for granted by such men as a Clergyman of
the Church of England '

HI.} THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 75

147. Suffice it, now, that we know, that sorts will
mix, when seed-plants of the same tribe stand near
each other ; and we may easily suppose, that this
may probably take place though the plants stand at
a considerable distance apart, since I have, in the
case of my Indian Corn, given proof of mixture,
when the plants were three hundred yards from
each other. What must be the consequence, then,
of saving seed from cucumbers, melons, pumpkins,
squashes, and gourds, all growing in the same gar-
den at the same time ? To save the seed of two sorts
of any tribe, in the same garden, in the same year,
ought not to be attempted ; and this it is, that makes
it difficult for any one man to raise all sorts of seeds
good and true.

148. However, some may be saved by every one
who has a garden ; and, when raised, they ought
to be carefully preserved. They are best preserved
in the pod, or on the stalks. Seeds of many sorts
will be perfectly good to the age of eight or ten
years, if kept in the pod or on the stalks, which
seeds, if threshed, will be good for little at the end
of three years or less. However, to keep seeds,
without threshing them out, is seldom convenient,
often impracticable, and always exposes them to
injury from mice and rats, and from various other
enemies, of which, however, the greatest is careless
ness. Therefore, the best way is, except for things
that are very curious, and that lie in a small com-,
pass, to thresh out all seeds.

149. They should stand till perfectly ripe, if
possible. They should be cut, or pulled, or
gathered, when it is dry ; and, they should, if
possible, be dry as dry can be, before they are
threshed out. If, when threshed, any moisture
remain about them, thev should be placed in the

76

THE AMERICAN GARDENER

[Chap.

sun ; or, near a fire in a dry room ; and, when
quite dry, should be put into bags, and hung up
against a very dry wall, or dry boards, where they
will by no accident get damp. The best place is
some room, or place, where there is, occasionally
at least, a fire kept in winter.

150. Thus preserved, kept from open air and
from damp, the seeds of vegetables will keep sound
and good for sowing for the number years stated
in the following list ; to which the reader will par-
ticularly attend. Some of the seeds in this list
will keep, sometimes, a year longer, if very well
saved and very well preserved, and especially il
closely kept from exposure to the open air. But,
to lose a crop from unsoundness of seed is a sad
thing, and, it is indeed, negligence wholly inex
cusable to sow seed of the soundness of which we
are not certain.

Artichoke

Asparagus -

Balm

Basil -

Bean

Bean (Kidney) -

Beet

Borage

Brocoli -

Burnet

Cabbage -

Calabash -

Cale

Cale (Sea)

Camomile

Capsicum -

Caraway

Carrot

Cauliflower -

Celery

Chervil -

Years. fears

m

3

Gives - -.-

3

m

4

Corn -

5

_

2

Corn-Salad

2

2

Coriander

3

m

1

Cress -

2

1

Cucumber - -

10

_

10

Dandelion -

10

4

Dock ....

1

.

4

Endive ...

4

F,

m

4

Garlick

3

7

Gourd -

10

.

4

Hop ....

2

3

Horse-Radish

4

m

2

Hyssop -

f»

2

Jerusalem Artichoke

3

„

4

Lavender -

2

1

Leek -

2

m

4

Lettuce -

3

10

Mangle Wurzel •

10

-

6 i Marjoram -

4

UI.J

THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

Years.

- 3

Rue

10

Ruta-Baga -

- 4

Salsify -

4

Samphire -

- 2

Savory -

2

Scorzenera

• 6

Shalot -

1

Skiri-el

- 1

Sorrel -

2

Spinach

- 3

Squash -

10

Tansy

- 2

Tarragon

2

Thyme

- 2

Tomatum

4
- 1

Turnip
Wormwood

3

77

Team.

- 3
4

- 2
3

- 2
2

- 4
4

- 7
4

- 10

3

- 4
2

- 2
4

- 2

Marigold
Melon
Mint
Mustard
Nasturtium -
Onion -
Parsley -
Parsnip
Pea

Pennyroyal
Potatoe -
Pumpkin -
Purslane
Radish - -
Rampion
Rape -
Rhubarb -
Rosemary -

151. Notwithstanding this list, I always sow new
seed in preference to old, if, in all other respects, I
know the new to be equal to the old. And, as to
the notion, that seeds can be the better for being
old, even more than a year old, I hold it to be
monstrously absurd ; and this opinion I give as the
result of long experience, most attentive observa-
tion, and numerous experiments made for the ex-
press purpose of ascertaining the fact.

152. Yet, it is a received opinion, a thing taken
for granted, an axiom in horticulture, that Melon
seed is the better for being old. Mr. MARSHALL,
quoted above, in paragraph 145, says, that it ought
to be " about four years old, though some prefer it
much older." And he afterwards observes, that
" if new seed only can be had, it should be carried
a week or two in the breeches-pocket, to dry away
some of the more watery particles !" What should
we do here, where no breeches are worn ! If age
be a recommendation in rules as well as in Melon

7*

78 THE AMERICAN GA.RDENER. [Chap.

seed, this rule has it ; for, English authors published
it, and French authors laughed at it, more than a
century past !

153. The reader will observe, that, in England,
a melon is a melon ; that they are not, there,
brought into market in wagon loads and boat loads,
and tossed down in immense heaps on the stones ;
but, are carried, by twos, or threes, and with as much
care as a new-born baby is carried. In short, they
are sold at from a dollar to four dollars apiece.
This alters the case. Those who can afford to have
melons raised in their gardens, can afford to keep
a conjuror to raise them ; and a conjuror will hardly
condescend to follow common sense in his practice.
This would be lowering the profession in the eyes
of the vulgar ; and, which would be very danger-
ous, in the eyes of his employer. However, a
great deal of this stuff is traditionary ; and, as was
observed before, how are we to find the conscience
to blame a gardener for errors inculcated by gen-
tlemen of erudition !

154. I cannot dismiss this part of my subject
without once more cautioning the reader against
the danger of unripe seed. In cases where winter
overtakes you before your seed be quite ripe, the
best way is to pull up the plants and hang them by
the heels in a dry, airy place, till all green depart
from the stalks, and until they be quite dry, and
wholly rid of juice. Even in hot weather, when
the seed would drop out, if the plants were left
standing, pull, or cut, the plants, and lay them on
a cloth in the sun, till the seed be all ready to fall
out; for, if forced from the pod, the seed is never
so good. Seeds will grow if gathered when they are
green as grass, and afterwards dried in the sun ; but
they do not produce plants like those coming from

III.) THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 79

ripe seed. I tried, some years ago, fifty grains of
wheat, gathered green, against fifty, gathered ripe.
Not only were the plants of the former feeble,
when compared with the latter; not only was the
produce of the former two-thirds less than that of
the latter ; but even the quality of the grain was not
half so good. Many of the ears had smut, which
was not the case with those that came from the
ripened seed, though the land and the cultivation
were, in both cases, the same.
SOWING.

155. The first thing, relating to sowing, is, the
preparation of the ground. It may be more or
\essjlne according to the sort of seed to be sown.
Peas and beans do not, of course, require the earth
so fine as small seeds do. But, still, the finer the
better for every thing" ; for, it is best if the seed be
actually pressed by the earth in every part; and
many seeds, if not all, are best situated when the
earth is trodden down upon them.

156. Of course the ground should be good, either
in itself, or made good by manure of some sort,
and, on the subject of manure, see Paragraphs 28
and 29. But, in all cases, the ground should be
fresh ; that is to say, it should be dug just before
the act of sowing, in order that the seeds may have
the full benefit of the fermentation, that takes place
upon every moving of the earth.

157. Never sow when the ground is wet ; nor,
indeed, if it can be avoided, perform any other act
with, or on, the ground of a garden. If you dig
ground in wet weather, you make a sort of mortar
of it : it binds when then sun or wind dries it. The
fermentation does not take place : and it becomes
unfavourable to vegetation, especially if the ground
be, in the smaPest decree, stiff in its nature. It is

SO THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

even desirable, that wet should not come for some
days after ground has been moved ; for, if the wet
come befo-re the ground be dry at the top, the eartli
will run together, and* will become bound at top.
Sow, therefore, if possible, in dry weather, but in
freshly-moved ground.

158. The season for sowing will, of course, find
a place under the names of the respective plants ;
and, I do hope, that it is, when I am addressing
myself to Americans, unnecessary for me to say,
that sowing according to the Moon is wholly absurd
and ridiculous, and that it arose solely out of the
circumstance, that our forefathers, who could not
read, had neither Almanack nor Kalendar, to guide
them, and who counted by Moons and Festivals in-
stead of by Months arid Days of Month.

159. However, it is necessary to observe, that
some, and even many, things, which are usually
sown in the Spring, would be better sown in the
fall ; and, especially when we consider how little
time there is for doing all things in the Spring.
Parsnips, carrots, beets, onions, and many other
things, may be safely sown in the fall. The seed
will not perish, if covered by the earth. But, then,
care must be taken to sow early enough in the fall
for the plants to come up before the frost set in.
The seed of all plants will lie safe in this way all
the winter, though the frost penetrate to the dis-
tance of three feet beneath them, except the seeds
of such plants as a slight frost will cut down. The
seed of kidney beans, for instance, will rot, if the
ground be not warm enough to bring- it up. So
will the seed of cucumbers, melons, and Indian
Corn, unless buried beyond the reach of the influ
ence of the atmosphere, Even early peas would
be best sown in the fall, could you have an insu-

III.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 81

ranee against mice. We all knoxv, what a bustle
there is to get in early peas. If they were sown
in the fall, they would start up the moment the frost
were out of the ground, and would be ten days
earlier in bearing, in spite of every effort made by
the spring-sowers to make their peas overtake
them. Upon a spot, where I saved peas for seed,
last year, some that was left, in a lock of haulm,
at the harvesting, and that lay upon the dry ground,
till the land was ploughed late in November, came
up, in the spring, the moment the frost was out of
the ground, and they were in bloom full fifteen days
earlier than those, sown in the same field as early
as possible in the spring. Doubtless, they would
have borne peas fifteen days sooner ; but there
were but a very few of them, and those standing
straggling about ; and I was obliged to plough up
the ground where they were growing. In some
cases it would be a good way, to cover the sown
ground with litter, or with leaves of trees, as soon
as the frost has fairly set in ; but, not before ; for,
if you do it before, the seed may vegetate, and then
may be killed by the frost. One object of this fall-
sowing, is, to get the work done ready for spring ;
for, at that season, you have so many things to
do at once! Besides, you cannot sow the instant
the frost breaks up ; for the ground is wet and
clammy, unfit to be dug or touched or trodden
upon. So that here are ten days lost. But, the
scad, which has lain in the ground all the winter,
is ready to start the moment the earth is clear of
th» winter frost, and it is v.p by the time you can
get other seed into the ground in a good state. Fall-
sowing of seeds to come up in the spring is not
poetised in England, though they there are always
to get their things early. The reason is

82 THE AMERICAN GARDENEH. [Chap.

the uncertainty of their winter, which passes, some-
times with hardly any frost at all ; and which at
other times, is severe enough to freeze the Thames
over. It is sometimes mild till February and then
severe. Sometimes it begins with severity arid
ends with mildness. So that, nine times out of ten,
their seed would come up and the plants would be
destroyed before spring. Besides, they have slugs
that come out in mild weather, and eat small plants
up in the winter. Other insects and reptiles do the
like. From these obstacles the American gardener
is free. His winter sets in ; and the earth is safely
closed up against vegetation till the spring. I am
speaking of the North of Virginia, to be sure ; but
the gardener to the South will adapt the observa-
tions to his climate, as far as they relate to it.

160. As to the act of sowing, the distances and
depths differ with different plants, and these will, of
bourse, be pointed out under the names of those
different plants ; but, one thing is common to all
seeds ; and that is, that they should be sown in
rows or drills ; for, unless they be sown in this
way, all is uncertainty. The distribution of the
seed is unequal ; the covering is of unequal depth ;
and, when the plants come up in company with the
weeds, the difficulty of ridding the ground of the
latter, without destroying the former, is very great
indeed, and attended with ten times the labour.
Plants, in their earliest state, generally require to
be thinned; which cannot be done with regularity,
unless t'hey stand in rows ; and, as to every future
operation, how easy is the labour in the one case
and how hard in the other ! It is of great advantage
to almost all plants to move the ground somewhat
deep while they are growing ; but, how is this to
be dor.e, unless they stand in rows ? If they be dis-

III.] THE AMERICAN CARDFNER. 83

persed promiscuously over the ground, to perform
this operation is next to impossible.

161. The great obstacle to the following of a
method so obviously advantageous, is, the trouble.
To draw lines for peas and beans is not deemed
troublesome ; but, to do this for radishes, onions,
carrots, lettuces, beds of cabbages, and other small
seeds, is regarded as tedious. When we consider
the saving- of trouble afterwards, this trouble is
really nothing, even if the drills were drawn one
at a time by a line or rule ; but, this need not be
the case ; for, a very cheap and simple tool does
the business with as much quickness as sowing at
random.

162. Suppose there be a bed of onions to be
sown. I make my drills in this way. I have what
I call a Driller, which is a rake six feet long in the
head. This head is made of White Oak, 2 inches
by 2^ ; and has teeth in it at eight inches asunder,
each tooth being about six inches long, and an inch
in diameter at the head, and is pointed a little al
the end that meets the ground. This gives nine
teeth, there being four inches over at each end of
the head. In this head, there is a handle fixed of
about six feet long. When my ground is prepared,
raked nice and smooth, and cleaned from stones
and clods, I begin at the left hand end of the bed,
and draw across it nine rows at once. I then pro-
ceed, taking care to keep the left hand tooth of the
Driller in the right hand drill that has just been
made ; so that now I make but eight new drills,
because (for a guide) the left hand tooth goes this
time in the drill, which was before made by the
right hand tooth. Thus, at every draw, I make
eight drills. And, in this way, a pretty long bed
is formed into nice, straight drills in a very few mi

R4 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

nutes. The sowing, after this, is done with truth,
and the depth of the covering must be alike for all
the seeds. If it be Parsnips or Carrots, which re-
quire a wider distance between the rows ; or, Cab-
bage plants, which, as they are to stand only for a
while, do not require distances so wide : in these
cases, other Drillers may be made. And, what is
the expense ? There is scarcely an American farmer,
who would not make a set of Drillers, for six-inch,
eight-inch, and twelve-inch distances, in a winter's
day ; and, consisting of a White Oak head and han-
dle, and of Locust teeth, every body knows, that
the tools might descend from father to son to the
fourth or fifth generation. I hope, therefore, that
no one will, on the score of tediousness, object to
the drilling of seeds in a garden.

163. In the case of large pieces of ground, a
hand Driller is not sufficient. Yet, if the land be
ploughed, furrows might make the paths, the har-
row might smooth the ground, and the hand-driller
might be used for onions, or for any thing else.
However, what I have done for Kidney Beans is
this. I have a roller drawn by an ox, or a horse.
The roller is about eight inches in diameter, and
ten feet long, To that part of the frame of the
roller, which projects, or hangs over beyond the
roller behind, I attach, by means of two pieces of
wood and two pins, a bar ten feet long. Into this
bar I put ten teeth ; and near the middle of the bar
two handles. The roller being put in motion breaks
all the clods that the harrow has left, draws after it
the ten teeth, and the ten teeth make ten drills, as
deep, or as shallow, as the man chooses who fol-
lows the roller, holding the two handles of the bar.
The two pieces of wood, which connect the bai
with the hinder projecting part of the frame of the

III. THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 85

roller, work on the pins, so as to let the bar up and
down, as occasion may require ; and, of course,
while the roller is turning, ai the end, the bar, with
the teeth in it, is raised from the ground.

104. Thus are ten drills made by an ox, in about
five minutes, which would perhaps require a man
more than a day to make with a hoe. In short, an
ox, or a horse, and a man and a boy, will do twelve
acres in a day with ease. And to draw the drills
u'ith a hoe would require forty-eight men at the
least ; for, there is the line to be at work as well as
the hoe. Wheat and even Peas are, in the fields,
drilled by machines ; but beans cannot, and espe-
cially kidney beans. Drills must be made ; and,
where they are cultivated on a large scale, how te-
dious and expensive must be the operation to make
the drills by line and hoe! When the drills are
made, the beans are laid in at proper distances, then
covered with a light harrow (frame of White-Oak
and tines of Locust,) and after all comes the roller,
with the teeth lifted up of course ; and all is smooth
and neat. The expense of such an apparatus is
really nothing. The barrel of the roller, and the
teeth bar, ought to be of Locust, which never pe-
rishes, and the shafts and frame of White-Oak,
which, even without paint, will last a lifetime.

165. In order to render the march of the ox
straight, my ground was ploughed into lands, one
of which took the ten rows of kidney-rbeans ; so
that the ox had only to be kept straight along upon
the middle of the land. And, in order to have the
lands flat, not arched at all, the ground was plough-
ed twice in this shape, which brought the middle of
the lands where the furrows were before. If, how-
ever, the ground had been flat-ploughed, without
any furrow, there would have been no difficulty. I
8

86 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

should have started on a straight side, or on the
straightest side, leaving out any crook or angle that
there might have been. I should have taken two
distant objects, two objects, found, or placed, be-
yond the end of the work, and should have directed
the head of the ox in a line with those two objects.
Before I started, I should have measured off the
width to find where the ox ought to come to again,
and then have fixed two objects to direct his coming
back. I should have done this at each end, till the
piece had been finished.

166. But, is there no other use, to which this
roller could be put? Have I not seen, in the mark-
ing of a corn-field, a man (nay, the farmer himself)
mounted upon a horse, which dragged a log- of wood
after it, in order to indicate the lines upon which
the corn was to be planted ? And have I not, at
other times, seen the farmer making these marks,
one at a time, with a plough ? And have I not seen
the beauty of these most beautiful scenes of vege-
tation marred by the crookedness of the lines thus
drawn ? Now, take my roller, take all the teeth out
but three, let these three be at four feet apart. Be-
gi?i well on one side of the field ; mount your
horse : load the teeth well with a stone tied on
each ; drop the bar ; take two objects in your eye ;
go on, keep the two objects in line, and you draw
three lines at once, all straight and parallel, even ii
a mile long. Then, turn, and carefully fix the horse
again, so that you leave four feet between the out-
side line drawn before and the inside tooth. You
have already measured at the other end (where you
started,) and have placed two objects for your
guide. Go on, keeping these objects in a line ; and
you have three more lines. Thus you proceed till
the field be finished. Here is a great saving of

III.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER 87

time ; but, were it for nothing but the look, ought
not the log- to give place to the roller?

167. If I have strayed here out of the garden into
the field, let it be recollected, that I write princi-
pally for the use of farmers. I now return to gar-
den-sowing.

168. When the seeds are properly, and at suit-
able distances, placed in the drills, rake the ground,
and, in all cases, tread it with your feet, unless it
be very moist. Then rake it slightly again ; for all
seeds grow best when the earth is pressed closely
about them. When the plants come up, thin them,
keep them clear of weeds, and attend to the direc-
tions given under the names of the several plants.

TRANSPLANTING.

169. The weather for transplanting, whether of
table vegetables, or of trees, is the same as that for
sowing". If you do this work in wet weather, or
when the ground is wet, the work cannot be well
done. It is no matter what the plant is, whether it
be a cucumber plant, or an oak-tree. It has been
observed, as to seeds, that they like the earth to
touch them in every part, and to lie close about
them. It is the same with roots. One half of the
bad growth that we see in orchards arises from neg-
ligence in the planting- ; from tumbling the earth
carelessly in upon the roots. The earth should be
fnc as possible; for, if it be not, part of the roots
will remain untouched by the earth. If ground be
wet, it cannot be fine. And, if mixed wet, it will
remain in a sort of mortar, and will cling and bind
together, and will leave more or less of cracks, when
it become dry.

170. If possible, therefore, transplant when the
ground is not wet ; but, here again, as in the case
of sowing, let it be dug, or deeply moved, and well

S8 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap,

broken, immediately before you transplant into it.
There is a fermentation that takes place immedi-
ately after moving, and a dew arises, which did not
arise before. These greatly exceed, in power of
causing the plant to strike, any thing to be obtained
by rain on the plants at the time of planting, or by
planting in wet earth. Cabbages and Ruta Baga
(or Swedish Turnip) I have proved, in innumerable
instances, will, if planted in freshly-moved earth,
under a burning sun, be a great deal finer than those
planted in wet ground, or during rain. The causes
are explained in the foregoing paragraph ; and, there
never was a greater, though most popular error,
than that of waiting for a shower in order to set
about the work of transplanting. In all the books,
that I have read, without a single exception : in the
English Gardening books ; in the English Farmer's
Dictionary, and many other works on English hus-
bandry ; in the Encyclopedia ; in short, in all the
books on husbandry and on gardening that I have
ever read, English or French, this transplanting in
showery weather is recommended.

171. If you transplant in hot weather, the leaves
of the plants will be scorched ; but the hearts will
live ; and the heat, assisting the fermentation, will
produce new roots in twenty-four hours, and new
leaves in a few days. Then it is that you see fine
vegetation come on. If you plant in wet, that wet
must be followed by dry ; the earth, from being
moved in wet, contracts the mortary nature ; hard-
ens first, and then cracks ; and the plants will
stand in a stunted state, till the ground be moved
about them in dry weather. If I could have my
wish in the planting of a piece of Cabbages, Ruta
Baga, Lettuces, or, almost any thing, I would find
the ground perfectly dry at top ; I would have it

111.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER, 89

dug deeply ; plant immediately ; and have no rain
for three or four days. I would prefer no rain for
a month to rain at the time of planting.

172. This is a matter of primary importance.
How many crops are lost by the waiting for a
shower! And, when the shower comes, the ground
is either not dug, or, it has been dug for some time,
and the benefit of the fermentation is wholly lost.

173. However, there are some very tender plants ;
plants so soft and juicy as to be absolutely burnt up
and totally destroyed, stems and all, in a hot sun,
in a few hours. Cucumbers and Melons, for in-
stance, and some plants of flowers. These which
lie in a small compass, must be shaded at least, if
not watered, upon their removal ; a more particular
notice of which will be taken as we proceed in the
Lists of the Plants.

174. In the act of transplanting, the main things
are to take care not to bury the heart of the plant ;
and to take care that the earth be well pressed
about the point of the root of the plant. To press
the earth very closely about the stem of the plant is
of little use, if you leave the point of the root loose.
I beg that this may be borne in mind ; for the
growth, and even the life, of the plant, depend on
great care as to this particular. See Cabbage, Pa-
ragraph 200, for a minute description of the act of
planting.

175. As to the propagation by cuttings, slips, lay-
ers and offsets, it will be spoken of under the names
of the several plants usually propagated in any of
those ways. Cuttings are pieces cut off from
branches of trees and plants. Slips are branches
pulled off and slipped down at a joint. Layers are
branches left on the plant or tree, and bent down to
the ground, and fastened, with earth laid upon the

8*

90 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap,

part between the plant and the top of the branch.
Offsets are parts of the root and plant separated
from the main root.

CULTIVATION.

176. Here, as in the foregoing parts of this Chap-
ter, I propose to speak only of what is of general
application, in order to save the room that would
be necessary to repeat instructions for cultivation
under the names of the several plants.

177. The ground being good, and the sowing, or
planting, having been properly performed, the next
thing is the after-management, which is usually
called the cultivation.

178. If the subject be from seed, the first thing is
to see that the plants stand at a proper distance
from each other ; because, if left too close, they
cannot come to good. Let them also be thinned
early ; for, even while in seed-leaf, they injure each
other. Carrots, parsnips, lettuces, every thing
ought to be thinned in the seed-leaf.

179. Hoe, or weed, immediately; and, let me
observe here, once for all, that weeds never ought
to be suffered to get to any size either in field or
garden, and especially in the latter. In England,
where it rains, or drips, sometimes, for a month to-
gether, it is impossible to prevent weeds from grow-
ing. But in this fine climate, under this blessed
sun, who never absents himself for more than about
forty-eight hours at a time, and who will scorch a
dock-root, or a dandelion-root, to death in a day.
and lengthen a water-melon shoot 24 inches in as
many hours : in this climate, scandalous indeed it is
to see the garden or the field infested with weeds.

180. But, besides the act of killing weeds, culti-
vation means moving the earth between the plants
»vhile growing. This assists them in their growth:

III.J THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 91

it feeds them : it raises food for their roots to livp.
upon. A mere flat-hoeing does nothing but keep
down the weeds. The hoeing when the plants are
become stout, should be deep ; and, in general, with
a hoe that has spanes instead of a mere flat plate
In short, a sort of prong in the posture of a hoe
And the spanes of this prong-hoe may be longer,
or shorter, according to the nature of the crop to be
hoed. Deep-hoeing is enough in some cases ; but,
in others, digging- is necessary to produce a fine
and full crop. If any body will have a piece of
Cabbages, and will dig between the rows of one
half of them, twice during their growth, and let the
other half of the piece have nothing but a flat-hoe-
ing, that person will find that the half which has
been digged between, will, when the crop is ripe,
weigh nearly, if not quite, twice as much as the
other half. But, why need this be said in an Indian
Corn country, where it is so well known, that, with-
out being ploughed between, the corn will produce
next to nothing !

181. It may appear, that, to dig thus amongst
growing plants is to cut off*, or tear olF, their roots,
of which the ground is full. This is really the case,
and this does great good ; for the roots, thus cut
asunder, shoot again from the plant side, find new
food, and send, instantly, fresh vigour to the plant.
The effect of this tillage is quite surprizing. We
are hardly aware of its power in producing vegeta-
tion ; and we are still less aware of the distance, to
which the roots of plants extend in every direction.

182. MR. TULL, the father of the drill-husband-
ry, gives the following account of the manner, in
which he discovered the distance to which certain
roots extend. I should observe here, that he was
led to think of the drilling of crops in the fields of

92 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

England, from having, when in France, observed
the effects of inner-tillage on the vines, in the vine-
yards. If he had visited America instead of France,
he would have seen the effects of that tillage, in a
fitill more striking light, on plants, in your Indian
Corn fields; for, he would have seen these plants
spindling, yellow, actually perishing, to-day, for
want of ploughing ; and, in four days after a good,
deep, clean and careful ploughing, especially in hot
weather, he would have seen them wholly change
their colour, become of a bright and beautiful green,
bending their leaves over the intervals, and growing
at the rate of four inches in the twenty-four hours.

183. The passage, to which I have alluded, is of
so interesting a nature, and relates to a matter of so
much importance, that I shall insert it entire, and
also the plates, made use of by MR. TULL to illus-
trate his meaning. I shall not, as so many others
have, take the thoughts, and send them forth as my
own ; nor, like Mr. JOHN CHRISTIAN CURWEN, steal
them from TULL, and give them, with all the honour
belonging to them, to a Bishop.

184. " A Method how to find the distance to which
roots extend horizontally. A piece, or plot, dug
and made fine, in whole hard ground [Plate II.
Fig. 1.1 the end A. 2 feet, the end B. 12 feet, the
length of the piece 20 yards ; the figures in the mid-
dle of it are 20 Turnips, sown early and well hoed.
The manner of this hoeing must be, at first, near
the plants, with a spade, and each <ime afterwards,
u foot distance, till the earth be once well dug ; and,
if weeds appear where it has been so dug, hoe them
out shallow with the hand-hoe. But, dig all the
piece next the out-lines deep every time, that it
may be the finer for the roots to enter, when they
are permitted to come thither. If the Turnips be

THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

91 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

all bigger, as they stand nearer to the end B, it is a
proof they all extend to the outside of the piece,
and the Turnip 20, will appear to draw nourish-
ment from six foot distance from its centre. But if
the Turnips 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, acquire no greater
bulk than the Turnip 15, it will be clear, that their
roots extend no farther than those of the Turnip 15
does ; which is but about 4 foot. By this method
the distance of the extent of roots of any plant, may
be discovered. — There is also another way to find
the length of roots, by making a long narrow trench,
at the distance you expect they will extend to, and
fill it with salt ; if the plant be killed by the salt, it
is certain that some of the roots enter it.

185. " What put me upon trying this method was
an observation of two lands, or ridges (See Plate
II. Fig. 2.) drilled with Turnips in rows, a foot
asunder, and very even in them ; the ground, at
both ends and one side, was hard and unploughed.
The Turnips not being hoed were very poor, small,
and yellow, except the three outside rows bed
which stood next to the land (or Ridge) £, which
land, being ploughed and harrowed, at the time the
land A ought to have been hoed, gave a dark flou-
rishing colour to these three rows ; and the Turnips
in the row d, which stood farthest off from the new
ploughed land E, received so much benefit from it,
as to grow twice as big as any of the more distant
rows. The row c being a foot nearer to the new
ploughed land, became twice as large as those in d,
but the row &, which was next to the land JG, grew
much larger yet. JF is a piece of hard whole
ground, of about two perch in length, and about two
or three foot broad, lying betwixt those two lands,
which had not been ploughed that year ; it was re-
markable, that during the length of this interjacenr

III.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 96

hard ground, the rows bed were as small and yel-
low as any in the land. The Turnips in the row
<f, about three foot distant from the land E, receiv-
ing a double increase, proves they had as much
nourishment from the land E as from the land A,
wherein they stood, which nourishment was brought
by less than half the number of roots of each of
these Turnips. In their own land they must have
extended a yard all round, else they could not have
reached the land £, wherein it is probable these
few roots went more than another yard, to give each
Turnip as much increase as all the roots had done
in their own land. Except that it will hereafter
appear, that the new nourishment taken at the ex-
tremities of the roots in the land £, might enable
the plants to send out more new roots in their own
land, and receive something more from thence. The
row c being twice as big as the row d, must be sup-
posed to extend twice as far ; and the row Z>, four
times as far, in proportion as it was of a bulk quad-
ruple to the row d."

186. Thus, then, it is clear, that tillage amongst
growing plants is a great thing. Not only is it of
great benefit to the plants ; not only does it greatly
augment the amount of the Crop, and make it of
the best quality ; but, it prepares the ground for
another crop. If a summer fallow be good for the
land, here is a summer fallow ; if the ploughing
between Indian Corn prepares the land for wheat,
the digging between cabbages and other crops will,
of course prepare the land for succeeding crops.

187. Watering' plants, though so shongly re-
commended in English Gardening Books, and so
much in practice, is a thing of very doubtful utility
in any case, and, in most cases, of positive injury.
A country often endures present suffering from

9<* THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap,

long drought ; but. even if all the gardens and all
the fields could, in such a case, be watered with a
watering pot, I much question, whether it would
be beneficial even to the crops of the dry season
itself. It is not, observe, rain water that you can
one time out of a thousand, water with. And, to
nourish plants, the water must be prepared in
clouds and mists and dews. Observe this. Besides,
when rain comes, the earth is prepared for it by
that state of the air, which precedes rain, and
which makes all things damp, and slackens and
loosens the earth, and disposes the roots and leaves
for the reception of the rain. To pour water,
therefore, upon plants, or upon the ground where
they are growing, or where seeds are sown, is
never of much use, and is generally mischievous
for, the air is dry ; the sun comes immediately and
bakes the ground, and vegetation is checked, rather
than advanced, by the operation. The best pro-
tector against frequent drought is frequent digging,
or, in the fields, ploughing, and always deep.
Hence will arise & fermentation and dews. The
ground will have moisture in it, in spite of al
drought, which the hard, unmoved ground will not
But always dig or plough in dry weather, and, the
drier the weather, the deeper you ought to go, and
the finer you ought to break the earth. When
plants are covered by lights, or are in a house, or
are covered with cloths in the night time, they may
need watering, and, in such cases, must have it
given them by hand.

188. I shall conclude this Chapter with observ
ing on what I deem a vulgar error, and an error,
too, which sometimes produces inconvenience It
is believed, and stated, that the ground grows tired,
in time, of the same sort of plant ; and that, if it

III.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER 97

he, year after year, cropped with the same sort of
plant, the produce will be small, and the quality
inferior to what it was at first. Mr. TULL has
most satisfactorily proved, both by fact and argu-
ment, that this is not true. And I will add this
fact, that Mr. MISSING, a Barrister, living in the
Parish of Titchneld, in Hampshire, in England,
and who was a most excellent and kind neighbour
of mine, has a border under a south wall, on which
he and his father before him, have grown early
peas, every year, for more than forty years ; and,
if, at any time, they had been finer than they were
every one year of the four or five years that I saw
them, they must have been something very extra-
ordinary ; for, in those years (the last four or five
of the more than forty) they were as fine, and as
full bearing, as any that I ever saw in England.

189. Before I entirely quitted the subject of
Cultivation, there would be a few remarks to be
made upon the means of preventing the depreda
tions of vermin, some of which make their attack*
on the seed, others on the roots, others on the stem,
others on the leaves and blossoms, and others on
the fruit ; but, as I shall have to be very particular
on this subject in speaking of fruits, I defer it till
I come to the Chapter on Fruits.

190. Having now treated of the Situation, Soil,
Fencing, and Laying out of Gardens ; on the mak-
ing and managing of Hot-Beds and Green-Houses ;
and having given some directions as to Propagation
and Cultivation in general ; I next proceed to give
Alphabetical Lists of the several sorts of plants,
and to speak of the proper treatment for each,
under the three heads, Vegetables and Herbs,
Fruits; and Flowers.

98 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

CHAPTER IV.

VEGETABLES AND HERBS.

191. THE word, VEGETABLES, is not, as was ob-
served in Paragraph 5, quite properly used here.
This Chapter treats of the things cultivated ia the
garden to be eaten at our tables as food ; and, they
are Vegetables ; but, a tree is also a vegetable ;
and such is an herb, or a flower. Therefore, as a
distinctive appellation, the word, vegetables, is not
strictly proper. But, it is the word we use to dis-
tinguish this class of the products of the earth from
others ; and, therrfore, I use it upon this occasion.
HERBS are usually placed as a class separate from
Vegetables ; but, while some of them are merely
medicinal, like Pennyroyal, others are used, not
only in medicine and in soups, but also eaten in
salads. Therefore, it appeared to be best to bring
into this one alphabetical lists, all plants usually
grown in a garden, except such as come under tho
".lie heads of Fruits, and Flowers.

192. ARTICHOKE.— A plant little cultivated
in America, but very well worthy of cultivation.
In its look it very much resembles a thistle of the
big-blossomed kind. It sends up a seed stalk, and
it blows, exactly like the thistle that we see in the
Arms of Scotland. It is, indeed, a thistle upon a
gigantic scale. The parts that are eaten are, the
lower end of the thick leaves that envelope the seed,
and the bottom out of which those leaves imme-
diately grow. The whole of the head, before the
bloom begins to appear, is boiled, the pod leaves
are pulled off by the eater, one or two at a time,
and dipped in butter, with a little pepper and salt,
ihe mealy part is stripped off by the teeth, and the

IV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 99

rest of the leaf put aside, as we do the stem of as-
paragus. The bottom, when all the leaves are thus
disposed of, is eaten with knife and fork. The
French, who make salads of almost every garden
vegetable, and of not a few of the plants of the
field, eat the artichoke in salad. They gather the
heads, when not much bigger round than a dollar,
and eat the lower ends of the leaves above men-
tioned raw, dipping them first in oil, vinegar, salt
and pepper ; and, in this way, they are very good.
Artichokes are propagated from seed, or from off-
sets. If by the former, sow the seed in rows a
foot apart, as soon as the frost is out of the ground.
Thin the plants to a foot apart in the row ; and, in
the fall of the year, put out the plants in clumps of
four, in rows, three feet apart, and the rows six
feet asunder. They will produce their fruit the
next year. When winter approaches, earth the
roots well up ; and, before the frost sets in, cover
all well over with litter from the yard or stable.
Open at the breaking up of the frost ; dig all the
ground well between the rows ; level the earth
down from the plants. You will find many young
ones, or offsets, growing out from the sides. Pull
these off, and, if you want a new plantation, put
them out, as you did the original plants. They
will bear, though later than the old ones, that
same year. — As to sorts of this plant, there are
two, but they contain no difference of any conse-
quence : one has its head, or fruit pod, round, and
the other, rather conical. As to the quantity for a
family, one row across one of the plats will be suf-
ficient.— For Jerusalem Artichoke, see Jerusalem.
193. ASPARAGUS.— Were I writing to Nova
Scotians, I ought not to omit to give instructions as
to which end of the Asparagus the eater ought to

100 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. Chap

use ; for, I know a gentleman of that country, who;
being at New York, on his first trip from home,
began eating at the stem in place of the point.
Writing, as I now do, to those, whose country
produces, with the least degree of trouble, the
finest Asparagus that I ever saw, and probably the
finest in the world, no description of the plant, or
of its uses, is necessary. But, some remarks on
its propagation and cultivation are not wholly un-
necessary ; for, though it demands less trouble in
America than elsewhere, it demands some ; and, in
proportion as it is valuable and esteemed, it is de-
sirable that the means of procuring it should be
well and generally understood. — It is propagated
from seed. Gather the seed, when it is dead ripe.
Sow it thinly in drills a foot asunder, and two
inches deep, three weeks, or about, before the frost
sets in. Press the earth well down upon the seed
and, as soon as the frost sets in, but not before,
cover the ground with muck, or litter, a foot deep,
and lay some boards, or poles, to prevent its blow-
ing off. As soon as the frost breaks up in the
spring, take off' the litter ; and you will have the
plants quickly up. (See Paragraph 159.) When
the plants are fairly up, thin them to four inches
asunder ; for, they will be four times as strong at
this distance as if they stood close. Keep them
clean, and hoe deeply between them all the sum-
mer.— To have beds of Asparagus, there are two
ways of going to work : first, sowing the seed in
the beds, at once ; and, second, making the beds,
and removing the plants into them. It is desirable
lo have the beds about four feet wide, that you may
cut the asparagus by going in the paths between
them, and not trample the beds. As to the first
method, if the soil have a dry bottom, trench in the

IV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 101

manner described in Paragraph 20 ; but, in this
case, where there is a root always penetrating
downward, do not content yourself with a clean
trenc-h two feet deep ; but, 'before you turn your top
earth into this trench, put some good manure into
i*, and dig it into this bottom part ; and then you
will have manure at two feet and nine inches from
the surface. Your ground being ready, lay out
your beds, four feet wide, with a path two feet wide
between each two beds. In the fall, having made
all the ground right strong with manure, draw the
earth to six inches deep from the top of the beds
into the paths, which will then form high ridges.
Then draw your drills afoot apart, and sow your
seed, as before directed. When they are up, in
rpring, thin them to a foot apart. Thus you will
have them a foot apart all over the bed. Keep the
plants clean all summer ; and, when the haulm is
yellow in the fall, cut them off near, or close, to
the ground ; but, let the haulm be quite dead first ;
ret, do it before the frost actually sets in. When
you have cut off the haulm, lay some litter upon
the bed till spring, to prevent the frost from being
too long coming out of the ground in spring.
When the frost breaks up, throw some wood ashes,
or, some other manure about an inch deep over the
bed, having first loosened the top of the bed with
a fork. Upon this manure, throw earth over the
bed, out of the paths, three inches thick, and break
it very fine at the time. In the fall, cut down the
haulm again as before ; repeat the winter operation
of littering; and, in the spring again fork up, put
on ashes or good mould, and the other three inches
deep of earth out of the paths. Thus you bring the
beds to be an inch or two higher than the paths ;
and this year, if vour work have all been well done,
9*

102 THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

you may have some asparagus to eat. 1 ic next
fall, and every succeeding fall, cut down the haulm
and cover with litter as before ; and, in the spring,
of this third year, put on ashes again, or other fine
manure, and throw over the beds the earth that
will come out of the paths dug six inches deep.
This will make the paths six inches lower than the
beds, and that is a great convenience for weeding,
and for cutting the Asparagus. After this, you
are to cut down the haulm in the fall, cover with
litter during winter, fork up and occasionally ma-
nure in the spring, to keep the ground constantly
free from weeds, to dig the paths up every fall, and
keep them clear from weeds in summer. — The
second method of making the beds is, to begin with
plants, instead of seed. The plants (raised as
above stated) may be planted in the beds at one
year old, or older, if it so happen. Plant them at
the same depth that is pointed out for depositing
the seed. And, in all other respects, proceed as
in the case of a bed begun with seed. As to the
time of beginning to cut, some say the third year,
some the fourth, and some even the fifth. There
can be no fixed time ; for, so much depends on the
soil and treatment. Asparagus, like other things,
ought to be used when it comes in perfection, and
not before. — All that has here been said proceeds
upon the supposition that the soil has a dry bottom.
If a wet bottom, sow, or plant, at the top of the
ground, and, in all other respects proceed as in the
case of a dry bottom ; except, that the earth to
cover the bed with must, time after time, be dug
out of the paths, which will, at last, make the
paths into ditches, three feet deep from the tops of
the beds. By these means the roots of the plants
will be kept some years longer from reaching the

IV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. i03

cold, sour soil, at the bottom ; for, whenever they
reach that, the plants, like all others, cease to flou-
rish, and begin to decay. — As to the time that as-
paragus beds will last, that depends on the soil.
Having a dry bottom and good management, they
will probably last three generations, and if that be
not enough to compensate the trouble of making
them, it would be difficult to find a compensation.
The general cause of the decay of Asparagus-beds
is, negligence ; and, particularly, the want of at-
tention to keep them clear of weeds, which, without
doubt, are the greatest enemies of the plants.
These send their roots down deep ; but, they rely
also on the ground at the surface. The Lucerne,
which will send its roots down thirty feet into a
dry bottom, and will live in vigour for an age, if
kept clean at top ; will, though in the best and most
suitable soil in the world, perish in a few years, if
grass and weeds be suffered to grow amongst it on
the surface. Sea-sand, where it can be had, is as
good as ashes, except the beds are very near the
sea ; and there it is of little use. — With regard to
sorts, I do n-ot know that there is any difference,
except such as climate produces. It is very cer-
tain, that, to whatever cause owing, the Asparagus
here, though so little care is, in general, taken of
it, is far superior to that in England. From our
frequently meeting with it at a great distance from
all houses, there is reason to suppose, that it is a
natural weed of the country ; and, therefore, it
may differ from the English sort, as the Charlock
and some other weeds do. In England the Char-
lock has a leaf like that of the white turnip ; here
it has a leaf the colour of that of an early York
cabbage ; that is to say, of a blue-green colour.
There may be a difference between the Asparagus

101 THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

of America arid that of Europe : at any rate, I
will ascertain the fact ; for I will carry some seed
to England. — As to the space which the beds
ought to occupy, that must depend on the size
of the family, who are to eat the Asparagus.
Plenty, however, is always a blessing when the
commodity is a good one. About six beds across
one of the Plats will be sufficient for any family.
They might be at the west end of Plat, No. 6,
that being the warmest. — Asparagus may be had
in winter with the greatest facility. There are
but few things that are worth the trouble of a hot-
bed for the purpose of having them to eat in their
opposite season ; but, Asparagus is worth it. And
this is the way to have it for the table, even in Feb-
ruary, that month of snow and of north-westers,
Sow some seed in the garden, in the manner before
described, the rows a foot asunder, and the plants
four inches apart in the row. Keep them clean,
and manure them the first year. Cut the haulm of!
in the fall. Do not cover them during winter. In
the spring fork up the ground, manure it again ;
and, in the fall cut off the haulm again. Just be
fore the frost sets in, take up as many plants as you
will want for your hot-bed. Dig each plant up
without tearing it about ; and put them all care-
fully on a cellar floor, cover them over about half
a foot thick with fresh ground, and lay some straw
upon that to prevent the earth from drying too
much. In January prepare dung for a hot-bed ;
and make the bed in the manner as directed in Pa
ragraphs 69 to 74. When the heat has sufficiently
risen, put on earth as in Paragraphs 75 and 7(>.
Upon this earth put your plants, straightening out
their roots in every direction. Let the crowns of
the roots be about 7 inches apart all over the bed

iV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 105

which, being a bed four feet wide and ni ic feet
long, will contain ISO plants. Cover the plants
over with fine earth, so that the surface of this
earth be six inches above the crowns of the plants
Proceed as to air, shelter, and covering, in the same
way as directed for the cabbage-plants. In about
twelve, or fourteen days, you may begin to cut as-
paragus for the table ; and, if you take proper care,
and keep your heat up by a lining (see Paragraph
93,) you may have a regular supply for a month.
When the plants have done bearing here, they are
of no use, and may be thrown away. Of all the
things that are forced in hot-beds, none give so lit-
tle trouble as Asparagus, and none is so well worth
great deal of trouble.

194. BALM is an herb purely medicinal. A very
iittle of it is sufficient in a garden. It is propa-
gated from seed, or from offsets. When once plant-
ed, the only care required is to see that it does not
extend itself too far.

195. BASIL is a very sweet annual pot-herb.
There are two sorts, the dwarf and the tall. It
should be sown in very fine earth, and, if con-
venient, under a hand-glass. The bunches may be
dried for winter use.

196. BEAN. — The only species of bean much used
in this country, is that which, in England, is called
Kidney-Bean, and, in France, Haricot. Of these
I shall speak in the next article. The Bean I here
mean is, what is called by most persons in America
the horse-bean. In England there are some sorts
of this bean used for horses and hogs ; but there
are several sorts used as human food. It is, at best,
a coarse and not very wholesome vegetable ; yet
some people like it. It is very much eaten by the
country people, in England, with tbeir bacon, along

106 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap,

with which it is boiled. There are several sorts of
these garden-beans, the best of which is the large
flat-seeded bean, called the Windsor-Bean. The
Long-Pod is the next best; and, though there are
several others, these are enough to mention here. —
The bean is difficult to raise here. It does not like
dry and hot weather ; and it likes moist and stiff
land. If attempted to be raised in America, it
should be sown in the fall by all means (see Para-
graph 159;) but, still it is useless to sow, unless you
guard against mice. If sown in the South Border,
where it would be shaded and protected from the
hot sun, it might do pretty well ; and the vegetable
is convenient as it follows immediately after the
early peas are gone. — Ten rows of these beans
across the South Border, four feet apart, and the
beans four inches apart, will be enough for a family.
197. BEAN (KIDNEY.)— Endless is the variety
of sorts. Some are dwarfs, some climbers; but,
the mode of propagating and cultivating is nearly
the same in all, except that the dwarfs require
smaller distances than the climbers, and that the
latter are grown with poles, which the former are
not. In this fine country the seed is so good, the
soil and climate so favourable to the plant, the use
of the vegetable so general, the propagation and
cultivation so easy, and so well understood, that
little in detail need be said about them. I prefer
sowing the dwarfs in rows to sowing them in bunches
or clumps. It is a great object to have them early,
and, they may be had much earlier than they usually
are with a little pains. It is useless to sow them
while the ground is cold ; for they will net grow til'
it be warm ; but, there are means to be used to ge»
them forwarder than the natural ground will pro
duce them. If you have a glazed frame, or a hand

IV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 107

glass or two, (see Paragraph 94,) use one or the
other in this case; but, if not, dig a hole and put in
it, well-shaken together, a couple of wheel-barrows
full of good hot dung ; and lay some good rich mould
upon it six inches thick. Then lay on this some c
the earliest sort of dwarf-beans. Put them not more
than an inch apart, and cover them with two inches
of fine rich mould. Bend some rods over the whole,
and put the ends of the rods in the ground ; and,
every evening, cover this sort of roof over with a
bit of old carpet or sail-cloth. In default of these,
corn-stalks may do. Do this when the winter frost
is just got out of the ground, or soon after. The
beans will be up in a week's time ; and, in about a
fortnight afterwards, they will be fit to remove.
The place for them is under a wall, a paling, or a
hedge, facing the South. Prepare the ground well
and make it rich. Take a spade and carry away a
part of the beans at a time, and plant them at six
inches asunder with as much earth about the roots
as you can. Plant them a little deeper than they
stood in the bed. They are very juicy, and may
have a little water given them as soon as planted.
Shade them the first day, if the weather be warm
and the sun out; and cover them every night till
all frosts be over. This is easily done, if against
any sort of fence, by putting boards, one edge upon
the ground and the other leaning against the fence ;
but, if you have no fence, and have to plant in the
open ground, it will be best to plant in clumps, and
flower-pots put over the clumps will do for a cover-
ing. In Long Island a clod or two, or a brick or
two, laid by the side of the clumps, will hold up a
large horse-foot fish shell, which is an excellent co-
vering-. On the first of June, 1817, I saw a farmer
at South Hempstead, covering his beans with bur*

108 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

dock leaves, while there were hundreds of horse-
foot shells in his yard. The dock-leaf would wither
in the day. A fresh supply must te had for the
next night. This circumstance shows, however,
how desirous people are to get this vegetable early ;
and, by the method that I have pointed out, it may
be had fifteen days, at least, earlier than it generally
is. — As to the main crop, it is by no means advisa-
ble to sow very early. If you do, the seed lies long'
in the ground, which is always injurious to this
plant. The plants come up feebly. The cold wea-
ther, that occasionally comes, makes them look yel-
low ; and they, then, never produce a fine crop. —
Of the various sorts of pole-beans one sowing it
enough ; for, if you gather as the beans become fit
for use, they continue bearing all through the sum-
mer, especially the Lima-bean, which delights in
heat, arid for which no weather can be too dry ; and
which should never be sown till the ground be right
warm. The Dwarf sorts may be sown all summer,
from the time that the ground becomes warm to
within seven weeks of the time that the little frosts
begin in the fall ; for, they will, at this season, pro
duce, for eating green, in six weeks from the day of
sowing. I sowed them on the 15th of August, and
had several gatherings to eat green before the 2d of
October when the first frost came. They were not
cut up by the frost till the 17th of October; and
they kept bearing till they were. — A row or two
sown every fortnight, across one of the Plats (see
Paragraph 60) will keep any family, however large,
well supplied. And, perhaps twenty rows, across
one of the Plats, for pole-beans of all the sorts that
are desired, will be more than sufficient. It is best
to sow several sorts of these ; for some bear early
and some later than others. — As to the sorts of Kid-

IY.J THE AMERICAN GARDUNfcU. 109

ney-beans, they are, as T observed before, almost
endless in number. I will, however, name a few :
the Dun, or Draft-coloured dwarf bean, is the earli-
est. The same ground will bear and ripen two
crops in one year, the last from the seed of the first
The Yellow ; the Black; the Speckled ; the Painted,
white and red : these are all dwarfs ; but there are
a great many others. Amongst runners, or pole-
beans, there are the Scarlet-blossom, the seed of
which is red and black and the seed-pod rough
There is a White bean precisely like the former,
except that the bean and blossom are white. The
Case-knife bean, which, in England, is called the
Dutch-runner : this is the best bean of all to eat
green. Then there is the Cranberry-bean of vari-
ous colours as to seed. The Lima-bean, which is
never eaten green (that is, the pod is never eaten,)
and which is sometimes called the butter-bean, has
a broad, flat and thin seed of a yellowish-white co-
lour. This bean must never be sown till the ground
is right warm. The other sorts will grow and bear
well in England ; but this sort will not. I raised
good and ripe Indian Corn at Botley ; but, I never
could bring a Lima-bean to perfection, though I put
it in the hottest spot I could find, and though cu-
cumbers produced very well in the natural ground
at a yard or two from it. — For the raising of dwarf
beans on a large scale, see Paragraphs 163 and 164.
The pole-beans may be raised in the same way,
only with larger spaces (six feet perhaps) between
the rows, and without any poles at all. The seed
for sale is raised in this way even in England,
where the climate is so cold and wet compared to
this. The poling is a great plague and expense ;
and, if large quantities be raised, it may be dis-
pensed with : nay, it may be dispensed with in a
10

'HO THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

-garden ; for poles look ugly there ; they intercept
the view ; and the addition they make to the crop
is not a compensation even for ill look, especially
under this bright sun, where the ground is almost
constantly dry. — Let it be observed, that every sort

• of Kidney-bean must have rich ground, to produce
a large crop.

198. BEET.— This vegetable, which is little used
in England, is here in as common use as carrots are
there. It should be sown in the fall (see Paragraph
159 ;) but, if not, as soon as the ground is free from
frost, and is dry, in the spring. The rows a foot
.apart, and the plants eight inches apart in the rows.
In order to hasten the seed up in the spring (if sown
then) soak it four days and nights in rain water be-
fore you sow it. Put it two inches deep, cover it
well, and press the earth hard down upon it. Sow
the seed pretty thick all along the drill; and, when
the plants come up, thin them to eight inches apart.
Hoe between the plants frequently : but, not very

• deep ; because these tap-rooted things are apt to
fork if the ground be made loose very low down
while they are growing. — There are yellow and
white Beets, as well as red ; but the red is the true
kind : the others are degenerate. There is, how-
ever, round or turnip-rooted, red beet, which is
^equally good with the tap-rooted red-beet. — The
ground should be rich, but not fresh dunged. Ashes

'of wood, or compost mould, is best; and the dig-
ging ought to be very deep and all the clods ought
'to be broken into fine earth ; because the clods turn
'the point of the root aside, and make the tap short,
or forked Fresh dung, which, of course, lies in
unequal quantities in the ground, invites the tap
root, or some of the side roots to it, and thus causes
a short or forked beet, which, for several reasons,

IV. I THE AMERICAN GARDENER. Ill

is not so good as a long and smooth one. — As to
the preserving of beets during the winter, it is well
known, that the way is to put them in a dry cellar,
with dry sand between them, or indeed, without
sand or any thing at all between them. They may,
if in large quantities, and not wanted till spring, be
preserved out of doors, thus : Take them up three
weeks before the hard frost is to come. Cut of!
their leaves ; let them lay two or three days upon
straw, or boards, to dry in the sun ; then lay a little
straw upon the ground, and, ia a fine dry day, place
ten bushels of beets (picking out all the cut or
bruised ones) upon it in a conical form. Put a lit-
tle straw smoothly over the heap ; then cover the
whole with six or eight inches of earth ; and place
a green turf at the top to prevent the earth from be-
ing washed, by rain, from the point, before the frost
set in. All the whole heap will freeze during the
winter ; but, the frost will not injure the beets, nor
\vill it injure Carrots, preserved in the same way. —
If you have more than ten bushels, make another
heap, or other heaps ; for fear of heating before
ihe frost comes. When that comes, all is safe till
spring ; and, it is in the spring, that season of scar-
city, for which we ought to provide. How many
bushels of beets are flung about and wasted in the
fall, the smallest of which would be a treat in the
month of May ! — As to the quantity to be raised for
a family, eighteen rows, planted as above, across
one of the Plats (little more than two perches of
ground) will produce 812 beets, or nearly four for
each day, from the first of November to the last of
May ; and, if they are of the size that they ought
to be, here are much more than enough. Beets may
be transplanted, and will, in that way, get to a
good size. See Transplanting, Paragraph 169,

112 THE AMERICAN CARDENEK [Chap

199. BROCOLI.— This plant is not much culti-
vated in America ; and, indeed, scarcely at all. In
England it is grown in great quantities, especially
near London. It is there sown in the spring, and
eaten in the fall and during the winter, even unti1
spring. It is of the nature of the Cauliflower
which see. One sort has a whitish head, and IP
like a cauliflower, except that the white is a yellow-
white. Another sort has a purple head ; and there
is another of a greenish hue. It is cultivated, in
all respects like a Cabbage (which see ;) but, as it
is large, it must be placed at wider distances, not
less than two feet and a half each way. If raised
very early in the spring and planted out in June,
and in good ground, as cool as can be got, it will
have heads in October ; and, if any of the plants
have not then perfected their heads, when the hard
frost is coming, they may be treated like those of
the spring-sown cauliflowers which have not per-
fected their heads at this season. — Fifty of this
plant, for the fall, may be enough ; and they ought,
to be planted out in the South Border in order to
be kept as cool as possible. The white sort is
deemed the handsomest; but, the others are more
hardy. — To have Brocoli in the spring ; that is to
say, in May (for New York) is the thing ! The thing
may be done ; for I had some pretty good in May
1818. — Sow in June. Transplant in July ; put the
plants at 2} feet apart. Till well between ; and
earth up the stems of the plants in August. They
will be very tall and stout, in good ground, in No-
vember ; and a sharp frost or two will not hurt
them. But, to keep them through the winter is a
troublesome thing. Nevertheless, to have them at
New York or Boston in May, and, at Philadelphia
late in April; to have something little short of a

IV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. H3

cauliflower at that season, is worth some trouble,
and even some expense ; for, at that very season,
the people of New York, are carrying homo wild
dock leaves from market, bought at three or four
cents a handful ! This is the way to go to work to
have Brocoli at this season. Five rows, across one
of the Plats in the garden, will contain 110 plants.
The space they will occupy will be 56 feet long,
and 10^ feet wide from out-side row to out-side row.
Now, all this space must have a covering- during
the time that the ground is completely locked up by
the frost. And this is the way to cover it. Before
the ground be hard frozen, put some stout stakes in
the ground on both out-sides of the out-side rows,
and at about a foot from the stems of the plants.
Let these stakes be about a foot higher than the
tops of the leaves of the plants ; and that will make
the stakes about four feet high. Let these stakes
(which should not be less than three inches through)
have SL fork at the upper end to lodge a pole upon
to go from stake to stake across the plantation.
That these poles may not bend in the middle, by-
and-by, when the covering is put on, put another
row of forked stakes along the middle, or near the
middle of the plantation. From out-side row of
stakes to out-side row of stakes will be twelve feet
and a half. The stakes are to be four feet asunder
in the long rows, and they will be about six feet
asunder across the plantation. Lay stout poles
across, and let each pole rest in the forks of the
three stakes. Then tie some stout rods longways
upon the poles, at about nine inches from each
other. Then some small rods across them at nine
inches from each other. Then tie small rods along
the sides and at tho ends from slake to stake, nine
inches apart, and upright rods against these, nine
10*

114 THE AMERICAN GARDENEK. [Chap.

inches apart. Thus you have a sort of net-work
over the whole plantation. And, there let it stand,
till the rains are over, and until the winter is fairly
set in, which, at New York, may be about Christ-
mas. When all is frozen hard up, cover close over
the lattice work a foot thick with straw, at the least,
and lay on something to prevent the straw from
moving. Then set up straw, or corn stalks, against
the sides and the ends of the erection. Place the
straw or stalks a foot thick at least, and fasten them
well up, so as to keep out, not the frost, but all
light and all occasional thaws from entering. Thus
let the whole remain till the breaking- up of the
frost: and then take all away. Do not wait till the
frost is out of the ground ; but, take away as soon
as the grand breaking up comes. You will find
the plantation as green as it was when you closed
it up. This will be about the middle of March
(Long Island ;) and though there will be many and
sharp frosts after this, these will not injure the
plants. As soon as the ground is dry at top, hoe
deep amongst the plants ; hoe again in about ten
days ; and again in another ten days ; and, about
the first week in May, or in the second at ]atest,
you will begin to cut Brocoli to eat. The heads
will come in one after another ; and, recollect, that
you have 110 heads, which is nearly 4 a day for a
month ; and this, you will observe, at a season,
when people are glad to buy dock-leaves to eat !
When we talk of trouble, what is trouble but la
bour ; and what is labour but a thing to be bought ?
I am supposing a case where a gardener is kept ;
and, pray, what has he else to do ? But, suppose a
man to be hired expressly, would he not go to the
wood and get the materials and make the lattice
work in a day? Would it take him more than an

IV.] THK AMERICAN GARDENER. 115

other day to lay on the straw ! Here, then, are two
dollars; and, supposing the straw and the stakes
and poles and rods to be bought, the straw would
be nearly as good foi litter afterwards, and the
poles, stakes and rods would last for many years, if
tied up in bundles and laid safely away from winter
to winter.

200. BURNET is a well known grass, or cattle
plant. It is used by some in salads. When bruised,
or cut, it smells like cucumber. It is a perennial,
and a very poor thing.

201. CABBAGE. — The way to raise Cabbage-
PJants in a hot-bed has been given in Paragraphs 77
to 96. — In the open ground you may put your seed
rows at six inches distance, and put the seeds thin
in the row. As soon as up, thin the plants to three
inches in the row. The next thing is transplant-
ing ; and I will speak of that before I speak of
seasons, sorts, and preserving during winter. — Of
the preparation and state of the ground, and of the
proper weather for transplanting, I have spoken in
Paragraphs 169 to 175. Read those paragraphs
carefully again, and bear their contents in mind.
But, to have fine cabbages, of any sort, the plants
must be twice transplanted. First, they should be
taken from the seed bed (where they have been
sown in drills near to each other,) and put out into
fresh -dug, well broken ground, at six inches apart
every way. This is called pricking out. By stand-
ing here about fifteen or twenty days, they get
straight and strong, stand erect, and have a straight
and stout stem. Out of this plantation they come
nearly all of a size ; the roots of all are in the
same state ; and, they strike quicker into the ground
where they are to stand for a crop. — But, if you do
not, whether from negligence or want of time, prick

116 THE AMERICAN GARDENER [Chap

your plants out, choose the strongest, if you do not
want them all ; and, at any rate, do not plant strong
and weak promiscuously, but put each by them-
selves. If you do not intend to prick out, leave
the plants thinner in the seed bed, and hoe deep be-
tween them while they stand there. Besides this
you may pass a sharp spade along under the rows,
and cut off the top-roots ; for they must be short-
ened when the plants are transplanted. This, if
done a week or ten days before transplanting will
give the plants a more bushy root ; and will, in
some measure, supply the place of pricking out. —
Having the plants ready for transplanting ; and hav-
ing the ground and weather as described in Para-
graph 170, you proceed to your work, thus : dig the
plants up, that is, loosen the ground under them
with a spade, to prevent their being stripped too
much of their roots. Put them in rows of course.
The setting-stick should be the upper part of a
spade or shovel handle. The eye of the spade is
the handle of the stick. From the bottom of the
eye to the point of the stick should be about nine
inches in length. The stick should not be tapering- ;
but nearly of equal thickness all the way down, to
within an inch and a half of the point, where it must
be tapered off to iiie point. If the wood be cut
away all round, to the thickness of a dollar, and
iron put round in its stead, it makes a very com-
plete tool. The iron becomes bright, and the earth
does not adhere to it, as it does to wood. Having
the plant in one hand, and the stick in the other,
make a hole suitable to the root that it is to receive.
Put in the root in such way as that the earth, when
pressed in, will be on a level with the butt-ends of
the lower, or outward, leaves of the plant. Let the
plant be rather higher than lower than this ; for, care

[V.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 117

must be taken not to put the plant so low as for the
earth to fall, or he washed, into the heart of the plant,
nor eve-n into the inside of the bottom leaves. The
stem of a cabbage, and stems of all the cabbage
kind, send out roots from all the parts of them that
are put beneath the surface of the ground. It H
good, therefore, to plant as deep as you can without
injury to the leaves. — The next consideration is,
the fastening of the plant in the ground. I can-
not do better than repeat here what I have said
in my Year's Residence, Paragraphs S3 and 84.
" The hole is made deeper than the length of the
roots ; but the root should not be bent at the point,
if it can be avoided. Then, while one hand holds
the plant, with its root in the hole, the other hand
applies the setting stick to the earth on one side of
the hole, the stick being held in such a way as to
form a sharp triangle with the plant. Then, push-
ing the stick down, so that its point go a little
deeper than the point of the root, and giving it a
little twist, it presses the earth against the point, or
bottom of the root." And thus all is safe, and the
piant is sure to grow. The general, and almost
universal, fault, is, that the planter, when he has
put the root into the hole, draws the earth up
against the upper part of the root, and, if he press
pretty well there, he thinks that the planting is
well done, But, it is the point of the root against
which the earth ought to be pressed, for there the
fibres are ; and, if they do not touch the earth
closely, the plant will not thrive. To know,
whether you have fastened the plant well in the
ground, take the tip of one of the leaves of the
plant between your finger and thumb. Give a pull.
If the plant resist the pull, " far as for the bit of
leaf to come away, the plan s properly fastened

118 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

in the ground ; but, if the pull bring- up the plant •
then you may be sure that the planting is not well
done. The point of the stick ought to twist and
press the earth up close to the point of the root ,
so that there be no hollow there. Pressing the
earth up against the stem of the plant is of little
use. As to distances they must be proportioned
to the si-ze which the cabbages usually come to ;
and the size (difference of soil out of the question)
varies with the sort. However, for the very small
sorts, the Early Dwarf, and the Early Sea-Green,
a foot apart in all directions is enough ; for there is
no occasion to waste garden ground ; and you do
not want such things to stand long, and the plants
are in plenty as to number. The next size is the
Early York, which may have 16 inches every way.
The Sugar-loaf may have 20 inches. The Bat-
tersea and Savoy two feet and a half. The large
sorts, as the Drum-head and others, 3 feet at least.
Now, with regard to tillage, keep the ground clear
of weeds. But, whether there be weeds or not,
hoe between the plants in ten days after they are
planted. The reasons for this are amply stated in
Paragraphs 176 to 186. You cannot dig between
the plants, which stand at the smallest distances :
but you may, and ought, to dig once, if not twice,
during their growth, between all the rest. To pre-
vent a sudden check by breaking all the roots at
once, in hot weather, dig every other interval, leave
the rest, and dig them a week later. All the larger
sorts of cabbages should, about the time that theii
heads are beginning to form, be earthed up ; that is,
have the earth from the surface draw up against the
stern ; and, the taller the plants are, the more ne-
cessary this is, and the higher should the earth be
drawn. After the earth has been thus drawn up

i> .] THE AUE1.ICAN GARDENER. HSl

from the surface, dig, or hoe deep, the rest of the
ground. — Thus the crop will be brought to perfec-
tion.— As to sorts, the earliest is the Early Dwarf,
(sometimes called the Early Salisbury ;) the next
is the Early Sea Green ; then comes the Early
York. Perhaps any one of them may do ; but the
first will head ten days sooner than the last. The
Sugar-loaf, sweetest and richest of all cabbages, if
sown and transplanted when Early Yorks are, will
head nearly a month later. It is an excellent cab-
bage to come in in July and August. Some sown
three weeks later will carry you through Septem-
ber and October ; and some sown in June and
transplanted in July, will carry you on till Christ-
mas. For the winter use, there really needs no-
thing but the Dwarf Green Savoy. When good
and true to kind it is very much curled and of a
very deep green. It should be sown as soon as
the ground is at all warm, and planted out as soon
as stout enough. By November it will have large
and close heads weighing from 5 to 8 pounds each.
This is the best of all winter-cabbages. If you
have Drwn-heads, or other large cabbages, the
time of sowing and that of transplanting are the
same as those for the Savoy. But, let me observe
here, that the early sorts of cabbage keep, during
winter, as well as the large, late sorts. It is an
error to suppose, that those cabbages only, which
will not come to pe'rfection till the approach of
winter, will keep well. The Early York, sown in
June, will be right hard in November, and will
keep as well as the Drum-head, or any of the coarse
and strong-smelling cabbages. The Early Yorks
are not so big as the Drum-heads ; bu<t, observe,
that as the former require but 16 inches distance,
and the latter 3 feet, five of the former stand on

120 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap,

the ground of one of the latter. So that, perhaps,
the Early Yorks will be the largest crop after all.
I have tried the keeping of both ; and I know that
the fine Cabbages keep as well as the coarse ones.
The Red Cabbage is raised and cultivated in the
same season and same manner as the Green Savoy.
There are many other sorts of cabbage, early as
well as late ; and they may be tiied ; but those
above-mentioned are certainly sorts enough for any
family. — The preserving of cabbages during the
winter is all that remains to be treated of under the
word cabbage ; but, as every reader must know, it
is a matter of great importance ; for on it depends
the supply of cabbages for four months in the year,
North of Virginia and South of Boston, and for six
months in the year when you get as far North as
the Province of New Brunswick. — The cellar is a
poor place. The barn is worse. The cabbages
get putrid parts about them. If green vegetables
be not fed from the earth, and be in an unfrozen
state, they will either wither or rot. Nothing is
nastier than putrid cabbage ; and one rotten cab-
bage will communicate its offensiveness to a whole
parcel. Pits you cannot open in winter. To turn
the heads d^wn and cover them with earth while
the root stands up in the air, is liable to the same
objection. The cabbages are pretty safe ; but you
cannot get at them during the winter. I have tried
all the ways that I ever saw practised, or that I
ever heard of; and the following method I found
to answer every purpose ; it is the surest preserva-
tion, and gives the least trouble, whether in the
putting together or in the taking away for use. —
Lay out a piece of ground, four feet wide, and in
length proportioned to your quantity of cabbages
to be preserved. Dig, on each side of it, a little

IV.j THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 121

trench, a foot deep, and throw the earth up on the
four-feet bed. Make the top of the bed level and
smooth. Lay some poles, or old rails, at a foot
apart, long-ways, upon the bed. Then put some
smaller poles, or stout sticks cross ways on the
rails or poles, and put these last at five or six in-
ches apart. Upon these lay, corn-stalks, broom-
corn stalks, or twigs or brush of trees, not very
thick, but sufficiently thick just to cover all over.
Make the top flat and smooth. Then, just as the
frost is about to lock up the earth, take up the cab-
bages, knock all dirt out of their roots, take off all
dead or yellow looking leaves, and some of the out-
side leaves besides ; put the cabbages, head down-
wards, upon the bed, with their roots sticking up ;
and cover them with straw so thick as for the straw
to come up nearly to the root of the cabbage. Do
not pack them quite close. It is better if they do
not touch each other much. Lay some bits of wood
or brush-wood, to prevent the straw from blowing
off. If the frost catch you, before you have got the
cabbages up, cut them off close to the ground, and let
the stumps, instead of the roots, stick up through the
straw. — Out of this stack you will take your cab-
bages perfectly green and good in the spring, when
the frost breaks up ; and to this stack you can, at
all times in the winter, go, with the greatest facility,
and get your cabbages for use, which you can to no
other species of conservatory that I ever saw or
heard of. The hollow part below the cabbages
takes away all wet that may come from occasional
rains or meltings of snow ; and the little ditches on
the sides of the bed keep the bed itself free from
being soaked with wet. Even if deep snows come
and lie for months, as in Nova-Scotia, New Bruns-
wick, and Canada, it is only removing ihe snow a
11

I'i2 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chaj

little ; ami here are the cabbages always fresh un i
good. — Immense quantities, particularly in woody
countries, may be stacked and preserved in this
way, at a very trifling expense. In fields the side
trendies would be made with the plough; poles, in
such a case, are of all sizes, always at hand ; and,
small brush wood might do very well instead of
straw, ^ir-boughs, ZawreZ-boughs, or cecZar-boughs,
would certainly do better than straw ; and where is
the spot in America, which has not one of these
three ? — Cabbage Stumps are also to be preserved ;
for they are very useful in the spring. You have
been cutting cabbages to eat in October and No-
vember. You leave the slumns standing, no matter
what be the sort. Take 'them up before the frost
sets in ; trim off the long roots, and lay the stumps
in the ground, in a sloping direction, row behind
row, with their heads four or five inches out oi
ground. When the frost has just set in in earnest.
and not before, cover the stumps all over a foot
thick or more, with straw, with corn-stalks, or with
ever-green boughs of some sort. As soon as the
breaking-up comes, take oil* the covering, and stiv
the ground (as soon as dry,) by hoeing amongst the
stumps. They should be placed in an early spot ;
in one of the warmest places you have ; and they
will give you (at New York) an abundance of fine
greens towards the end of April, when a handful of
wild dock-leaves sells in New York market for six-
pence York money, which is rather more than an
English three pence. — Lastly, as to the saving of
cabbage seed. The cabbage is a biennial. It
brings its flower and its seed the second year. To
have cabbage seed, therefore, you must preserve
the cabbage, head, root and all, throughout the win-
ter ; arid this must be done, either in a cellar, of

IV.j THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 123

under covering of some sort out of doors ; for, the
root must be kept in the ground all winter. It 19
possible, and, I think, likely, that seed from the
stump is just as good as any; but as one single
cabbage will give seed enough for any garden for
three, four, or five years, the little pains that the
preservation can require is not worth the smallest
risk. — As to the quantity of cabbages wanted for a
family, it must depend on the size of the family and
on their taste.

202. CALABASH.— An annual. Cultivated like
the cucumber, which see.

203. CALE. — This is of the cabbage kind. There
are several sorts of it: and, it is, in all respects,
propagated and cultivated like the Green Savoy,
which see under Cabbage. — The Cale does not
head, or loave, but sends forth a loose, open top.
which in England, is used after the frost has pinched
it, and then it sends out side-shoots from its tall
stem, which it continues to do, if kept cropped, till
May. In mild winter climates it is very useful and
pleasant. It does not get rotted by the successive
freezings and thawing*?, as cabbages do. It is al-
ways green and fresh. Backward-planted savoys,
may, perhaps, be as good ; but the Cale is very
goo'd too. It will, I dare say, stand throughout
some winters as far North as Philadelphia. It is
worth trying ; for greens are very pleasant in win-
ter.— The Curled Cale is the best. — Its seed is
saved like that of the cabbage.— There is a sort of
Cale called Boorcole, and a whole list of things of
somewhat the same kind, but to name them would
be of no use.

204. CALE (Sea.)— This is a capital article. In«
ff.rior in point of quality to no vegetable but the
Asparagus, superior to that in the merit of earli

124 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

ness ; and, though of the easiest possible propaga
(ion and cultivation, I have never seen any of it in
America. — It is propagated by seed, and also by
offsets. The seeds may be sown, or the young
plants (at a year old) planted, or the offsets (for lit-
tle shoots from the sides of the stems) planted, on
the spot where the crop is to be produced. — The
mode of cultivation is in beds, precisely the same
in all respects as Asparagus ; except, that the Cale
may be begun upon the second year. Cover the
beds thick with litter in winter ; so that the frost
may not enter very deep; and, in April (Long
Island) you will have plenty. — The moment it peeps
out, cut it, and you have a white stalk seven or eight
inches long, which is cooked just as asparagus is,
and is all eaten from top to bottom. This plant is
a native of the sea beach ; arid is as hardy as any
weed that grows. Instead of earth, you may, il
convenient, lay sand (and especially sea sand) for
it to shoot up through. It may be moved at any
age of the plant. Any old stump of it will grow.
After you leave off cutting it in the spring, it goes
shooting on, and, during the summer it bears seed.
In the fall the stalks are cut down, and you proceed
with the beds as with those of Asparagus. — Two
beds across any one of the plats are enough for any
family. — This is, unquestionably, (after the Aspara-
gus,) the very best garden vegetable that grows.
Sea Cale may be had at any time in winter, as easily
as Asparagus (which see,) and with less care. The
roots may be dug up in the fall and thrown under
any shed with litter, or straw, over them, till you
want them. The earth in the hot-bed must be deeper
than for Asparagus : that is all the difference. —
The seed is saved as easily as that of Asparagus,
205. CAMOMILE is a medicinal herb of great

IV.J THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 125

use. It is a perennial, and, though it may be pro-
pagated from seed, it is easiest propagated by part-
ing the roots. One little bit of root will soon make
a bed sufficient for a garden. The flowers are used
in medicine. They should be gathered before they
begin to fade : and be dried in a gentle sun, or in
shade ; and then put by, in paper bags, in a dry
place.

'x!06. CAPSICUM (or Peppers.) — An annual
plant, sown early in fine earth, in drills a foot apart,
and at six inches apart in the drills. It is hand-
some as a flower, and its pods are used as a pickle.

•^07. CARAWAY. — The seeds are used in cakes.
The plant is an annual. Sow in the spring, in tine
rich ground, and leave-the plants eight inches apart
each way.

208. CARROT. — Read the Article BEET ; for,
the same season, same soil, same manure, same pre-
paration for sowing, same distances, same inter-
cultivation, same time of taking up, and mode of
preserving the crop, all belong to the Carrot. —
About the same quantity also is enough for a large
family. — Some fine roots may be carefully preserv-
ed to plant out for seed in the spring ; and the seed
should be taken only from the centre seed-stalks of
the carrots ; for that is the finest. — The mark of a
good kind of seed, is, deep-red colour of the tap.
The paler ones are degenerate ; and the yellow ones
are fast going back to the wild carrot. Some peo-
ple consider that there are two sorts : I never could
discover any difference in the plants coming from
seed of what has been called the two sorts. A Cow
will nearly double her milk, if taken from common
pasture in October, and fed well on carrot-greeds,
or tops ; and they may, at this season, be cut ofl
for that purpose. They will shoot a little again Ue-
11*

IvU THE AMERICAN GARDENER |CllUJ>

fore the time for taking th-e carrots up ; but, that is
of no consequence. These shoots can be cut of!
before the carrots be put away for winter. Carrots
will transplant like Beets ; bat, they grow still more
forked than the Beet in this case. They do, how-
ever, grow large and heavy in this way. I have
had some weigh more than three pounds.

209. CAULIFLOWER.— It is not without some
difficulty, that this plant is brought to perfection in
any country, where the frost is severe in winter,
and especially where the summers are as hot as
they are in every part of the United States. Still
it may be brought to perfection. — It is a cabbage,
and the French call it the flower-cabbage. Its
head is a lump of rich pulp, instead of being, as a
cabbage-head is, a parcel of leaves folding in to-
wards a centre, and lapping over each other. The
Cauliflower is an annual plant. It blows, and ri-
pens its seed, during the year that it is sown ; and,
in fact, the part which is eaten is not, as in the cab-
bage, a lump of leaves, but the seed stalks, pods,
and blossoms, in their embryo and compact state,
before they expand. — It is the same with Brocoli. —
Cauliflowers maybe had to cat in the fall, or in the
spring. The last is the most difficult to accom-
plish ; and I will, therefore, treat first of the means
of accomplishing that. — To have Cauliflowers to
eat in the spring, that is to say, in June, you must
sow them in ihefall ; for, they will have a certain
age before their heads will come. Yet, they are
very tender. They will not endure a South of
England winter without a covering, occasionally at
least, of some sort; and the covering is, almost al
ways, glass, either on frames or in a hand-light
So that, to keep them through an American winter
there must not only be plass, but that glass (except

IV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 127

where you have a green-house to be kept warm by
fire) must have a covering in severe weather. —
They require age, ami yet, you must not sow them
too early in the fall ; for, if you do, they will have
little heads about the size of a dollar, and go off to
seed at once without coming to a large head at all.
If you be too backward in sowing, the heads do not
begin before the great heat comes ; and, in that
case, they will not head till the fall. — All these cir-
cumstances make the raising of them for spring use
very difficult. — Sow (Long Island) first week, or
second week, in September, in the same manner that
ycu sow cabbages. When the plants have eight
leaves, put them in a warm place, in the natural
ground, and do not put much dung in the ground.
The back part of the Hot-bed ground WOttld be the
place. Plant them six inches asunder upon a piece
of ground that your frame will cover ; but do not
put on the frame, till sharpish frosts begin to come.
Then put it on, and, whenever you expect a frost,
put over the lights at night. If there be much
rain, keep the lights on, but give plenty of air.
Take the lights off whenever you can. When the
hard frost comes, put long dung from the stable
very thick all round the frame up to the very top of
it, and extending a yard wide ; and, in severe wea-
ther, cover the glass with a mat, or old carpet first ;
then put straw upon the mat ; and then cover the
straw with another mat. But, mind, they must be
kept in the dark as little as possible. When the
sun is out, they must have it ; and, in mild days,
they must have a great deal of air. When there
is an occasional thawing day, take the lights off
a^d hoe and stir the ground ; for, they want strength
as well as protection ; and they must have all the
air you can, with safety to their lives, give them. —

128 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

Thus you go on till within about three weeks of the
general Indian-Corn planting season. By this
time you may leave the lights off day and night.
Ten days before Corn-planting get your ground
ready, deeply dug and full of rich manure. Make
holes with a spade ; remove each plant with a ball
of earth about the roots ; fix the plants well in the
holes at two feet asunder; leave a little dish round
each ; water them with water that runs out of a
yard where cattle are kept. They love moisture,
especially under a hot sun. Give them this sort of
water, or muddy, stagnant water, every three days
in hot weather; hoe and dig between them also ;
and, you will have Cauliflowers in June. — If you
have a Green-house, the trouble is little. Sow as
before. Put about four plants in a flower-pot a foot
diameter at top, instead of putting under a frame.
They will live in the Green-house like other plants ;
and will be ready to put out as above-mentioned.
Fifty plants are enough. They are very fine ve-
getables ; but they come not earlier than green
peas. — To have Cauliflowers to eat in the fall is a
much easier matter, and then they are, in my opi-
nion, more valuable than in the spring. Sow at
the same time and in the same manner as you sow
early cabbages. Treat the plants in the same way ;
put them at two feet and a half distance ; you need
not now water them ; they will begin to come early
in October; and, if any of them have not perfected
their heads when the sharp frosts come, take them
up by the root, hang them up by the heels in a warm
part of a barn, or in a cellar ; they will get tole-
rably good heads; and you will have some of those
heads to eat at Christmas. — The seed, on account
of the heat, is extremely difficult to save in Ame-
rica ; but, if a fall Cauliflower were kept in ^

XV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 121)

Green-house during winter, and put out three weeks
before corn-planting time, I am persuaded, it would
bring good seed in June. — The quantity of this
plant must depend upon the taste for it; but it is so
much better than the very best of cabbages, that it
is worth some trouble to get it.

210. CELERY.— The qualities of this plant are
universally known. There are three or four sorts.
The white, the red, the hollow, and the solid. The
hollow white is the best ; but the propagation and
cultivation of all are the same. The whole of that
part of the year, during whichrthe frost is out of
the ground, is not a bit too long for the getting of
fine Celery. The seed, sown in the cold ground,
in April, will lie six weeks before it come up. A
wheel-barrow full of hot dung, put in a hole in the
ground against a wall, or any fence, facing the
south, and covered with rich and fine mould, will
bring the seed up in two weeks. If you have a hot-
bed frame, or a hand-light, the thing is easy. A
large flower-pot will bring up out of ground, plants
enough for any family. As soon as the plants are
three inches high, and it scarcely matters how thick
they stand, make a nice little bed in open free air ;
make the ground rich and the earth very fine. Here
prick out the plants at 4 inches apart; and, of course,
9 in a square foot. They are so very small, that
this must be carefully done ; and they should be
gently watered once, and shaded 2 days. A bed 10
feet long and 4 wide will contain 360 plants : and,
if they be well cultivated, they are more than any
common-sized family can want from November till
May. — In this bed the plants stand till the middle
of July, or thereabouts, when they are to go out
into trenches. Make the trenches a foot deep and
a foot wide, and put them not less than five feet

i30 THE AMERICAN GARDENER, [Chap.

asunder. The ground that you make the trenches
in should not be fresh-dug ; but be in a solid state,
which very conveniently maybe ; for Celery comes
on just as the Peas and early Cabbages and Cauli-
flowers have gone off. Lay the earth that you take
out in the middle of the space between the trenches,
so that it may not be washed into them by the heavy
rains ; for it will, in such case, cover the hearts oi
the plants, and will go very nearly to destroy
them. — When you have made your trench, put along
it some good'rich compost manure, partly consist-
ing of wood ashes. Not dung; or, at least, not
dung fresh from the yard ; for, if you use that, the
celery will be rank and pipy, and will not keep
nearly so long or so well. — Dig this manure in, and
break all the earth very fine as you go. — Then take
up your plants, and trim off the long roots. You
will find, that every plant has offsets to it, coming
up by the side of the main stem. Pull all these off,
and leave only the single stem. Cut the leaves ofi
so as to leave the whole plant about six inches
long. — Plant them, six inches apart, and fix them
in the manner so minutely dwelt on under the arti
cle, Cabbage, keeping, as you are at work, youi
feet close to the outside edges of the trench. Do
not water the plants ; and, if you plant in fresh-dug
ground, and fix your plants well, none of the trou-
blesome and cumbrous business of shading is at
all necessary ; for the plant is naturally hardy, and,
fit has heat to wither it above, it has also that heat
eneath to cause its roots to strike out almost in-
stantly.— When the plants begin to grow, which
they quickly will do, hoe on each side and between
them with a small hoe. As they grow up, earth
their stems ; that is, put the earth up to them, but
not too much at a time ; and let tb" earth that you

[V.] THE AMERICAN GARUENER. 131

put up be finely broken, and not at all cloddy
While you do this, keep the stalks of the outside
loaves close up to prevent the earth from getting
between the stems of the outside leaves and the
inner ones ; for, if it get there it checks the plant
and makes the celery bad. — When you begin the
earthing take first the edges of the trendies ; and
do not go into the middle of the intervals for the
earth that you took out of the trenches. Keep
working backwards, time after time, that is earth-
ing after earthing, till you come to the earth that
you dug out of the trenches ; and, by this time the
earth against the plants will be above the level of
the land. Then you take the earth out of the mid-
dle, till, at last the earth against the plants form a
ridge and the middle of each interval a sort of gut-
ter. Earth up very often, and not put much at a
time. Every week a little earth to be put up. —
Thus, in October, you will have four ridges of Ce-
lery across one of the Plats, each containing 168
plants. I shall suppose one of these ridges to be
wanted for use before the frost sets in for good.
Leave another ridge to be lock-up by the frost, a
much safer guardian than your cellar or barn-door.
But, you must cover this ridge over in such a way
that the u-ct will not get down into the hearts of the
celery. Two boards, a foot wide each, their edges
on one side laid upon the earth of the ridge, formed
into a roof over the point of the ridge, the upper
edge of one board going an inch over the upper
edge of the other, and the boards fastened well
with pegs, will do the business completely ; for it is
not the frost, but the occasional thaws that you have
to fear, and the wet and rot that they produce. —
For the celery that is to serve from the setting in
to the breaking up of the frost, you must have a bed

132 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

of sand, or light earth, in a warm part of a barn, or
in a cellar ; and there you must lay it in, row after
row, not covering the points of the leaves. — To have
seed, take one plant, in spring, out of the rid<je left
in the garden. Plant it in an open place, and you
will have seed enough to serve a whole township
For soup, the seed bruised is as good as the plant
itself. For the number of years that the seed will
keep good, see Paragraph 150.

211. CHERVIL is an annual plant. Its leaves
are a good deal like those of double parsley. They
are used in salads. A small patch, sown in rows,
like parsley, is enough.

212. GIVES, a little sort of ohion, which is pe-
rennial. The greens only are used. A small quan
tity is sufficient for a garden. This plant may be
propagated from seed, or from offsets.

213. CORIANDER is an annual plant that some-
persons use in soups and salads. It is sown in
spring. The seed is also used as a medicine. A
small patch, probably two square yards, will be
enough.

214. CORN (Indian.) — To have some early, the
early sorts must be got. A dozen or two of plants
may be easily raised in pots, as directed for Cu-
cumbers. See Cucumber.

215. CORN-SALAD.— This is a little insignifi-
cant annual plant that some persons use in salads,
though it can hardly be of any real use, where let-
tuce seed is to be had. It is a mere weed.

216. CRESS (or Pepper-Grass) is very good in
salads along with lettuces, white mustard, or rape.
It should be sown in little drills, very thick (as
should the white mustard and the rape) and cut be*
fore it comes into rough leaf. A small qua.ntity,
in the salad-season, should be sown every six days

IV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 13£

This salad, as well as the mustard and the rape, may
be very conveniently raised in a corner of a hot-bed
made for radishes or cabbage-plants.

217. CUCUMBER.— To give minute rules for
the propagation and cultivation of this plant, in a
country like this, would be waste of time. How-
ever, if you wrish to have them a month earlier
than the natural ground will bring them, do this.
Make a hole, and put into it a little hot dung ; let
ihe hole be under a warm fence. Put 6 inches deep
of fine rich earth on the dung. Sow a parcel of
seeds, in this earth ; and cover at night with a bit of
carpet, or sail cloth, having first fixed some hoops
over this little bed. — Before the plants show the
rough leaf, plant two into a little flower pot, and fill
as many pots in this way as you please. — Have a
larger bed ready to put the pots into, and covered
with earth so that the pots may be plunged in the
earth up to their tops. Cover this bed like the
last. — When the plants have got two rough leaves
out, they will begin to make a shoot in the middle.
Pinch that short off. — Let them stand in this bed, till
your cucumbers sown in the natural ground come
up ; then make some little holes in good rich land,
and taking a pot at a time, turn out the ball and fix it
in the hole. These plants will bear a month sooner
than those sown in the natural ground ; and a square
yard will contain 36 pots, and will of course, fur-
nish plants for 36 hills of cucumbers, which, if
well managed, will keep on bearing till Septem-
ber.— Those who have hot-bed frames, or hand'
lights, will do this matter very easily. — The cucum-
ber plant is very tender and juicy ; and, therefore,
when the seedlings are put into the pots, they should
be watered, and shaded for a day or two ; when the
balls are turned into the ground, they should he
12

134 THE AMERICAN GARDEXER. Chap

watered, and shaded with a bough for one day
That will be enough. I have one observation tc
make upon the cultivation of cucumbers, melons oi
all sorts, and that of all the pumpkin and squash
tribe ; and that is, that it is a great error to sow
them too thick. One plant in a hill is enough ; and
I would put two into a pot, merely as a bar against
accidents. One will bring more weight of fruit than
two (if standing near each other,) two more than
three, and so on, till you come to fifty in a square
foot; and then you will have no fruit at all! Le1
any one make the experiment, and he will find thi?
observation mathematically true. When cucum-
bers are left eight or ten plants in a hill, they never
shoot strongly. Their vines are poor and weak,
the leaves become yellow, and, if they bear at all,
it is poor tasteless fruit that they produce. Their
bearing is over in a few weeks. Whereas, a single
plant, in the same space, will send its fine green
vines all around it to a great distance, and, if nc
fruit be left to ripen, will keep bearing till the white
frosts come in the fall. — The roots of a cucumber
will go ten feet, in fine earth, in every direction
Judge, then, how ten plants, standing close to one
another, must produce mutual starvation ! — If yoi
save a cucumber for weed, let it be the first fine frui.
that appears on the plant. The plant will cease to
bear much after this fruit becomes yellowish. — 1
have said enough, under the head of Saving Seeds,
(Paragraphs, 139 to 146) to make you take care,
that nothing of the mslon, pumpkin or squash kind
grow near a seed-bearing cucumber plant ; and that
all cucumbers of a different sort from that bearing
the seed be kept at a great distance. — There are
many sorts of cucumbers : the Long- Prickly, the
Short 'Prickly, the Cluster, and man> others; but,

l\ J 'I HE AMERICAN GARDENER 135

the propagation and cultivation of all the sorts ar*>
the same.

218. DANDELION.— This is a well-known and
most wicked garden weed, in this country as well as
in England ; and I am half afraid to speak of using
ii as food, lest I should encourage laziness. Butv
there may be people without gardens, and without
the means of purchasing greens in the spring ; and
to them what I am about to say may be of use.
The Dandelion is as early as the earliest of grass ;
and, it is one of the very best of greens, when it is
young. It is a sort of wild Endive. The French
who call it (from the shape of its leave) Dent de
lion, or Lion's tooth, use it, bleached, as salad, and,
if fine, large and well bleached, it is better than
Endive, much more tender, and of a better flavour,
it is very common in rich pasture land in England ;
and cattle and sheep, particularly the former, pre •
fer it, as far as my observation has gone, to every
other plant in the pastures. It is full of milk-co-
loured juice, and fuller of it than either the Endive
or the Lettuce. In the spring (June) 1817, when I
came to Long Island, and when nothing in the shape
of greens was to be had for love or money, Dan-
delions were our resource ; and I have always,
since that time, looked at this weed with a more
friendly eye.

219. DOCK. — I have frequently mentioned the
leaves of this weed as being sold in the market at
Ne\v York. This weed and the Dandelion are the
gardener's two vegetable devils. Nothing but ab-
solute burning, or a sun that will reduce them to
powder, will kill their roots, any little bit of which
will grow, and that, too, whether lying on, or in,
the ground. Both bear seed in prodigious quanti-
ties.— 'The Dock (which is the wild Rhubarb) puts

130 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

forth its leaves very quickly after the Dandelion ;
and hence it is that it is resorted to as greens in
the spring. This is, however, a coarse green com-
pared with the Dandelion. However, it is better
than no greens at all after five months of winter,
which has left nothing green upon the face of the
earth. — If a rod or two of ground, on the south side
of a wood, were trenched and made rich, and plant-
ed with Docks, or Dandelions, the owner, even
though he had no garden, would not be in want ol
early greens ; and, it would be better to do this than
to have to go upon the hunt after these vegetables,
which, though weeds, are not, in every place, to be
found in any considerable quantity ; or, at least,
not without spending a good deal of time in the
pursuit. — The Dock-leaf is very wholesome, as is
also that of the Dandelion. They do not produce
gripings as the greater part of the cabbage kinds
are apt to do. — See Rhubarb.

220. ENDIVE. — This is a salad-plant, though,
like the Dandelion, it may be eaten as greens. —
There are two sorts, the curled and the plain, just
as there are of the Dandelion, which, as I observed
before, is a sort of Endive. — The curled is prettiest,
and is, therefore, generally preferred ; but, the plain
is the best. — Sow Endive in drills a foot apart ;
when the plants come up, thin them to a foot apart
in the row, if they be not to be removed by trans-
plantation ; keep the ground clean, and hoe deep
arid frequently between the plants. When they
get to a good size, they are to be bleached before
they can be used as salad ; for, while green, they
are bitter and not very crisp. In order to bleach
them, you must take them when quite dry ; gather
all the leaves carefully up with your hands ; draw
them into a conical form, and tie them round with

IV.] THE AMERICAN* GARDENER. 137

matting or soft string, or little splinters of white
oak. When they have remained in this state for
about a fortnight, they will be bleached and fit for
use. — The time of sowing may be as early as the
weather will permit in the spring, and there may-
be another sowing for summer ; but, it is for winter
and spring use that Endive is most wanted ; so that,
the late sowings are of the most importance. Sow
about the end of July, in fine rich ground. If you
do not transplant, leave the plants at the distances
before-mentioned ; if you do, transplant at the same
distances (a foot every way;) do it when the plants
have ten leaves, and tip off both leaves and roots
when you transplant. Fix the roots well as direct-
ed in the case of cabbage ; and, as the plant is very
juicy, and the weather hot, plant in the evening, or
early in the morning, water a little, and lay some
bows over to shade for two days, but take the bows
off at night. — The best place for Endive would be
the shady border. The plants will come in for use
in October, November, and December. Some sown
a little later must be preserved for winter use. Be-
fore the frost sets in, they must be tied up in a co-
nical form, as before directed, and all dead, or yel-
low, leaves must be taken off. Then dig them up,
with a ball of earth to each, and put them into light
earth in a cellar or some warm building. Put only
the roots into the earth; do not suffer the plants to
touch each other; and pour a little water round
the roots after you have put them in the earth. II
they be perfectly dry when tied up, they will keep
well till spring. — To have them as early as possible
in the spring, sow in the third week of August, and
do not transplant. When the hard frost is come,
cover the whole of the ground over with straw six
inches deep, and throw (if at hand) some leaves of

138 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap,

trees over the straw, and some sticks to keep the
leaves from blowing away. But, the best covering
of all, in this case is, boughs of cedar, or of fir, or
laurel; though these boughs must be, for this pur-
pose, cut up into small parts, so that they will lie
close and compact and keep out the light. Some
ever-green boughs, and some leaves of trees thrown
over them, form, perhaps, the best covering in the
world for plants of this description. But, observe ;
you must let the frost come. The ground must be
right hard when you put the covering on ; or else,
the plants will rot. They must see the sun no more
till spring. — When the frost breaks up, take off the
covering; hoe the ground as soon as dry, and pro-
ceed to perfect the plants in the manner before de-
scribed.— One of these plants will produce seed
enough to last you for five years. — There need not
be many of these plants. Lettuces are their rival's,
and are a great deal better. — I have mentioned mat-
ting in this article, as a thing to tie with. This
matting is nothing more than the threads of those
large things, in which foreign goods sometimes
come packed up. These things are in England
called Mats, and the threads of which they are
composed, are by gardeners, called matting. The
gardeners use this for ties to Espalier trees ; they
tie on their grafts with it ; they tie up their flowers
with it ; and, in short, it is the string of the gar-
deners. The Mats, thousands of bales of which are
imported into England from Russia, are used to co-
ver the hot-beds with, and for various other pur-
poses.— But, matting is to be had, and with very
little trouble, without sending to Russia for it. Any
one who has a spare tree may have plenty of mat-
ting. When I camo to Long (sland, I cut down a
chestnut, of xbouta foot diameter, and that furnished

I\T.J THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 139

me with a store of matting ties. The tree was cut
in June; the outer bark taken off; and then the
iftTzer-bark came off in long flakes, some broad and
some narrow, the whole length of the clear trunk,
which was about 15 feet. I just hung this up to
dry; and that was matting, to be cut into any length,
and ready to use for any tie, where much strength
was not required. The only precautions are: keep
the matting in the dry, and when you use it dip it
in water first for a few minutes, and take it out of
the water as you use it. If you have put more into
the water than you want for that time, take it out
and hang it up in the dry again ; and it will receive
no injury.

221. FENNEL. — Fennel is a perennial plant;
propagated from seed, or from offsets; and sown,
or planted, either in spring or fall. The plants
should stand about a foot asunder. It is a tall plant
with hairy leaves. Its leaves are used in salads, are
chopped up fine to put in melted butter eaten with
fish ; they are boiled with fish to give the fish a fla-
vour, and, they are tied round mackerel, particu-
larly, when these are broiled. The French, who
excel in the cooking of fish, always do this. The
leaves, thus broiled, become crisp ; and, they are
then of a very fine flavour. In winter, the seed,
bruised, gives fish the same flavour as the leaves do
in summer ; and, to my taste, butter, seasoned with
Femicl, is better than any of the fish sauces, bought
at the shops. — It is a very hardy plant. Two yards
square will contain enough for any family ; and,
once in the ground, it will stand there for an age,
or ten ag-es, as far as I know.

222. GARLICK.— Almost all nations except the
English, the Americans, and the French, make great
ar.d constant use of Garlick; and, even the French

140 THE AMERICAN GARDENED. [Chap

use it, frequently, to an extent that would drive us
from the table. — It is propagated from seed, or from
offsets : and is sown, or planted, either in spring or
fall. For winter-use, the roots are taken up and
kept in the dry, as onions are.

223. GOURD. — I do not know any use that it is
of. See Pumpkin.

224. HOP.— To range the Hop amongst Veget-
ables may appear odd ; but, it is a garden-plant in
America, and does give you, if you like to have it,
a very good dish for the table. It is wanted to pro-
duce its fruit for the making of yeast, or beer, or
both ; and, to get good hops, there should be some
cultivation. Any bit of a root will grow and be-
come a plant. The young plants should be planted
in the fall, three or four together in a clump, or hill,
and the hills should be from seven to ten feet apart.
The first year of planting, put four rods, or little
poles, to each hill, and let two vines go up each
pole, treading the rest of the vines down to creep
about the ground. In a month after the vines be-
gin to mount the poles, cut off all the creeping
vines ; and draw up a hill of earth against the poles
all round, and cover all the crowns of the plants.
In short, make a hill a foot high with a flattish top,
and then fork up the ground between the hills and
break it fine. When weeds begin to appear, hoe
the ground clean ; and, at the end of another month
draw some more earth up, and make the hill bigger
and higher. — When the fall comes, cut off the vines
that have gone up the pole a foot from the ground ;
take down the poles ; dig down the hills, and, with
a corn-hoe, open the ground all round the crowns
of the plants ; and, before winter sets in, cut all
close down to the very crowns, and then cover the
•.rowns over with earth three or four inches thick,

IV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 141

Through this earth the hop-shoots will sta.t in the
spring. You will want but eight of them to go up
your four poles ; and the rest, when three inches
long, you may cut, and eat as asparagus ; cook
them in the same manner, and you will find them a
very delightful vegetable. — This year you put poles
20 feet long to your hops. Proceed the same as
before, only make the hills larger ; and this year
you will have plenty of hops to gather for use. —
The next, and every succeeding year, you may put
poles 40 or 50 feet long ; but they must not be too
large at bottom. Be sure to open the ground every
fall, and to cut all off close down to the crown of
the plants, which, when pared off with a sharp
knife, will look like a piece of cork. — In England,
where there are more hops used than in all the rest
of the world, it requires four or five years to bring
a hop hill to perfection. Even then, a pole from
15 to 20 feet long is generally long enough ; and
the crop of thirty hills is, upon an average, not
more than equal to that of one hill in the hop-plan-
tations on the Susquehannah ; notwithstanding that,
on the Susquehannah, they merely plough the
ground in spring ; never open the crowns and pare
them down, leave the loose creeping vines together
with the weeds and grass to be eaten, in summer, by
sheep, which also eat the leaves of the mounting
vines as far as they, by putting their fore feet against
the poles, can reach up ; and yet, in England, the
Hop-lands are called hop-gardens, and are culti-
vated and kept in a garden state. — But, hops are to
be preserved. They are fit to gather, when you
see, upon opening the leaves of the hop, a good
deal of yellow dust, and when the seeds, which you
will find at the sockets of the leaves of the hop,
begin to be plump. — Gather them nk'ely, and let no

142 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap,

leaves or stalks be amongst them ; arid lay them
out on a cloth to dry in the sun, taking care that no
rain fall upon them, and that they be not out in the
dew. — When perfectly dry, put them, very hardly
and closely pressed, into a new bag, made of thick
Russia linen, such as they make strong trowsers of.
And, in this state, they will, if necessary, keep good
and fit for use (if kept in a dry place) for twenty
years, or, perhaps, three times twenty. I have used
hops, for brewing, at ten years old, and found them
just as efficient as new hops of the same original
quality. However, people say that the fresh hops
have a more lively flavour ; and, as any stick will,
in America, carry enough to supply a family with
hops for the making of yeast-cakes, it must be
sho-cking laziness not to put a few by every year.

225. HORSE-RADISH. Like every' other

plant, this bears seed ; but it is best propagated by
cutting bits of its roots into lengths of two inches,
and putting them, spring or fall, into the ground
about a foot deep with a setting stick. They will
find their way up the first year ; and the second they
will be fine large roots, if the ground be trenched
deeply and made pretty good. Haifa square perch
of ground, planted at a foot apart every way, will,
if kept clear of weeds, produce enough for a family
that eats roast-beef every day of their lives. You
must take care that the Horse-radish roots do not
spread, and that bits of them be not flung about the
ground ; for, when once in, no tillage will get them
out. They must be, like the Dock and Dandelion
roots, absolutely burnt by fire, or by a sun that will
reduce them to a state of a diy stick; or must be
taken up and carried away from the spot. Though
a very valuable and wholesome article of diet, it is
a most pernicious weed

1Y.J THE AMERICAN GARDEXI.R. l43

226. HYSSOP is a sort of shrub, the flower-
spikes of which are used, fresh or dried, for medi-
cinal purposes. It is propagated from seed, or from
offsets. A very little of it is enough for any garden.

227. JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE.— This plant
bears at the root, like a potatoe, which, to the great
degradation of many of the human race, is every
wh^re well known. But, this Artichoke, which is
also dug up and cooked like a potatoe, has, at any
rate, the merit of giving no trouble either in the
propagation or the cultivation. A handful of the
bits of its fruit, or even of its rqots, flung about a
piece of ground of any sort, will keep bearing for
ever, in spite of grass and of weeds ; the difficulty
being, not to get it to grow, but to get the ground
free from it, when once it has taken to growing. It
is a very poor, insipid vegetable ; but, if you wish
to have it, now and then, the best way is to keep it
out of the garden ; and to dig up the corner of some
field, and throw some seed or some roots into it.

228. LAVENDER.— A beautiful little well known
shrub of uses equally well known. Hundreds of
acres are cultivated in England for the flowers to
be used in distillation. It may be propagated from
seed ; but is easiest propagated from slips, taken off
in the spring, and planted in good moist ground in
the shade. When planted out it should be in rows
three feet apart and two feet apart in the rows. If
the flowers be to be preserved, the flower-stalks
should be cut off before the blossoms begin to fade
at all.

229. LEEK. — There are two sorts; the narrow-
leaved, and the flag-leek, the latter of which is by
much the best — Some people like leeks better than
onions; and they are better in soup. — Sow in the
fall, or, as early in the spring as you can. — About

144 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

four yards square is enough. Put the rows eight
inches asunder, and tliMi the plants to three inches
apart in the row. Hf e deeply and frequently be-
tween the plants till the middle of July, and then
take the plants up, cut their roots off to an inch
long, and cut off the leaves also a good way down.
Make trenches, like those for Celery (which see,)
only not more than half as deep, and half as wide
apart. Manure the trenches with rotten dung, or
other rich manure. Put in the plants as you do the
Celery plants, and plant about five inches asunder
As the Leeks grow, earth them up by degrees like
Celery ; and, at last, you will have Leeks 18 inches
long under ground, and as thick as your wrist.
One of these is worth a dozen of poor little hard
things. If you have a row across one of the Plats
it will be plenty, perhaps. Such row will contain
about a hundred and sixty. One third may be used,
perhaps, before the winter sets in : another third
taken up and put by for winter, in precisely the
same way that Celery rs ; the other third, covered
in the same way that Celery is, will be ready for
spring use. — See Celery. — Three Leeks planted out
for seed, will ripen their seed in August, and will
give you seed enough for the next year, and some
to give to five or six neighbours.

230. LETTUCE.— This great article of the gar-
den is milky, refreshing, and pleasanter to a majority
of tastes than any other plant, the Asparagus hardly
excepted. So necessary is it as the principal ingre-
dient of a good salad, that it is, both in France and
England, called " salad" by great numbers of peo-
ple. It is good in stews ; good boiled with green-
peas ; and, even as a dish boiled as cabbage is, it
is an excellent vegetable. Yet, I never saw a really
line Lettuce in America. The obstacles are, the

1V.J THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 145

complete impossibility of preserving plants of the
fine sorts in the natural ground during the winter;
and the great heat, which will not suffer those sorts
to loave, if they be sowed in the natural ground in
the spring. — The hardy sorts are the green cab-
bage-lettuce (or hardy green,) and the brown-cab-
bage. These are flat plants. Their outside leaves
spread forth upon the ground, and they curl into a
sort of loaf in the centre. The plants of these may
be preserved through the winter in the natural
ground, in the manner directed for Endive plants,
(which see under Endive) and may be sowed at the
same time for that purpose. But these are very
poor things. They have, though bleached at the
heart, a slimy feel in the mouth; and are not crisp
and refreshing. There are, I believe, twenty sorts,
two of which only it will be enough to mention,
green-coss and white-coss, the former of which is ot
a darker green than the latter, is rather hardier, and
not quite so good. These, when true to their kind
and in a proper situation, rise up, and fold in their
leaves to a solid loaf, like a sugar-loaf cabbage, and,
in rich land, with good management, they will be-
come nearly as large. When you cut one of these
from the stem, and pull off its outside leaves, you
have a large lump of white enough for a salad for
ten people, unless they be French, and, then you
must have a lettuce to every person. Every body
knows how to sow lettuce-seed along a drill, in the
spring, to let the plants stand as thick as grass, and
to cut it along with a knife, and gather it up by
handfuls. But, this is not lettuce. It is herbage.
and really fit only for pigs and cows. It is a raw,
green, Dandelion, and is not quite so good. — The
plants of these fine sorts may, indeed, be kept
through the winter in the same manner, and with
13

146 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Cliap

the same care, as Cauliflower plants (which see in
Paragraph 209 ;) but, if this be not done, you must
raise them in the spring in precisely the same way
as the very earliest cabbage-plants, for which see
Paragraph from 77 to 94. — Put the plants out into
the natural ground, about a fortnight before the ge-
neral Corn-planting time. Do not put them in a
place full to the sun ; but in the east borders, or in
the west border. Make the ground rich, right
strong, break it well, and, in transplanting, keep
as much earth as you can about the roots, and give
a little water ; and transplant in the evening. —
These plants will loave about the time of the early
cabbages, arid some of them will not go off to seed
for six weeks after they are loaved. So that, about
two square feet of a hot-bed will give you a great
quantity of real lettuces. — Let one plant (a very
fine one) stand for seed; and it will give you plenty
of seed for a year or two. — Whenever you trans-
plant Lettuces, give them a little water, and, if \\
be a small bed, shade them a little. If you sow in
the natural ground in the spring, be sure to trans
plant into the shady borders. — And be sure always
to make the ground rich for these fine Lettuces.

231. MANGEL-WURZEL.— This may be called
Cattle-beet. Some persons plant it in gardens. It
is a coarse Beet, and is cultivated and preserved as
the Beet is.

232. MARJORAM.— One sort is annual and
one perennial. The former is called summer and
the latter winter. The first sown as ?arly as pos-
sible in the spring ; and, the latter propagated by
vjfsets ; that is, by parting the roots. The plants
may stand pretty close. As the winter sort cannot
be got at in winter, some of both oughf to be pre
served by drying. Cut it just before it ipmrs out

IV. f THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 147

into bloom, hang it up in little bunches to dry, first,
for a day, in the sun ; then in the shade ; and, when
quite dry, put it in paper bags, tied up, and the bags
hung up in a dry place.

233. MARIGOLD. — An ANNUAL plant. Sow the
seed, spring or fall ; when the bloom is at full,
gather the flowers ; pull the leaves of the flower out
of their sockets ; lay them on paper to dry, in the
shade. "When dry put them into paper bags. They
are excellent in broths and soups and stews. Two
square yards planted with Marigolds will be suffi-
cient. It is the single Marigold that ought to be
cultivated for culinary purposes. The double one
is an ornamental flower, and a very mean one
indeed.

234. MELON. — There are, all the world knows,
two distinct tribes : the Musk, and the Water. Ot
the former the sorts are endless, and, indeed, of the
latter also. Some of both tribes are globular and
others oblong ; and, in both tribes there are differ-
ent colours, as well with regard to flesh as to rind. —
In this fine country, where they all come to perfec-
tion in the natural ground, no distinction is made
as to earliness, or lateness in sorts ; and, in other
respects, some like one sort best and some another.
Amongst the Musk melons, the Citron is, according
to my taste, the finest by far ; and the finest Water
melons that I have ever tasted were raised from
seed that came out of melons grown in Georgia. —
As to the manner of propagating, cultivating, and
sowing the seed of melons, see Cucumber, and only
observe, that all that is there said applies to melons
as well as to cucumbers. To have melons a month
earlier than the natural ground sowings will pro-
duce them is an object of much greater importance
than to have cucumbers so much earlier; and, to

148 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

accomplish that object, you have only ID use the
game means, in every respect, that I have described
for the getting of early cucumbers. The soil should
be rich for melons ; but it ought not to be freshly
dunged ; for that is apt to rot the plants, especially
in a wet year. They like a light and rather sandy
soil, and, any where near the sea, wood ashes, or
sopers' ashes, is, probably, the best manure, and
especially in dry-bottomed land ; for ashes attract
and retain the moisture of the atmosphere. It is a
great mistake to suppose, that ashes are of a burn-
ing quality. They always produce the most and
best effect in dry bottomed land. — Melons should be
cultivated well You should leave but one plant in
a hill; and should till the ground between the
plants, while they are growing, until it be covered
by the vines. If the plants stand too close, the
vines will be weak, and fruit small, thick-rinded,
and poor as to flavour.

235. MINT. — There are two sorts ; one is of a
darker green than the other : the former is called
pepper-mint, and is generally used for distilling' to
make mint water : the latter, which is called spear-
mint, is used for the table, in many ways. The
French snip a little into their salads ; we boil a
bunch amongst green peas, to which it gives a plea
sant flavour ; chopped up small, and put, along with
sugar, into vinegar, we use it as sauce for roasted
lamb ; and a very pleasant sauce it is. — Mint may
be propagated from seed ; but. a few bits of its
roots will spread into a bed in a year. — To have it
in winter, preserve it precisely like Marjoram (which
see,) and, instead of chopping it for sauce, crumble
it between your fingers.

•236. MUSTARD — Thpre is a white seeded ?ort
and a brown seeded. The white mustard is used in

TV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 149

salads along with the Cress, or Pepper-Grass, and
is sown and cultivated in the same way. (See
Cress.) The black is that which table-mustard is
made of. — It is sown in rows, two feet apart, early
in the spring. The plants ought to be thinned to
lour or rive inches apart. Good tillage between the
rows. The seed will be ripe in July, and then the
stalks should be cut off, and, when quite dry, the
seed threshed out, and put by for use. — Why should
any man that has a garden buy mustard ? "Why
should he want the English to send him out, in a
bottle, and sell him for a quarter of a dollar, less
and worse mustard than he can raise in his garden
for a penny ? The English mustard is, in general, a
thing fabricated, and is as false as the glazed and
pasted goods, sent out by the fraudulent fabricators
of Manchester. It is a composition of baked bones
reduced to powder, some wheat flour, some colour-
ing, and a drug of some sort that gives the pun
gent taste. Whoever uses that mustard freely will
find a burning in his inside long after he has sic al-
lowed the mustard. W7hy should any man, who
has a garden, buy this poisonous stuff? The mus-
tard-seed ground in a little mustard mill is what
he ought to use. He will have bran and all ; and
his mustard will not look yellow like the English
composition ; but, we do not object to Rye-bread
on account of its colour ! Ten pounds of Iseed will
grow upon a perch of ground ; and ten pounds of
mustard is more than any man can want in a year.
The plants do not occupy the ground more than
fourteen weeks, and may be followed by another
crop of any plant, and even of mustard if you like.
This, therefore, is a very useful plant, arid ought to
be cultivated by every farmer, and every man
has a

150 THE AMERICAN GARPENKR. [Chap.

237. NASTURTIUM.— An annual plant, with
a half-red half-yellow flower, which has an oflfen*
eive smell ; but, it bears a seed enveloped in a fleshy
pod, and that pod, taken before the seed becomes
ripe, is used as a thing to pickle. — The seeds should
be sown in the fall, or very early in the spring.
The plants should have pretty long bushy sticks
put to them ; and four or five of them will bear a
great quantity of pods. — They will grow in almost
any ground ; but, the better the ground the fewer
of them are necessary.

238. ONION.— This is one of the main vegeta-
bles. Its uses are many, and they are all well
known. The modes of cultivation for crop are
various. Three I shall mention, and by either a
good crop may be raised. — Sow in the fall (See Pa-
ragraph 159,) or early in the Spring. Let the
ground be rich, but not from fresh dung. Make
the ground very fine; make the rows a foot apart,
and scatter the seed thinly along a drill two inches
deep. Then fill in the drills ; and then press the
earth down upon the seed by treading the ground
all over. Then give the ground a very slight
smoothing over with a rake. — When the plants get
to be three inches high, thin them to four inches,
or to eight inches if you wish to have very large
onions. — Keep the ground clear of weeds by hoeing,'
but, do not hoe deep, nor raise earth about the
plants ; for these make them run to neck and not to
bulk. — When the tips of the leaves begin to be
brown, bend down the necks, so that the leaves lie
flat with the ground. When the leaves are nearlv
dead, pull up the onions, and lay them to dry, in
order to be put away for winter use. — Some per-
sons, instead of sowing the onions all along the
drill drop four or five seeds at every six or seve»

IV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 151

inches distance ; and leave the onions to grow thus,
in clumps ; and this is not a bad way ; for, they
will squeeze each other out. They will not be large;
but, they will be ripe earlier, and will not run to
neck. — The third mode of cultivation is as follows :
sow the onions any time between April and the
middle of June, in drills six inches apait, and put
the seed very thick along the drills. Let ail the
plants stand, and they will get to be about as big
round as the top of your little finger. Then the
leaves will get yellow, and, when that is the case,
pull up the onions and lay them on a board, till the
sun have withered up the leaves. Then take these
diminutive onions, put them in a bag, and hang them
up in a dry place till spring. As soon as the frost
is gone, and the ground dry, plant out these onions
in good and fine ground, in rows a foot apart.
Make, not drills, but little marks along the ground:
and put the onions at six or eight inches apart. Do
not cover them with the earth ; but just press them
down upon the mark with your thumb and fore-
ringer. The ground ought to be trodden and slight-
ly raked again before you make the marks ; for no
earth should rise up, about the plants. — Pioceed
after this as with sown onions; only observe, that,
if any should be running up to seed, you must
twist down the neck as soon as you perceive it.
But, observe this : the shorter the time that these
onions h?.ve been in the ground the year before, the
less likely will they be to run to seed. — Preserving
onions is an easy matter. Frost never hurts them,
unless you move them during- the time that they are
frozen. Any dry, airy place, will, therefore, do.
They should not be kept in a warm place ; for they
vf\\\Leat and grow. The neatest way is to tie them
up in roprs ; that is to say, to tie them round sticks,

J52 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap,

or straight straw, with matting (See Endive.} — •
For seed, pick out. the finest onions, and plant them
out in rich land, in the spring. — To grow this seed
upon a large scale, plough the land into four feet
ridges, lay plenty of dung along the furrows, plough
the ground back over the dung, flatten the top of
the ridge a little, and put along, on the top of the
ridge two rows of onions, the rows seven inches
apart, and the onions seven inches apart in the
rows. When the weeds come, hoe the tops of the
ridg.es with a small hoe, and plough first from and
then to the ridges, two or three times, at the distance
of two or three weeks, as in the case of Ruta Baga,
cultivated in the field. — When the seed is ripe, cut
off the heads and collect them in such a way as not
to scatter the seed. Lay them on cloths, in the
sun, till dry as dust ; and then thresh out the seed,
•winnow it, and put it away. The seed will be dead
ripe in August, and transplanted Ruta Baga, or
Early York Cabbages, or even Kidney dwarf beans,
or, perhaps, Buckwheat, may follow upon the same
ground, the same year. — In a garden there always
ought to be a crop to succeed seed-onions the same
summer.

239. PARSLEY. — Known to every human be-
ing to bear its seed the second year, and, after that,
to die away. It may be sown at any season when
the frost is out of tb'e ground. The best way is to
sow it in spring, and in very clean ground ; because
the seed lies long in the ground, and, if the ground
be foul, the weeds choak the plants at their coming
up. — A bed of six feet long and four wide, the seed
sown in drills at eight inches apart, is enough for
any family in the world. — But, every body likes
parsley, and where the winter is so long and so
sharp as it is in this country, the main thing is to

IV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 153

be able to keep parsley through the winter. I ?an
not be preserved dry, with success, like Mint, Mar-
joram, and the rest of the pot-herbs. It is possible
to preserve it green, because I have done it ; bul,
it loses its smell and flavour. Therefore, to have
Parsley in winter, you must keep it alive. If you
have a Green-house (or you may do it even in any
ol* the window seats of a house) half a dozen flower-
pots, planted with stout plants in September, and
taken into the house in November, will be sufficient.
As soon as winter breaks up, put them out in the
natural ground ; and thus you have plenty of Pars-
ley all the year round. However, Parsley may, be
preserved in the natural ground. You have only
to put straw, or leaves of trees, or long litter, six
inches thick on the bed, and to lay on something to
prevent the covering from being blown off. (See
Endive.} This will preserve its leaves from being
destroyed ; and, when you go to get it, you miut
lift up the covering, of a part of the bed, and put it
down again.

240. PARSNIP. — As to season of sowing, sort
of land, preparation of ground, distances, and cul-
tivation and tillage, precisely the same as the Car-
rot, which see, Paragraph 208. But, as to preser-
vation during winter, and for spring use, the Pars-
nip stands all frost without injury, and even with
benefit. So that, all you want is to put up for win-
ter as many as you want during the hard frost ; and
these you may put up in the same manner as directed
for Carrots and Beets. — The greens of Parsnips are
as good for cow feed as those of Carrots ; but, if
the Parsnips be to stand out in the ground all the
winter, the greens should not be cut off in the
fall.

241. PEA. — This is one of those vegetables

154 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

which all men most like. Its culture is universal,
where people have the means of growing it. The
sorts of peas are very numerous; and I will men
tion a few of them presently. — The soil should be
good, and fresh dung- is good manure for them.
Ashes, and compost, very good ; but peas, like In-
dian Corn, will bear to be actually sown upon dung.
Never were finer peas grown than there are grown
in the United States ; and, as we shall presently
see, they may be had, in the open ground, in Long
Island, from first of June till the sharp frosts set
in. — The sorts are numerous, one class is of a small
size and the other large. The latter grow taller,
and are longer in coming to perfection, than the
former. The earliest of all is the little white pea,
called, in Long Island, the May-Pea, and, in Eng-
land, the early frame-pea. Then come the early
Charleton, the Hotspur, the Blue Pea, the Dwarf
and Tall Marrowfats; and several others, espe-
cially the Knight Pea, the seed of which is rough,
uneven shaped and shrivelled, and the plant of
which grows very tall. — All the sorts may be grown
in America, without sticks, and even better than
with. I have this year (1819) the finest peas I ever
saw, and the crop the most abundant. And this is
the manner, in which I have sown and cultivated
them. I ploughed the ground into ridges, the tops
of which (for the dwarf sorts) were four feet apart.
I then put a good parcel of yard-dung into the fur-
rows ; and ploughed the earth back upon the dung.
I then levelled the top of the ridge a little, and drew
two drills along upon it at six inches distant from
each other. In these I sowed the peas When the
peas were about three inches high, I hoed the
ground deep and well between the rows and on each
outside of them. I then ploughed the ground from

(V.j THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 155

them, anil to them again, in the same way r.s in the
case of Swedish Turnips. In a week or two after-
wards they had anr^her ploughing; and soon after
this they fell, and lay down the sides of the. ridges.
This was the way in which I managed all the sorts,
only in the case of the Knight Pea I put the ridges
at six feet asunder. — This was, of every sort, tht
very finest crop of peas I ever saw in my life
When not sticked, and sown upon level ground,
peas fall about irregularly, and, in case of much
wet, the under pods rot ; but, from the ridges they
fall regularly, and the wet does not lodge about
them You walk up the furrows to gather the peas ;
and nothing can be more beautiful, or more conve-
nient. The culture in the garden may be the same,
except that the work which is done with the plough
in the field, must, in the garden, be done with the
spade. — As to seasons, the early pea may be sown
in the fall. See Paragraph 159. But, in this case,
care must be taken to guard against mice. Sow
about four inches deep, and tread the ground well
down. When the frost sets in, all is safe till winter
breaks up. These peas will be earlier by ten or
fifteen days than any that you can sow in the
spring. — If you sow in ihe spring, do it as soon as
the ground is dry enough to go upon. Sow the
May Pea, some Charletons, some Hotspurs, some
Blue* Peas, some Marrowfats, and some Knight Pea,
all at the same time, and they will come one after
another, so as to give you green peas till nearly
August. In June (about the middle) sow some
early pea again and also somt; Marrowfats and
Knight Pea ; and these will give you peas till Sep-
tember. Sow some of each sort middle of August,
and they will give you green peas till the hardish
frosts come. — But, these two last sowings (June

156 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

and August) ought to be under the South feace, so
as to get as much coolness as possible.

242. PENNYROYAL.— A medicinal herb. It w
perennial. A little patch, a foot square, is enough.

243. PEPPER. See Capsicum.

244. PEPPER GRASS. See Cress.

245. POTATOE. — Every body knows how to
cultivate this plant ; and, as to its preservation
during winter, if you can ascertain the degree ol
warmth necessary to keep a baby from perishing,
you know precisely the precautions required to pre-
serve a potatoe. — As to sorts, they are as numerous
as the stones of a pavement in a large city ; but,
there is one sort earlier than all others. It is a
small, round, white potatoe, that has no blossom,
and the leaf of which is of a pale green, very thin,
very smooth, and nearly of the shape and size of
the inside of a lemon cut asunder longways. This
potatoe, if planted with other sorts in the spring,
will be ripe six weeks sooner than any other sort.
I have had two crops of this potatoe ripen on the
same ground in the same year, in England, the se-
cond crop from potatoes of the first. Two crops
could be raised in America with the greatest facili-
ty.— But, if you once get this sort, and wish to
keep it, you must take care that no other sort grow
with it, or near it ; for, potatoes of this kind mix
the breed more readily than any thing els-e, though
they have no bloom ! If some plants of this bios-
somless kind grow with or near the other kinds,
they will produce plants with a rough leaf, some of
them will even btow, and they will lose their quali-
ty of earliness. This is quite enough to prove the
fallacy of the doctrine of a communication of the
farina of the flowers of plants.

246. POTATOE (Sweet.)— This plant is culti.

IV ] THF. AMERiCAX GARDENER. 157

rated in much the same way as the last. Heat is
what it chiefly wants; and great care indeed must
be taken to preserve it in winter.

247. PUMPKIN.— See Cucumber. The culti-
vation is the same, and every body knows the dif-
ferent qualities of the different sorts, and how to
preserve and use them all

248. PURSLANE. — A mischievous weed that
Frenchmen and pigs eat when they can get nothing
else. Both use it in salad, that is to say, raw.

249. RADISH. — A great variety of sorts. Sown
thin in little drills six inches asunder. Sown as
early as possible in the spring, and a little bed
every three weeks all summer long. The early
scarlet is the best. Radishes may be raised early
in a hot-bed precisely as cabbage-plants are.

250. RAMPION.— This is the smallest seed of
which we have any knowledge. A thimble full,
properly distributed, would sow an acre of land.
It is sown in the spring, in very fine earth. Its
roots are used in so»ups and salads. Its leaves are
also used in salads. A yard square is enough for
any orarden.

251. RAPE. — This is a field-plant for sheep ;
but it is very good to sow like White Mustard, to
use as salad, and it is sown and raised in the same
way.

252. RHUBARB. — This is one of the capital
articles of the garden, though I have neven seen it
in America. The Dock is the wild Rhubarb, and
if you look at, and taste, the root, you will see the
proof of it. The Rhubarb plant has leaves as broad
and long as those of the burr^dock. Its comes forth,
like the dock, very early in the spring. When its
leaves are pretty large, you cut them off f lose to
the stem, and, if the plant be fine, the stalk of the

14

ii>3 THE AMERICAN GARDENLR. [Chap.

leaf will be from eight inches to a foot long. You
peel the outside skin from these stalks, arid then
cut the stalks up into bits about as big as the first
joint of a lady's third finger. You put these into
puddings, pies, tarts, just as you would green goose-
berries and green currants, and some people think
they are better than either : at any rate, they are
full six weeks earlier. — The plant, like the dock, is
hardy, is raised from seed, from the roots, will grow
in any ground, though best in rich ground ; and the
same plants will last for an age. It is a very valu-
able plant, and no garden ought to be without it. I
should think, that a hundred wagon-loads of the
stalks are yearly sold in London. A bunch which
you can clasp with your two hands sells for a shil-
ling or two in the very early part of the season ;
and that is nearly half a dollar. This circumstance
sufficiently speaks its praise.

253. ROSEMARY is a beautiful little shrub.
One of them may be enough in a garden. It is pro-
pagated from slips, taken off in the spring and
planted in a cool place.

254. RUE. — Still more beautiful. Propagated
in the same manner. One plant of the kind is
enough.

255. RUTABAGA.— (See Turnip.)

256. SAGE is raised from seed, or from slips.
To have it at hand for winter it is necessary to dry
it ; and it ought to be cut, for this purpose, before,
it comes out into bloom, as, indeed, is the case with
all other herbs.

257. SALSAFY, called, by some, oyster plant.
is good in soups, or to eat like the parsnip. It is
cultivated like the parsnip, and, like it, stands out
the whole of an American winter.

258. SAMPHIRE is propagated from seed, of

IV ', THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 159

from offsets. It is perennial, and is sometimes used
as a pickle, or in salads.

259. SAVORY. — Two sorts, summer and win-
ter. The former is annual, and the latter perennial

260. SAVOY.— See Cabbage, Paragraph 201.

261. SCORZENERA.— This is only another
kind of SALSAFY. It is cultivated and used in the
same manner as Salsafy is.

262. SHALQT.— A little sort of Onion, which
is taken up in the fall and kept for winter use.
Each plant multiplies itself in the summer by add-
ing offsets all round it. One of them is a plant to
put out in the spring to produce other offsets for
use and for planting out again. They should be
planted in rows six inches apart, and four inches
apart in the rows. The ground should not be wet
at bottom, and should be kept very clean during the
summer.

263. SKIRRET is cultivated for its root, which
is used in soups. It may be raised from seed, or
from offsets. It is perennial, and a very small
patch may suffice.

264. SORREL.— This is no other than the wild
sorrel cultivated. It is propagated from seed, or from
offsets. It is perennial. The French make large
messes of it ; but a foot square may suffice for an
American garden.

265. SPINACH.— Every one knows how good
and useful a plant this is. It is certainly preferable
to any of the cabbage kind in point of wholesome-
ness, and it is of very easy cultivation. There is,
in fact, but one sort, that I know any thing of,
though the seed is sometimes more prickly than at
other times. To have spinach very early in the
spring, sow (Longlsland) on or about the first week
of September, in drills a foot apart, and, when the

ICO THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

plants are well up, thin them to six inches. The?
will be fine arid strong by the time that the winter
sets in ; and, as soon as that time comes, cover
them over wrell with straw, and keep the straw on
till the breaking up of the frost. — Sow more as
soon as the frost is out of the ground ; and this will
be in perfection in June. — You may sow again in
May ; but the plants will go off to seed before they
attain to much size. — If you save seed, save it from
plants that have stood the winter.

266. SQUASH is, in all its varieties, cultivated
like the Cucumber, which see.

267. TANSY, a perennial culinary and medici-
nal herb, propagated from seed, or offsets. One
root in a garden is enough.

268. TARRAGON is a very hot, peppery herb.
It is used in soup and salads. It is perennial, and
may be propagated from seed, or from offsets, or
slips, put out in spring. Its young and tender tops
only are used. It is eaten with beef-steaks in com-
pany with minced shalote. A man may live very
well without it ; but, an Englishman once told me,
that he and six others once eat some beef-steaks
with Shalots and Tarragon, and that " they voted
unanimously, that beef-steaks never were so
eaten !" It must be dried, like mint, for winter use.

269. THYME. — There are two distinct sorts.
Both are perennial, and both may be propagated
either from seed, or from offsets.

270. TOMATUM.— This plant comes from the
countries bordering on the Mediterranean. In
England it requires to be raised in artificial heat,
and to be planted out against warm \valls. Here it
would require neither. It climbs up very high,
and would require bushy sticks. It bears a sort of
apple about as big as a black walnut with its green

IV.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 1G1

husk on. This fruit is used to thicken stews and
soups, and great quantities are sold in London. It
is raised from seed only, being an annual ; and the
seed should be sown at a great distance, seeing that
the plants occupy a good deal of room.

271. TURNIP. — It is useless to attempt to raise
them by sowing in the spring : they are never good
till the fall. — The sorts of Turnips are numerous,
but, for a garden, it is quite sufficient to notice
three ; the early white, the fiat yellow, and the
Swedish, or Rutabaga, which last is a very differ-
ent plant indeed from the other two. — The two for-
mer sorts should be sown about the end of July, in
rows (in a garden) two feet apart, and thinned out
to a foot distance in the rows. Good and deep hoe-
ing and one digging should take place during their
growth ; for, a large turnip of the same age is bet-
ter, weight for weight, than a small one, just as the
largest apples, or peaches, growing upon the same
tree, are better than the small ones growing on it
the same year. — The Swedish turnip, so generally
preferred for table use here, and so seldom used for
the table in England, ought to be sown early in
June, in rows at a foot apart and thinned to three
inches in the rows. About the middle of July they
ought to be transplanted upon ridges three fee

part (in a garden,) and during their growth, ough'
.o be kept clean, and to be dug between twice at
least, as deep as a good spade can be made to go. — •
As to the preserving of turnips during the winter,
follow precisely the direc'iions given for the pre-
serving of Beets. See Beet. — But the Swedish
Turnip is of further use as producing most excel-

ent greens in the spring, and at a very early sea-
son. To draw this benefit from them, the best way
is, te leave a row o^ two in the ground, and, when
14*

Jf62 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

the winter is about to set in, cover them all ovei
with straw or cedar boughs. Take these off when,
the winter breaks up, and you will have very early
and most excellent greens ; and, when you have
done with the greens, the Turnips are verv good
to eat.

272. WORMWOOD is an herb purely medicinal.
It may be propagated from seed, from slips, or from
offsets. It ought not to occupy a space of more
than a foot square. It must be dried and put by in
bags for winter use.

CHAPTER V.

FRUITS.

Propagation, Planting, Cultivation.

PROPAGATION.

273. All the Fruits to be treated of here, except
the Strawberry, are the produce of trees or oi
wood,/ plants. All these may be propagated from
seed, and some are so propagated. But others are
usually propagated by cuttings, slips, layers, or
suckers : or by budding- or grafting- upon stocks.

274. The methods of propagation, best suited to
each kind, will be mentioned under the name of the
kinds respectively ; and, therefore, in this place I
am to describe the several methods generally, and
the management suited to each.

275. When the propagation is from seed, the
sowing should be in good ground, finely broken,
and the seed should by no means be sown too thick.
How to save and preserve the seed will be spoken
of under the names of the several trees. But, the

V'.J THE AMERICAS GARDENER. 103

seed being good, it should be well sown, well so
vered, and carefully preserved from mice and othei
vermin.

2*76. CUTTINGS are short pieces, cut in the
spring, from shoots of the last year, and it is, in
most cases, best, if they have a joint or two of the
former year's wood, at the bottom of them. The
cutting should have altogether, about six joints, or
buds ; and three of these should be under ground
when planted. The cuts should be performed with
a sharp knife, so that there may be nothing ragged
or bruised about either wood or bark. The time
for taking off cuttings is that of the breaking up of
the frost. They should be planted in a shady place,
and watered with rain water, in dry weather, until
they have got shoots several inches long, \\hen
they have such shoots they have roots, and when
they have these, no more watering is necessary.
Besides these occasional waterings, tne ground
should, especially in hot countries, be covered with
leaves of trees, or muck, or something that will keep
the ground cool during the hot and dry weather.

277. SLIPS differ from cuttings in this, that the
former are not cut, but pulled, from the tree. You
take a shoot of the last year, and pull it down-
wards, and thus slip it off. You trim the ragged
back off; then shorten the shoot so that it have six
joints left; and then plant it and manage it in the
same manner as directed for cuttings. The season
for the work is also the same.

273. LAYERS.— You take a limb, or branch of
a tree, in the fall, or early in Spring, and pull it
down in such a way as to cause its top, or small
shoots and twigs to lie upon the ground. Then
fasten the limb down by a peg or two, so that its
own force will not raise it up. Then prune off all

y04 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

the small branches and shoots that stick upright ;
and, having a parcel of shoots lying horizontally,
lay earth upon the whole, all along upon the limb
from the point where it begins to touch the ground,
and also upon all the bottoms of all the shoots.
Then cut the shoots off at the points, leaving only
two or three joints or buds beyond the earth. The
earth, laid on should be good, and the ground should
be fresh-digged and made very fine and smooth be-
fore the branches be laid upon it. The earth, laid
on, should be from six inches to a foot thick. If
the limb, or mother branch, be very stubborn, a lit-
tle cut on the lower side of it will make it the more
easy to be held down. The ground should be kept
clean from weeds, and as cool as possible in hot
weather. Perhaps rocks or stones (not large) are
the best and coolest covering. These layers will
be ready to take up and plant out as trees after they
have been laid a year.

279. SUCKERS are, in general, but poor things,
whether in the forest, or in the fruit garden. They
are shoots that come up/rom the roots, at a dis-
tance from the stem of the tree, or, at least, they
do not come out of that stem. They run to wood
and to suckers more than trees do that are raised
in any other way. Fruit trees raised from suckers
do not bear so abundantly, and such good fruit, as
trees raised from cuttings, slips or layers. A suck-
er is, in fact, a little tree with more or less of root
to it, and is, of course, to be treated as a tree.

280. BUDDING. — To have fruit trees by this
method, or by that of grafting, you must first have
stocks ; that is to say, a young tree to bud or graft
upon. What are the sorts of stocks proper foi
the sorts of fruit-trees respectively will be men-
tioned under the names of the latter. The stock

V.J THL AMERICAN GARDENER. lG5

is a young tree of some sort or otier, and the bud
is put into the bark on the side of this young tree
during the summer ; and not before the bud be full
and plump. The work may generally be done all
through the months of July and August, and, per-
haps, later.

281. GRAFTING is the joining of a cutting of
one to another tree in such a way as that the tree,
on which the cutting is placed, sends up its sap
into the cutting, and makes it grow and become a
tree. Now, as to the way, in which this, and the
way in which budding, is done, they cannot upon
any principle consistent with common sense, be-
come matter of written description. Each is a
mechanical operation, embracing numerous move-
ments of the arms, hands, and fingers, and is no
more to be taught by written directions than the
making of a chest of drawers is. To read a full
and minute account of the acts of budding and
grafting would require ten times the space of time
that it requires to go to a neighbour's and learn,
from a sight of the operation, that which, after all,
no written directions would ever teach. To bud
and graft, in all the various modes, form a much
nicer and more complicated operation than that of
making a shoe ; and I defy any human being to
describe adequately all the several acts in the
making of a shoe, in less than two volumes, each
larger than this. The season for taking off the cut-
tings for grafts, is any time between Christmas and
March. Any time after the sap is completely in a
quiescent state and before it be again in motion.
When cut off they will keep several months. I
cut some here in January last (1819.) They
reached England in March; arid, I hear that they
were growing well in June. A great deal has been

166 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

said about the season for grafting, and Mr. MAR
SHALL tells the English, that it must not be done
till the sap in the stock is just ready to flow
freely. He has never seen an American Negro-man
sitting by a hot six-plate stove, grafting apple-trees
in the month of January, and then putting them
away in his cave, to be brought out and planted in
April ! I have seen this ; and my opinion is, that
the work may be done at any time between Oc-
tober and May : nay, I am not sure, that it may
not be done all the summer long. The cuttings
too, may be taken oif, and put on directly ; and,
the sooner the better ; but, in the winter months,
they will keep good off the tree for several
months,

282. STOCKS must be of different ages and
sizes in different cases ; and even the propagation
of the stocks themselves is not to be over-looked.
Stocks are formed out of suckers, or raised from
the seed ; and the latter is by far the best ; for
suckers produce suckers, and do not grow to a
handsome stem, or trunk. Crabs are generally
the stocks for Apple-grafts, and Plumbs for Pears,
Peaches, Nectarines, and Apricots. However, we
shall speak of the sorts of Stocks, suitable to each
sort of fruit-tree by and by : at present we have to
speak of the raising- of Stocks. If the stocks be
to be of crabs or apples, the seeds of these should
be collected in the fall when the fruit is ripe.
They are generally got out by mashing the crabs,
or apples. When the seeds are collected, put
them immediately into fine earth ; or sow them at
once. It may not, however, be convenient to sow
them at once ; and, perhaps, the best way is to sow
very early in the spring. If the stocks be to be of
etone fruit, the stones, as of cherries, plumbs,

-;| THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 167

peaches, and others, must be got when the fruit is
ripe. The best way is to put them into fine earth,
and keep them there till spring. The earth may
he placed in a cellar ; or put into a barrel ; or, a
little pit may be made in the ground, and it may
be placed there. When the winter breaks up, dig
a piece of ground deep and make it rich ; make it
very fine ; form it into beds, three feet wide ; draw
drills across it at 8 inches distance; make them
from two to three inches deep ; put in the seeds
pretty thick (for they cost little ;) cover them com-
pletely ; tread the earth down upon them ; and
then smooth the surface. When the plants come
up, thin them to about 3 inches apart ; and keep the
ground between them perfectly clean during the
summer. Hoe frequently ; but not deep near the
plants; for, we are speaking of trees here; and
trees do not renew their roots quickly as a cabbage,
or a turnip, does. These young trees should be
kept, during the first summer, as moist as possible,
without watering ; and the way to keep them as
moist as possible is to keep the ground perfectly
clean, and to hoe it frequently. I cannot help ob-
serving here upon an observation of Mr. MAR-
SHALL : " as to weeding," says he, " though seed-
ling trees must not be smothered, yet some small
weeds may be suffered to grow in summer, as they
help to shade the plants and keep the ground cool."
Mercy on this Gentleman's readers ! Mr. Marshall
had not read TTJLL ; if he had, he never would
have written this very erroneous sentence. It is
the root of the weed that does the mischief. Let
there be a rod of ground well set with even " small
jeeds," and another rod kept weeded. Let them
tdjoin each other. Go, after 15 or 20 days of t!ry
weather ; examine the two ; and you will find the

108 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. (Chap

\veedlcrss ground moist and fresh, while the other
is dry as dust to a foot deep. The root of the
weed sucks up every particle of moisture. What
pretty things they are, then, to keep seedling trees
cool ! — To proceed : these seedlings, if well ma-
naged, will be eight inches high, arid some higher,
at the end of the first summer. The next spring
they should be taken up ; or, this may be done in
the fall. They should be planted in rows, four
feet apart, to give room to turn about amongst
them ; and at two feet apart in the rows, if intend-
ed to be grafted or budded without being again re-
moved. If intended to be again removed, before
grafting or budding, they may be put at a foot apart.
They should be kept clean by hoeing between them,
and the ground between them should be dug in the
fall, but not at any other season of the year. — The
plants will grow fast or slowly according to the soil
and management ; and, he who knows how to bud
or to graft, will know when the stock is arrived at
the proper size for each purpose. — To speak ot
the kind of stocks, most suitable to the different
kinds of fruit trees, is reserved till we come to speak
of the trees themselves ; but there are some re-
marks to be made here, which have a general ap-
plication, relative to the kinds of stocks.— It is
supposed by some persons, that the nature of the
stock affects the nature of the fruit ; that is to say,
that the fruit growing on branches, proceeding from
a bud, or a graft, partakes, more or less of the
flavour of the fruit which would have grown ^n
the stock, if the stock had been suffered to grow to
a tree and to bear fruit. This is Mr. MARSHALL'S
notion. But, how erroneous it is must be manifest
to every one when he reflects, that the stock for
the pear tree is frequently the white-thorn. Can a

V.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 169

pear partake of the nature of the haw, which
grows upon the thorn, and which is a stone-fruit
too ? If this notion were correct, there could be
hardly a single apple-orchard in all England : for.
they graft upon crab-stocks ; and, of course, all
the apples, in the course of years, would become
crabs. Apricots and Peaches are, in England, al-
ways put on plum-stocks ; yet, after centuries of
this practice, they do not become plumbs. If the
fruit of the graft partake of the nature of the
stock, why not the wood and leaves ? Yet, is it not
visible to all eyes, that neither ever does so par-
take ? — This, then, like the carrying of the farina
from the male to the female flower, is a mere whim,
or dream. The bud, or graft, retains its own na-
ture, wholly unchanged by the slock ; and, all that
is of consequence, as to the kind of stock, is, whe-
ther it be such as will last long, and supply the
tree with a suitable quantity of wood. This is a
matter of great importance ; for, though peach will
grow on peach, and apple on apple, the trees are
not nearly so vigorous and durable as if the peach
were put on the plum and the apple on the crab.
In 1800, I sent several trees from England to
Messrs. James and Thomas Paul, at Busleton, in
Pennsylvania. There was a Nectarine amongst
these. It is well known, that, in 1817, there had
been so great a mortality in the peach orchards,
that they had become almost wholly extinct. At
Busleton there had been as great a mortality as in
any other part. Yet I, that year, saw the Nectarine
tree large, sound in every part, fine and flourish-
ing. It is very well known, that the peach trees
here are very short-lived. Six, seven, or eight
years, seem to be the duration of their life. This
Nectarine had stood seventeen years, and wa*
15

170 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [C'fiap

likely to stand twice as long yet to corne. It is
now growing- in the garden of the late Mr. James
Paul, in Lower Dublin Township ; and there any
one may see it. — It is clear to me, therefore, that
the short life of th« peach-orchards is owing to the
stock being- peach. No small part of the peach-
trees are raised from the stone. Nothing is more
frequent than to see a farmer, or his wife, when he
or she has eaten a good peach, go and make a little
hole and put the stone in the ground, in order to
have a peach tree of the same sort ! Not consider-
ing, that the stone never, except by mere accident,
produces fruit of the same quality as that within
which it was contained, any more than the seed of
a carnation produces flowers like those from which
they proceeded. — The peaches in America are,
when budded, put on peach-stocks ; and this, I
think, is the cause of their swift decay. They
should be put on plum-stocks ; for, to what other
cause are we to ascribe the long life and vigorous
state of the Nectarine at Mr. Paul's ? The plum is
a closer and harder wood than the peach. The
peach-trees are destroyed by a worm,, or, rather, a
sort of maggot, that eats into the bark at the stem.
The insects do not like the plum bark ; and, be-
sides, the plum is a more hardy and vigorous tree
than the peach, and, observe, it is frequently, and
most frequently, the feebleness, or sickliness, of the
tree that creates the insects, and not the insects
that create the feebleness and sickliness. There
are thousands of peach trees in England and
France that tore fifty years old, and that are still in
vigorous fruitfulness. There is a good deal in cli-
mate, to be sure ; but, I am convinced, that there
is a great deal in the stock. — Before I quit the sub-
ct of stocks, let me beg the reader never, if he

V.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 171

can avoid it, to make use of suckers, particularly
for an apple or pear-orchard, which almost neces-
sarily is to become pasture. Stocks formed out ot
suckers produce suckers ; and, if the ground re-
main in grass for a few years, there, will arise a
young wood all over the ground ; and this wood, if
not torn up by the plough, will, in a short time,
destroy the trees, and will in still less time, deprive
them of their fruitfulness. Besides this, suckers,
being originally excrescences, and unnaturally vig-
orous, make wood too fast, make too much 'wood;
and, where this is the case, the fruit is scanty in
quantity. " Haste makes waste" in most cases ;
but, perhaps, in nothing so much as in the use of
suckers as stocks. By waiting a year longer and
bestowing a little care, you obtain seedling stocks ;
and, really, if a man has not the trifling portion of
patience and industry that is here required, he is
unworthy of the good fruit and the abundant crops,
which with proper management, are sure, in this
country, to be the reward of his pains. — Look at
England, in the spring ! There you see fruit trees
of all sorts covered with bloom ; and from all of it
there sometimes comes, at last, not a single fruit.
Here, is this favoured country, to count the blos-
soms is to count the fruit ! The way to show our
gratitude to God for such a blessing, is, to act well
our part in turning the blessing to the best account

PLANTING.

2S3. I am not to speak here of the situation for
planting, of the aspect, of the nature of the soil, of
the preparation of the soil ; for these have all been
described in CHAPTER I, Paragraph 20, save and
except, that, for trees, the ground should be pre-
pared as directed for Asparagus, which see in its
Alphabetical place, in Chapter IV.

172 THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

284. Before the reader proceed further, he should
read very attentively what is said of transplanting
generally, in Chapter III, Paragraph 109 and on-
wards. He will there perceive the absolute neces-
sity of the ground, to be planted in, being made
perfectly fine, and that no clods, great or small,
ought to be tumbled in about the roots. This is so
capital a point, that I must request the reader to
pay particular attention to it. To remove a tree,
though young, is an operation that puts the vegeta-
tive faculties to a severe test ; and, therefore, every
thing should be done to render the shock as little
injurious as possible.

285. The tree to be planted should be as young
as circumstances will allow. The season is just
when the leaves become yellow, or, as early as pos-
sible in the spring. The ground being prepared,
and the tree taken up, prune the roots with a sharp
knife so as to leave none more than about a foot
long; and, if any have been torn off nearer to the
stem, prune the part, so that no bruises or ragged
parts remain. Cut off all the. fbres close to the
roots ; for, they never live, and they mould, and do
great injury. If cut off, their place is supplied by
other fibres more quickly, Dig the hole to plant in
three times as wide, and six inches deeper, than the
roots actually need as mere room. And now, be-
sides the fine earth generally, have some good
mould sifted. Lay some of this six inches deep at
the bottom of the hole. Place the roots upon this
in their natural order, and hold the tree perfectly
upright, while you put more sifted earth on the
roots. Sway the tree backward and forward a lit-
tle, and give it a gentle lift arid shake, so that the
fine earth may find its way amongst the roots arid
leave not the smallest cavity. Every root should

V'.J THE AMERICAN GARDENER. / 173

be closely touched by the earth in every part. When
you have covered all the roots with the sifted earth,
and have seen that your tree stands just as high
with regard to the level of the ground as it did in
the place where it before stood, allowing about 3
inches for sinking, fill up the rest of the hole with
the common earth of the plat, and when you have
about half filled it, tread the earth that you put in,
but not very hard. Put on the rest of the earth,
and leave the surface perfectly smooth. Do not wa-
ter by any means. Water, poured on, in this case,
sinks rapidly down, and makes cavities amongst the
roots. Lets in air. Mould and canker follow ; and
great injury is done.

286. If the tree be planted in the fall, as soon as
the leaf begins to be yellow ; that is to say, in Oc-
tober early, it will have struck out new roots to the
length of some inches before the winter sets in.
And this is certainly the best time for doing the bu-
siness. But, mind, the roots should be out of ground
as short a time as possible ; and should by no means
be permitted to get dry, if you can avoid it ; for,
though some trees will live after having been a long
while out of ground, the shorter the time out of
ground the sooner the roots strike; and, if the roots
should get dry before planting, they ought to be
soaked in water, rain or pond, for half a day before
the tree be planted.

287. If the tree be for an orchard, it must be five
or six feet high, unless cattle are to be kept out for
two or three years. And, in this case, the head ot
the tree must be pruned short, to prevent it from
swaying about from the force of the wind. Even
when pruned, it will be exposed to be loosened by
this cause, and must be kept steady by a stake ;
but, it must no* be fastened to a stake, until raiu

15*

174 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chsp

has come to settle the ground ; for, such fastening
would prevent it from sinking with the earth. The
earth would sink from it, and leave cavities about
the roots.

288. When the trees are short, they will require
no stakes. They may be planted the second year
after budding, and the first after grafting ; and these
are the best times. If planted in the fall, the tree
should be shortened very early in the spring, and
in such a way as to answer the ends to be pointed
out more particularly when we come to speak of
pruning.

289. If you plant in the spring, it should be as
early as the ground will bear moving ; only, bear
in mind, that the ground must always be dry at top
when you plant. In this case, the new roots will
strike out almost immediately ; and as soon as the
buds begin to swell, shorten the head of the tree.
After a spring-planting, it may be necessary to
guard against drought ; and the best protection is
the laying of small stones of any sort round the
tree, so as to cover the area of a circle of three
feet in diameter, of which circle the stem of the tree
is the centre. This will keep the ground cooler
than any thing else that you can put upon it.

290. As to the distances, at which trees ought to
be planted, that must depend on the sort of tree,
and on other circumstances. It will be seen by
looking at the plan of the garden (Plate 1,) that I
make provision for 70 trees, and for a row of grape
vines extending the length of two of the plats.
The trees will have a space of 14 feet square each.
But, in orchards, the distances for apples and pears
must be much greater • otherwise the trees will
soon run their branches into, and injure each
other.

Yj THE AMERICAN GARDENER 175

CULTIVATION.

291. The Cultivation of fruit trees d vides itself
into two distinct parts ; the management of the tree
itself, which consists of pruning and tying; and
the management of the ground where the trees
grow, which consists of digging, hoeing, and ma-
nuring. The management of the tree itself differs
with the sort of tree ; and, therefore, I shall treat
of the management of each sort under its own par-
ticular name. But the management of the ground
where trees grow is the same in the case of all the
larger trees ; and, for that reason, I shall here give
directions concerning it.

292. In the first place, the ground is always to
be kept clear of weeds ; for, whatever they take is
just so much taken from the fruit, either in quantity,
or in quality, or in both. It is true, that very fine
orchards have grass covering all the ground be-
neath the trees ; but, these orchards would be still
finer if the ground were kept clear from all plants
whatever except the trees. Such a piece of ground
is, at once, an Orchard and a Pasture : what is lost
one way is, probably, gained the other. But, if we
come to fine and choice fruits, there can be nothing
that can grow beneath to balance against the injury
done to the trees.

293. The roots of trees go deep ; but, the prin-
cipal part of their nourishment comes from the top-
soil. The ground should be loose to a good depth,
which is the certain cause of constant moisture ; but
trees draw downwards as well as upwards, and
draw more nourishment in the former than in the
latter direction. Vineyards, as TULL observes,
must always be tilled, in some way or other; or
they will produce nothing of value. He adds, that
Mr. EVELYN says, that «« when the soil, wherein

176 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chaj

fruit-tretfs are planted, is constantly kept in tillage,
they grow up to an Orchard in half the time, they
would do, if the soil were not tilled." Therefore,
tillage is useful ; but, it were better, that there were
tillage without under crops ; for these crops take
away a great part of the strength that the manure
and tillage bring.

294. Now, then, as to the trees in my garden ;
they are to be choice peaches, nectarines, apricots,
plums, cherries, and grape vines, with a very few
apples and pears. The sorts will be mentioned
hereafter in the Alphabetical list ; but, the tillage
for all except the grape vines, is the same ; and the
nature of that exception will be particularly stated
under the name of grape.

295. It was observed before, that the ground is
always to be kept clear of weeds. From the spring
to the fall frequent hoeing all the ground over,
not only to keep away weeds but to keep the
ground moist in hot and dry weather, taking care
never to hoe but when the ground is dry at top.
This hoeing should not go deeper than four or five
inches ; for, there is a great difference between
trees and herbaceous plants as to the renewal of
their roots respectively. Cut off the lateral root?
of a cabbage, or a turnip, of a wheat or a rye or an
Indian-corn plant, and new roots, from the parts
that remain, come out in 12 hours, and the opera-
tion, by multiplying the mouths of the feeders of
the plant, gives it additional force. But, the roots
of a tree consist of wood, more or less hard ; they
do not quickly renew themselves : they are of a
permanent nature : and they must not be much mu-
tilated during the time that the sap is in the flow.

296. Therefore, the ploughing between trees or
the digging between trees ought to take place onlv

V.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER 177

in the fall , which gives time for a renewal, or new
supply, of roots before the sap be again in motion.
For this reason, if crops be grown under trees in
orchards, they should be of wheat, rye, winter-
barley, or of something that does not demand a
ploughing of the ground in the spring. In the gar-
den, dig the ground well and clean, with a fork, late
in November. Go close to the stems of the trees ;
but do not bruise the large roots. Clean and clear
all well close round the stem. Make the ground
smooth just there. Ascertain whether there be in-
sects there of any sort. And, if there 'be, take care
to destroy them. Pull, or scrape, off all rough bark
at the bottom of the stem. If you even peel off the
outside bark a foot or two up, in case there be in-
sects, it will be the better. Wash the stems with
water, in which tobacco has been soaked ; and do
this, whether you find insects or not. Put the to-
bacco into hot water, and let it soak 24 hours, be-
fore you use the water. This will destroy, or drive
away, all insects.

297. But, though, for the purpose of removing
all harbour for insects, you make the ground smooth
just round the stem of the tree, let the rest of the
ground lay as rough as you can ; for the rougher
it lies the more will it be broken by the frost, which
is a great enricher of all land. When the spring
comes, and the ground is dry at the top, give the
whole of the ground a good deep hoeing, which
will make it level and s nooth enough. Then go on
again hoeing throughout the summer, and watching
well all attempts of insects on the stems and bark
of the trees.

298. Diseases of trees are various in their kind ;
but, nine times out of ten they proceed from the
roct. Insects are much more frequently an effect

178 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

than a cause. If the disease proceed from blight^
there is no prevention, except that which is suggest-
ed by the fact, that feeble and sickly trees are fre-
quently blighted when healthy ones are not ; but,
when the insects come, they add greatly to the evil
They are generally produced by the disease, ag
maggots are by putrefaction. The ants are the
only active insect for which there is not a cure ;
and I know of no means of destroying jhem, bu
finding out their nests, and pouring boiling water on
them. A line dipped in tar tied round the stem
will keep them from climbing the tree : but they are
still alive. As to the diminutive creatures that ap-
pear as specks in the bark ; the best, and perhaps,
he only remedy against the species of disease ol
»vhich they are the symptoms, consists of good
'ants, good planting and good tillage. When or-
^ards are seized with diseases that pervade the
Avhole of the trees, or nearly the whole, the best
way is to cut them down : they are more plague
than profit, and, as long as they exist, they are a
source of nothing but constantly-returning disap-
pointment and mortification. However, as there
are persons who have a delight in quackery, who
are never so happy as when they have some specific
to apply, and to whom rosy cheeks and ruby lips
are almost an eye-sore, it is, perhaps, fortunate,
that the vegetable world presents them with pa-
tients; and thus, even in the cotton-blight 01 can-
ker, we see an evil, which we may be led to hope is
not altogether unaccompanied with good.

LIST OF FRUITS.

299. Having, in the former parts of this CHAP-
TER, treated of the propagation, planting, and cul-
tivation of all fruit trees (the grape vine only ex-
cepted) it would remain for me merely to give a

V.j THE AMERICAN GARDENLR.

List of the several fruits ; to speak of the different
sorts of each ; and of the mode of preserving them ;
but the stocks and pruning' vary, in some cases ;
and, therefore, as I go along, I shall have to speak
of them. Before, however, I enter on this Alpha-
betical List, let me observe, that only a part of the
fruits mentioned in it are proposed to be raised in
the garden ; and that the 70 trees, shown in the
Plate I, are intended to mark the paces, and, in
some degree, the form, of 6 Apple trees, 6 Apricots,
6 Cherries, 6 Nectarines, 30 Peaches, 6 Pears, and
10 Plums ; and, that the trelises, on the Southern
sides of Plats, No. 8 and 9, are intended to mark
the places for 4 Grape-Vines, there being another
Plate to explain more fully the object and dimen-
sions of this trelis work.*

300. APPLE. — Apples are usually grafted on
crab-stocks (See Paragraph 281 ;) but, when you do
not want the trees to grow tall and large, it is bet-
ter to raise stocks from the seed of some Apple not
much given to produce large wood. Perhaps the
Fall-Pippin seed may be as good as any. When
you have planted the tree, as directed in Paragraphs
283 to 289, and when the time comes for shorten-
ing the head, cut it off so as to leave only five or
six joints or buds. These will send out shoots,
which will become limbs. The tree will be what
they call; in England, a dwarf standard ; and, ol
this description are to be all the 70 trees in the
garden. — As to pruning, see PEACH ; for, the pru-
ning of all these dwarf standards is nearly the
same. — The sorts of Apples are numerous, and
every body knows, pretty well, which are the best.
In my garden I should only have six apple trees ;
and, theref re, they should be of the finest for the
season at which they are eaten. The earliest apple

180 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.,

is the Junating, the next the Summer PearmcAn
Besides these I would have a Doctor -apple, a Fall-
Pippin, a Newtown Pippin and a Greening. The
quantity would not be very large that six trees
would produce ; yet it would be considerable, and
the quality would be exquisitely fine. I would not
suffer too great a number of fruit to remain on the
tree ; and, I would be bound to have the three last-
named sorts weighing, on an average, 12 ounces
I have seen a Fall-Pippin that weighed a pound. —
To preserve apples, in their whole state, observe
this, that frost does not much injure them, provided
they be kept in total darkness during the frost and
until they be used, and provided they be perfectly
dry when put away. If put together in large par-
cels, and kept from the frbst, they heat, and then
they rot ; and, those of them that happen not to rot,
lose their flavour, become vapid, and are, indeed,
good for little. This is the case with the Newtowr
Pippins that are sent to England, which are halt
lost by rot, while the remainder are poor tasteless
stuff, very little better than the English apples, the
far greater part of which are either sour or mawk-
ish. The apples thus sent, have every possible dis-
advantage. They are gathered carelessly ; tossed
into baskets and tumbled into barrels at once, and
without any packing stuff between them ; the bar
rels are flung into arid out of wagons ; they are
rolled along upon pavements ; they are put in the
hold, or between the decks, of the ship : and, is it
any wonder, that a barrel of pomace, instead of
apples, arrive at Liverpool or London ? If, instead
of this careless work, the apples were gathered (a
week before ripe ;} not bruised at all in the gather-
ing; laid in the sun, on boards or cloths, three
days, to le* the watery particles evaporate a little :

V1 THE AMERICAN GARDENEIt. 181

put into barrels with fine-cut s Ira \v-chafl*, in such a
way as that no apple touched another ; carefully
carried to the ship and put on board, and as care-
fully landed ; and if this were the mode, one bar-
rel, though it would contain only half the quantity,
would sell for as much as, upon an average, taking-
in loss by total destruction, twenty barrels sell for
now. On the deck is the best part of the ship for
apples ; but, if managed as I have directed, between
decks would do very well. — In the keeping of ap-
ples for market, or for home-use, the same precau-
tions ought to be observed as to gathering and lav-
ing out to dry ; and, perhaps, to pack in the same
way also is the best mode that can be discovered.
Dried Apples is an article of great and general
use. Every body knows, that the apples are peel-
ed, cut into about eight pieces, the-core taken outr
and the pieces put in the sun till they become dry
and tough. They are then put by in bags, or boxes,
in a dry place. But, the flesh of the apple does not
change its nature in the drying; and, therefore, the
finest, and not the coarsest, apples should have all
this trouble bestowed upon them.

301. APRICOT.— This is a very delightful fruit.
It comes earlier than the peach : and some like it
better. It is a hardier tree, bears as well as the
peach, and the green fruit, when the size of a
hickory-nut, makes a very good tart. When ripe,
or nearly ripe, it makes a better pie than the peach;
and the tree, when well raised, planted, and culti-
vated, will last a century. — Apricots are budded or
grafted upon plum stocks, or upon stocks raised
from Apricot-stones. They do not bear so soon as
the peach by one year. For the pruning of them,
see PEACH. — There are many sorts of Apricots
some come earlier, some are larger, and some fine*

182 THE AMERICAN C AUDEXL'K, [Chap.

than others. It may be sufficient to name the Brus-
sels, the Moore-Park, and the Turkey. The first
carries most fruit as to number ; but, the others arc
larger and of liner flavour. Perhaps two trees ol
each of these sorts would be the most judicious se-
lection. I have heard, that the Apricot does not do
in this country ! That is to say, I suppose, it will
not do of its own accord, like a peach, by having
the stone flung upon the ground, which it certainly
will not; and it is very much to be commended for
refusing to do in this way. But, properly managed,
I know it will do, for I never tasted finer Apricots
than I have in America ; and, indeed, who can be-
lieve that it will not do in a country, where there
are no blights of fruit trees worth speaking of, and
where melons ripen to such perfection in the natu
ral ground and almost without care ?

302. BARBERRY. — This fruit is well known.
The tree, or shrub, on which it grows, is raised from
the seed, or from suckers, or layers. Its place
ought to be in the South Border ; for, the hot sun
is rather against its fruit growing large.

303. CHERRY.— Cherries are budded or grafted
upon stocks raised from cherry-stones of any sort.
If yon want the tree tall and large, the stock should
come from the small black cherry tree that grows
wild in the woods. If you want it dwarf, sow the
stones of a morello or a May-duke. The sorts of
cherries are very numerous ; but, the six trees for
my garden should be, a May-cherry, a May-duke,
a Hack-heart, a white-heart, and two bigeroons
The four former are well known in America, but I
never saw but two trees of the last, and those I sent
from England to Bustleton, in Pennsylvania, in the
year 1800. They are now growing there, in the
gardens of the two Messrs. Paul's. Cuttings from

V.] THE AME1UCAN GARDENER 183

them have been carried and used as grafts all round
the country. During the few days that I was at Mr.
James Paul's, in 181 7, several persons came for grafts;
so that these trees must be pretty famous. The fruit
is large, thin skinned, small stone, and fine colour
and flavour, and the tree grows freely and in beauti-
ful form. — For Pruning, see PEACH. — To preserve
cherries, gather them without bruising; take off the
tails ; lay them in the sun on dry deal hoards ; when
quite dry put them by in bags in a dry place. They
form a variety in the tart-making way.

304. CHESTNUT.— This is an inhabitant of the
woods ; and, as to its fruit, I have only to say,
that the American is as much better than the Span-
ish as the tree is a finer tree. — To preserve chest-
nuts, so as to have them to sow in the spring, or to
tat through the winter, you must put them into a
DOX, or barrel, mixed with, and covered over by,
$ne dry sand. If there be maggots in any of the
rhestnuts, they will work up through the sand, to
get to air ; and, thus, you have your chestnuts sweet
and sound and fresh. To know whether chestnuts
will grow, toss them into water. If they swim,
they will not grow.

305. CRANBERRY.— This is one of the best
fruits in the world. All tarts sink out of sight in
point of merit, when compared with that made of
the American Cranberry. There is a little dark
red thing, about as big as a large pea, sent to Eng-
land from the North of Europe, and is called a
Cranberry ; but, it does not resemble the American
in taste any more than in bulk. — It is well known
that this valuable fruit is, in many parts of this
country, spread over the low lands in great profu-
sion ; and that the mere gathering of it is all that
bountiful nature requires at our hands. — This fruit

184 THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

is preserved all the year, by stewing and putting
into jars, and when taken thence is better than cur-
rant jelly. The fruit, in its whole state, laid in a
heap, in a dry room, will keep sound and perfectly
good for six months. It will freeze and thaw and
freeze and thaw again without receiving any in-
jury. It may, if you choose, be kept in water all
the while, without any injury. I received a barrel
in England, mixed with water, as good and as fresh
as I ever tasted at New York or Philadelphia.

306. CURRANT.— There are red, white and
black, all well known. Some persons like one
best, and some another. The propagation and cul-
tivation of all the sorts are the same. The currant
tree is propagated from cuttings ; and the cuttings
are treated as has been seen in Paragraph 275.
When the tree has stood two years in the Nursery,
plant it where it is to stand ; and take care that it
has only one stem. Let no limbs come out to grow
nearer than six inches of the ground. Prune the
tree every year. Keep it thin of wood. Keep the
middle open and the limbs extended ; and when
these get to about three feet in length, cut off, every
winter, all the last year's shoots. If you do not
attend to this, the tree will be nothing but a great
bunch of twigs, and you will have very little fruit.
Cultivate and manure the ground as for other fruit
trees. See Paragraphs 289 to 296. In this coun-
try the currant requires shade in summer. If ex-
posed to the full sun, the fruit is apt to become too
sour. Plant it, therefore, in the South Border.

307. FIG. — There are several sorts of Figs, but
all would ripen in this country. The only difficulty
must be to protect the trees in winter, which can
hardly be done without covering pretty closely.
Figs are raised either from cuttings or layers

V ] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 185

\vhicli are treated as other cuttings and layers are.
See Paragraphs 275 and 277. The fig is a mawkish
thing at best ; and, amongst such quantities of fine
fruit as this country produces, it can, from mere
curiosity only, be thought worth raising at all, and
especially at great trouble.

303. FILBERD. — This is a sort of Nut, oblong
in shape, very thin in the shell, and in flavour as
much superior to the common nut as a Water-
melon is to a pumpkin. The American nut tree is
a dwarf shrub. The Filberd is a tall one, and will,
under favourable circumstances, reach the height
of thirty feet. I never saw any Filberd trees in
this country, except those that I sent from England
in 1800. They are six in number, and they are
now growing in the garden of the late Mr. JAMES
PAUL, of Lower Dublin Township, in Philadelphia
county. I saw them in 1817, when they were, I
should suppose, about 20 feet high. They had al-
ways borne, I was told, very large quantities, never
failing. Perhaps live or six bushels a year, mea-
sured in the husk, a produce very seldom witnessed
in England ; so that, there is no doubt that the cli-
mate is extremely favourable to them. Indeed to
what, that is good for man, is it not favourable ? —
The Filberd is propagated from layers, or from
suckers, of which latter it sends forth great abun-
dance. The layers are treated like other layers,
(See Paragraph 276,) and they very soon become
trees. The suckers are also treated like other
suckers. (See Paragraph 277;) but, layers are
preferable, for the reasons before stated. — This
tree cannot be propagated from seed to bear Fil-
berds. The seed, if sown, will produce trees; but,
those trees will bear poor thick-shelled nuts, except
it be by mere accident. It is useful to know how
16*

188 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Cbaj)

to preserve the fruit ; for it is very pleasant to have
it all the winter long. Always let the filberds han«
on the tree till quite ripe, and that is ascertained
by their coming out of the husk without any effort.
They are then brown, and the butt ends of them
white. Lay them in the sun for a day to dry ; then
put them in a box, or jar, or barrel, with very fine
dry sand. Four times as much sand as lilberds,
and put them in any dry place. Here they will
keep well till April or May ; and, perhaps, longer
This is better a great deal than putting them, as
they do in England, into jars, and the jars into a
cellar ; for if they do not mould in that situation,
they lose much of their sweetness in a few months.
The burning sun is apt to scorch up the leaves of
the Filberd tree. I would, therefore, plant a row
of them as near as possible to the South fence.
Ten trees at eight feet apart might be enough. —
The Filberd \vill do very well under the shade of
lofty trees, if those trees do not stand too thick.
And it is by no means an ugly shrub, while the
wood of it is, as well as the nut wood, which is, in
England, called hazel, and is a very good wood.
In the oak-woods there, hazel is very frequently
the underwood; and it makes small hoops, and is
applied to various other purposes. — I cannot dis-
miss this article without exhorting the American
farmer to provide himself with some of this sort of
tree, which, when small, is easily conveyed to any
distance in winter, and got ready to plant out in
the spring. Those that are growing at Mr. PAUL'S
were dug up, in England, in January, shipped to
New York, carried on the top of the stage, in the
dead of winter to Busleton, kept in a cellar till
spring* and then planted out. These were the first
trees of the kind, as far as I have been able to

V.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. IS/

Jearn, that ever found their way to this country.
I hear that Mr. STEPHEN GIRARD takes to him-
self the act of first introduction, from France.
But, I must deny him this. He, I am told, brought
his trees several years later than I sent mine.

309. GOOSEBERRY.— Various are the sorts,
and no one that is not good. The shrub is pro-
pagated precisely like that of the currant. I can-
not tell the cause that it is so little cultivated in
America. I should think (though I am by no
means sure of the fact) that it would do very well
under the shade of a South Fence. However, as
far as the fruit is useful in its green state, for tarts,
the Rhubarb supplies its place very well. The
fruit is excellent when well raised. They have
gooseberries in England nearly as large as pigeon's
eggs, and the crops that the trees bear are pro-
digious.

310. GRAPE. — This is a very importam article ;
and, before I proceed to treat of the culture of the
grape-vine, I must notice the astonishing circum-
stance, that that culture should be almost wholly
unknown in this country of fine sun. I have asked
the reason of this, seeing that the fruit is so good,
the crop so certain, and culture so easy. The only
answer that I have received is, that the rose-bug
destroys the fruit. Now, this I know, that I had
a grape vine in my court-yard at Philadelphia ;
that it bore nothing the first year ; that I made
an arched trelis for it to run over ; and that I
had hundreds of pounds of fine grapes hanging
down in large bunches. Yes, I am told, but this
was in a city ; and amongst houses, and there the
grapes do very well. Then, 1799, I saw, at Spring
Mills, on the banks of the Schuylkill, in Pennsyl-
vania, the Vine3-ard of Mr. Le Gau, which covered

188 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

about two acres of ground, and the vines of which
were loaded with tine grapes of, at least, twenty
different sorts. The vineyard was on the side of &
little hill ; on the top of the hill was a corn-field,
and in the front of it, across a little valley, and on
the side of another little hill, was a wood of lofty
trees ; the country in general, being very much
covered with woods. Mr. LA GAU made wine from
this Vineyard. The vines are planted at about
four feet apart, grew upright, and were tied to
sticks about five feet high, after the manner of
some, at least, of the vineyards of France. — Now,
are not these facts alone decisive in the negative
of the proposition, that there is a generally preva-
lent obstacle to the growing of grapes in this
country? — Mr. HULME, in his Journal to the West
(See my Year's Residence, Paragraph 892,) gives
an account of the Vineyards and of the wine made,
at VEVAY, on the OHIO. He says, that, that year,
about jive thousand gallons of wine were made ;
and, he observes, what more can be wanted for the
grape-vine, than rich land and hot sun. — Besides, is
not the grape-vine a native here ? There are many
different sorts of grapes, that grow in the woods,
climb the trees, cover some of them over, and bear
and ripen their fruit. How often do we meet with
a vine, in the autumn, with Grapes, called chicken
grapes, hanging on it from every bough of an oak
or some other timber-tree ! This grape resembles,
as nearly as possible, what is, in England, called
the Black cluster ; and, unquestionably, only wants
cultivation to give it as good a flavour. Does the
Rose bug" prevent these vines from bearing, or from
ripening their fruit? — Taking it for granted, then,
that this obstacle is imaginary, rather than real, I
shall now proceed to speak of the propagation and

Y'.j THE AMERICAN GARDENER. ISO

cultivation of the grape-vine in the open ground
of a garden, and, in doing this, I shall have fre-
quently to refer to PLATE III. — The grape-vine i?
raised from cuttings, or from layers. As to the
first, you cut off, as early as the ground is open in
the spring, a piece of -the last year's wood ; that is
to say, a piece of a shoot, which grew during the
last summer. This cutting should, if convenient,
have an inch or two of the former year's wood at
the bottom of it ; hut, this is by no means abso-
lutely necessary. The cutting should have/owr or
five buds or joints. Make the ground rich, move
'it deep, and make it fine. Then put in the cutting
with a setting-stick, leaving only two buds, or joints,
above ground ; fasten the cutting well in the ground ;
and, then, as to keeping it cool and moist, see cut-
tings, in Paragraph 275. — Layers from grave-vines
are obtained with great ease. You have only to lay
a shoot, or limb, however young or old, upon the
ground, and cover any part of i-t with earth, it will
strike out roots the first summer, and will become
a vine, to be carried and planted in any. other place.
But, observe, vines do not transplant well. For
this reason, botli cuttings and layers, if intended to
be removed, are usually set, or layed, in flower-pots,
out of which they are turned, with the ball of earth
along with them, into the earth where they are in-
tended to grow and produce their fruit. — I have
now to speak more particularly of the vines of my
garden. PLATE I. represents, or, at least, I mean
it to repre-ient, on the south side of the Plats No.
8 and No. 9, two trelis works for vines. These
are to be five feet high, and are to consist of two
rows of little upright bars two inches and a half by
two inches, put two feet into the ground, and made
of Locust, and then they will, as you well know,

190 HIE AMERICA!* GARDENER. [Chap

V.j THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 191

iast/br cvvr, with-otit paint and without any kii d
of trouble. — Now, then, bear in mind, that each of
these Plats, is, from East to AVest, 70 feet long,
Each will, therefore, take four vines, allowing to
each vine an extent of 16 feet, and something more
for overrunning branches. — Look, nowr, at PLATE
III, which exhibits, in all its dimensions, the cut-
ting become a plant, FIG. 1. The first year of its
being a vine after the leaves are ojf and before
pruning, FIG. 2. The same year's vine pruned
in winter, FIG. 3. The vine, in the next summer,
with shoots, leaves, and grapes, FIG. 4. — Having
measured your distances, put in a cutting at each
place where there is to be a vine. You are to leave
two joints or buds out of ground. From these will
come two shoots perhaps ; and, if two come, rub
off the top one and leave the bottom one, and, in
winter, cut off the bit of dead wood which will, in
[his case, stand above the bottom shoot. Choose,
.lowever, the upper one to remain, if the lower one
be very weak. Or, a better wray is, to put in two
or three cuttings writhin an inch or two of each
other, leaving only one bud to each out of ground,
and taking away, in the fall, the cuttings that send
up the weakest shoots. The object is to get one
good shoot coming out as near to the ground as
possible. — This shoot you tie to an upright stick,
letting it jrrow its full length. "When winter comes,
cut this shoot down to the bud nearest to the
ground. — The next year another, and a much
stronger shoot will come out ; and, when the leaves
are off, in the fall, this shoot will be eight or ten
feet long, having been tied to a stake as it rose,
and will present what is described in FIG. 1, PLATE
III. You must make your trelis ; that is, put in
your upright Locust-bars to tie the next summer's

102 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chu.JK

shoots to. You will want (See FIG. 2.) eight shoots
to come out to run horizontally, to be tied to these
bars. You must now, then, in winter, cut off your
vine, leaving eight buds, or joints. You see there
is a mark for this cut, at a, fig. 1. During summer
8 shoots will come, and. as they proceed on, they
must be tied with matting, or something soft, to the
bars. The whole vine, both ways included, is sup-
posed to go 16 feet ; but, if your tillage be good,
it will go much further, and then the ends must be
cut off in winter. — Now, then, winter presents you
your vine as in fig. 2 ; and now you must prune,
which is the all-important part of the business. —
Observe, and bear in mind, that little or no fruit
ever comes on a grape-vine, except on young shoots
that come out of wood of the last year. All the
four last year's shoots that you find in fig. 2, would
send out bearers ; but, if you suffer that, you will
have a great parcel of small wood, and little or no
fruit next year. Therefore, cut off 4 of the last
year's shoots, as at b. (Fig. 3.) leaving only one
bud. The four other shoots will send out a shoot
from every one of their buds, and, if the vine be
strong, there will be two bunches of grapes on each
of -these young shoots ; and, as the last year's shoots
are supposed to be each 8 feet long, and as there
generally is a bud at, or about, every half foot,
every last year's shoot will produce 32 bunches of

§ rapes ; every vine 128 bunches ; and the 8 vines
12 ; and, possibly, nay, probably, so many pou?ids
of grapes ! Is this incredible ? Take, then, this
well known fact, that there is a grape vine, a single
vine, with only one stem, in the King of England's
Gardens at his palace of Hampton^ Court, which
has, for, perhaps, half a century, produced on an
average, annually, a ton of grapes; that is tc

V THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 193

say, 2,240 pounds Avoirdupois weight. That vi
covers a space of about 40 feet in length and 20 in
breadth. And your two trelises, being, together,
128 feet long, and 4 deep, would form a space of
more than half the dimensions of the vine of
Hampton Court. However, suppose you have
only &ffth part of what you might have, a hun-
dred bunches of grapes are worth a great deal
more than the annual trouble, which is, indeed,
very little. Fig. 4 shows a vine in summer. You
see the four shoots bearing, and four other shoots
coming on for the next year, from the butts left at
the winter pruning, as at b. These four latter you
are to tie to the bars as they advance on during the
summer. — When winter comes again, you are to
cut off the four shoots that sent out the bearers
during- the summer, arid leave the four that grew
out of the butts. Cut the four old shoots that have
borne, so as to leave but one bud at the butt. And
they will then be sending out wood, while the other
four will be sending out fruit. .And thus you go on
year after year for your life ; for, as to the vine, it
will, if well treated, outlive you and your children
to the third and even thirtieth generation. I think
they say, that the vine at Hampton Court was
planted in the reign of King William. — During the
summer there are two things to be observed, as to
pruning. Each of the last year's shoots has 32
.buds, and, of course, it sends out 32 shoots with .
the grapes on them, for the grapes come out of the
2 first fair buJs of these shoots. So that here
would be an enormous quantity of wood, if it were
all left till the end of summer. But, this must not
be. When the grapes get as big as peas, cut off
the green shoots that bear them, at two buds dis-
tance from the fruit. This is necessary in order to
17

194 THE AMERICAN GARDENTER. [Chap.

clear the vine of confusion of branches, and also
to keep the sap back for the supply of the fruit.
These new shoots, that have the bunches on, must
l>e kept tied to the trelis, or else the wind would
tear them off. The other thing is, to take care
to keep nicely tied to the bars the shoots that are
to send forth bearers the next year ; and, if you
observe any little side-shoots coming out of them
to crop these off as soon as they appear, leaving
nothing but the clear, clean shoot. It may be re-
marked, that the butt, as at b, when it is cut off the
next time, will be longer by a bud. That will be
so ; but, by the third year the vine will be so strong
that you may safely cut the shoots back to within
six inches of the main trunk, leaving the new
shoots to come out of it where they \vill ; taking
care to let but one grow for the summer. If shoots
start out of the main trunk irregularly, rub them
off as soon as they appear, and never suffer your
vine tt) have any more than its regular number o>
shoots. As to cultivation of the ground, the
ground should not only be deeply dug in the fall,
but, with a fork, two or three times during the
summer. They plough between them in Langue-
doc, as we do between the Indian Corn. The
ground should be manured every fall, with good
rich manure. Blood of any kind is excellent for
vines. But, in a word, the tillage and the manuring
cannot be too good. All that now remains is to
speak of the sorts of grapes. The climate of this
country will ripen any sort of grape. But, it may
be as well to have some that come early. The
Black July grape, as it is called in England, or, as
it is called in France, the Noir Hatif, is the earliest
of all. I would have this for one of my eight
vines ; and, for the other seven I would have, the

V.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 105

Chasse.as ; the Burgundy ; the Black Muscadine ;
the Black Frontinac ; the Red Frontinac; the
\Vhite Sweet Water; and the Black Hamburgh,
which is the sort of the Hampton-Court Vine. — In
cases where grapes are to be grown against houses,
or to be trained over bowers, the principle is the
same, though the form may differ. If against the
side of a house, the main stem of the vine might, by
degrees, be made to go, I dare say, a hundred feet
high. Suppose 40 feet. In that case, it would be
forty instead of four ; but the side shoots, or alter-
nate bearing limbs, would still come out in the same
manner. The stem, or side limbs, may, with the
greatest ease, be made to accommodate themselves
to windows, or to any interruptions of smoothness
on the surface. If the side of the house, or place,
be not very high, not more than 15 or 20 feet ; the
best way is to plant the vine in the middle of your
space, and, instead of training an upright stem,
take the two lowest shoots and lead them along,
one from each side of the plant, to become stems,
to lie along within six inches or a foot of the ground.
These will, of course, send out shoots, which you
will train upright against the building, and which
you will cut out alternately, as directed in the
other case.

311. HUCKLEBERRY.— It is well known that
it grows wild in great abundance, in many parts,
and especially in Long Island, where it gives rise
to a holiday, called Huckleberry Monday. It is a
very good fruit for tarts mixed with Currants ; and
by no means bad to eat in its raw state.
'312 MADEIRA NUT.— See Walnut.

o!3. MEDLAR.— A very poor thing indeed. The
Medlar is propagated by grafting on crai-stocks,
or pear-stocks. It is, at any rate, especially in this

196 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

country, a thing not worthy of a place in a garden.
At best, it is only one degree better than a rotten
apple.

314. MELON.— See Melon in Chapter IV.

315. MULBERRY. — This tree is raised from
cuttings or from layers. See Paragraphs 275 and
377. The White-Mulberry, which is the finest,
and which the Silk worm feeds on, grows wild, and
bears well, at two miles from the spot where I am
now writing.

316. NECTARINE. — As to propagation, planting
and cultivation, the Nectarine is, in all respects,
the same as the peach, which, therefore, see. It
is certainly a finer fruit, especially the Violet Nec-
tarine ; but, it is not grown, or, but very little, in
America. I cannot believe, that there is any in-
surmountable obstacle in the way. It is grown in
England very well. The White French would
certainly do here ; and it is the most beautiful of
fruit, and a greater bearer, though not so fine in
flavour, as the Violet. The Newington, the Roman.
are by no means so good. I would have in the
Garden three trees of each of the two former.

317. NUT.— Grows wild. Not worthy of a
place in the Garden. Is propagated, and the fruit
preserved, like Filberd, which see.

318. PEACH. — The peach being the principal
tree for the garden, I shall, under this head, give
directions for pruning1 and forming the tree. —
Peaches are propagated by budding. The stock
should be of plum, for the reasons given in Para-
graph 281. — The U-ee is to be planted, agreeably to
the directions in Paragraphs 282 to 28S. And now
for the pruning and forming the tree. Look at
PLATE IV. fig. 2, and f.p: 3. The first is a peach
tree such as I would have it at four or five years,

THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

197

198 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

old ; the last is a peach tree such as we generally
see at that age. The practice is to plant the tree,
and to let it grow in its own way. The conse-
quence is, that, in a few years, it runs up to a long
naked stem with two or three long naked hmbs,
having some little weak boughs at the tops, and,
the tree being top-heavy, is, nineteen times out of
twenty, leaning on one side ; arid, it presents, alto-
gether, a figure by no means handsome i;i itself or
creditable to the owner. — This is jig. 3. — Now, to
have fig. 2, the following is the way. — The tree
should, in the first place, be budded very near to the
ground. After it be planted, cut it down to within
a foot and a half of the ground, and always cut
sloping close to a bud. In this foot and a half, there
will be many buds, and they will, the first summer,
send out many shoots. Now, when shoots begin
to appear, rub them all off but three, leave the top
one, and one on each side, at suitable distances
lower down. These will, in time become limbs.
The next year, top the upright shoot (that came
out of the top bud) again, so as to bring out other
horizontal limbs, pointing in a different direction
from those that came out the last year. Thus the
tree will get a spread. After this, you must keep
down the aspiring shoots ; and, every winter, cut
out some of the weak wood, that the tree may not
be over-burdened with wood. If, in time, the tree
he getting thin of bearing wood towards the trunk,
cut some of the limbs back, and they will then send
out many shoots, and fill up the naked places. The
lowest limb of the tree, should come out of the
trunk at not more than 9 or 10 inches from the
ground. The greater part of the tree will be within
the reach of a man from the ground , and a short
step-ladder reaches the rest. — By this management

V.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 199

the tree is always in a state of full bearing. Always
young. To talk of a tree's being worn out is non-
sense. But, without pruning, it will soon wear out.
It is the pruning that makes it always young. In
the "Ecole du Jar din Potagur," by Monsieur DE
COMBLES, there is an account of peach trees in full
bearing at fifty years old. And, little do people
here imagine to what a distance a peach tree will,
if properly managed, extend. Mr. DE COMBLES
speaks of numerous peach trees extending to more
than fifty feet in length on the trelis, and twelve feet
in breadth, or height, and in full bearing in every
part. Here is a space of six hundred square feet,
and, in case of a good crop, four peaches at least
in every square foot, making, in the whole, 2,400
peaches, which would fill little short of ten or twelve
bushels. This is to be seen any year at MONT-
REUIL in France. To be sure, these trees are tied
to trelises, and have walls at their back ; but, this
climate requires neither ; and, surely, fine trees and
fine fruit and large crops may be had in a country
where blights are almost unknown, and where the
young fruit is never cut off by frosts, as it is in
England and France. To preserve the young fruit
in those countries, people are compelled to cover
the trees by some means or other, in March and
April. Here there needs no such thing When
you see the blossom, you know that the fruit is to
follow. By looking at the Plan of the Garden,
PLATE I, you will see, that the Plats, No, 8 and 9,
contain 30 trees and the two vine-trelises. The
Plats are, you will remember, 70 feet long and 56
wide. Of course, putting 5 trees one way and 4
the other, each tree has a space of 14 feet, so that
the branches may extend horizontally 7 feet from
the trunk of the tree, before they meet. In these

*JUO THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Cll&p.

two Plats 14 feet wide is left clear for the grape
vines. — These 30 Peach-trees, properly managed,
would yield more fruit, even in bulk, than a large
orchard in the common way; and ten times as much
in point of value ; the size as well as the flavour of
the fruit are greatly improved by this mode of cul-
ture.— However, the sort is of very great conse-
quence. It is curious enough, that people in gene-
ral think little of the sort in the case of peaches,
though they are so choice in the case of apples. A
peach is a peach, it seems, though J know of no ap-
ples between which there is more difference than
there is between different sorts of peaches, some of
Munich melt in the mouth, while others are little
better than a white turnip. — The sort is, then, a
matter of the first importance ; and, though the
sorts are very numerous, the thirty trees that I
would have should be as follows : — 1 Violette Ha-
tive, 6 Early Montaubon, 1 Vanguard, 6 Royul
George, 6 Grosse Mignonne, 4 Early Noblesse,
3 Gallande, 2 Bellgarde, 2 Late Noblesse. These
are all to be had of Mr. PRINCE, of Flushing, in this
island, and, as to his word, every body knows that
it may be safely relied on. What is the trifling ex-
pense of 30 trees ! And, when you once have them,
you propagate from them for your life. Even for
the feeding of hogs, a gallon of peaches of either
of the above sorts is worth twenty gallons of the
poor, pale, tasteless things that we see brought to
market. — As to dried peaches, every body knows
that they are managed as dried apples are ; onlv
that they must be gathered for this purpose before
they be soft.

319. PEAR. — Pears are grafted on pear-stockf
on quince-stocks, or on those of the white-thorr
The last is best, because most durable, and, f(;

V.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 20 J

dwarf trees, much the best, because they do not
throw up wood so big and so lofty. For orchards,
pear-stocks are best ; but not from suckers on any
account. They are sure to fill the orchard with
suckers. — The pruning for your pear trees in the
garden should be that of the peach. The pears will
grow higher; but they may be made to spread at
bottom, and that will keep them from towering too
much. They should stand together, in one of the
Plats, 10 or 11. — The sorts of pears are numerous ;
the six that I should choose are, the Vergalousc,
the Winter Bergamot, the D'Auche, the Beurre,
the Chaumontelle, the Winter Bonchretian.

320. PLUMS. — How is it that we see so few
plums in America, when the markets are supplied
with cart-loads in such a chilly, shady, and blighty
country as England. A Green-gage Plum is very
little inferior to the very finest peach ; and I never
tasted a better Green-gage than I have at New York.
It must, therefore, be negligence. But Plums are
prodigious bearers, too ; and would be very good
for hogs as well as peaches. — This tree is grafted
upon plum-stocks, raised from stones by all means ;
for suckers send out a forest of suckers. — The pru-
ning is precisely that of the peach. — The six trees
that I would have in the garden should be 4 Green
gages, 1 Orlean, 1 Blue Pcrdigron.

321. QUINCE. — Should grow in a moist place
and in very rich ground. It is raised from cuttings,
or layers, and these are treated like other cuttings
and layers. — Quinces are dried like apples.

322.' RASPBERRY— 4 sort, jf woody herb, but
produces fruit that vies, in point of crop as well as
flavour, with that of the proudest tree. I have ne-
ver seen them fine in America since I saw them co-
vering hundreds of thousands of acres of ground in

202 THE AMERICAN GARLfENER.

t'he Province of New Brunswick. They come ther<
even in the interstices of the rocks, and, when tin
August sun lias parched up the leaves, the landscapt
is red with the fruit. Where woods have beer
burnt down, the raspberry and the huckle-berry in
stantly spring up, divide the surface between them
and furnish autumnal food for flocks of pigeons tha
darken the earth beneath their flight. Whena
these plants come, and cover spots thirty or fort}
miles square, which have been covered with wood;
for ages upon ages, I leave for philosophers to say
contenting myself with relating how they come am
how they are treated in gardens. — They are raisec
from suckers, though they may be raised from cut
ting-s. The suckers of this year, are planted ou
in rows, six feet apart, and the plants two feet apar
in the rows. This is done in the fall, or early ii
the spring. At the time of planting they shouh
be cut down to within afoot of the ground. The}
will bear a little, and they will send out severa
suckers which will bear the next year. — About fou:
is enough to leave, and those of the strongest
These should be cut off in the fall, or early ir
spring, to within four feet of the ground, and shoulc
be tied to a small stake. A straight branch of Lo
cust is best, and then the stake lasts a life-time ai
least, let the life be as long as it may. The nex
year more suckers come up, which are treated ir
the same way. — Fifty clumps are enough, if wel
managed. — There are white and red, some like onf
best and some the other. To have them fine, yot
must dig in manure in the Autumn, and keep the
ground clean during the Summer by hoeing. — I have
tried to dry the fruit ; but it lost its flavour. Rasp-
berry-Jam is a deep-red sug-ar ; and raspberry-
xvine is red brandy, rum, or whiskey ; neither hav-

V.J THE AMERICAN GARDENER. ti03

ing the taste of the fruit. To cat cherries, pre
screed in spirits, is only an apology, and a very
poor and mean one, for dram-drinking ; a practice
which every man ought to avoid, and the very
thought of giving way to which ought to make the
check of a woman redden with shame.

323. STRAWBERRY.— This plant is a native
of the fields and woods here, as it is in Europe.
There are many sorts, and all are improved by cul-
tivation. The Scarlet, the Alpine, the Turkey, the
Haut-bois, or high-stalked, and many others, some
of which are white, and some of so deep a red as
to approach towards a black. To say which sort is
best is very difficult. A variety of sorts is best. —
They are propagated from young plants that grow
out of the old ones. In the summer the plant sends
forth runners. Where these touch the ground, at
a certain distance from the plant, come roots, and
from these roots, a plant springs up. This plant is
put out early in the fall. It takes root before win-
ter ; and the next year it will bear a little ; and send
out runners of its own. — To make a Stra \vberry-
beor, plant three rows a foot apart, and at 8 inches
apart in the rows. Keep the ground clean, and the
new plants, coming from runners, will fill up the
whoie of the ground, and will extend the bed on
the sides. — Cut off the runners at six inches dis-
tance from the sides, and then you have a bed three
feel -wide, covering all the ground; and this is the
best way ; for the fruit then lodges on the stems
anil leaves, and is not beaten into the dirt by heavy
rains, which it is if the plants stand in clumps with
clear ground between them. — If you have more
beds than one, there should be a clear space of two
feet wide between them, and this space should be
well manured arid deeply digged every fall, and kept

204 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

clean by hoeing in the summer. If weeds come up
in the beds, they should be carefully pulled out. —
fn November <he leaves should be cut off with a
scythe, or reap-hook, and there should be a little
good mouldy manure scattered over them. — They
will last in this way for many years. When they
begin to fail, make new beds. Supposing you to
have five or six beds, you may make one ne\v one
every year and thus keep your supply always ample.

324. VINE.— See Grape.

325. WALNUT.— The butter-nut, the black wal-
nut, the hickory or white walnut, are all inhabitants
of the American woods. The English and French
Walnut, called here the Madeira Nut, is too sensi-
ble of the frost to thrive much in this climate.
Two that I sent to Pennsylvania in 1800 are alive,
and throw out shoots every year; but they have
got to no size, their shoots being generally cut down
in winter. — Walnuts are raised from seed. — To pre-
serve this seed, which is also the fruit, you must
treat it like that of the Filberd, which see. — It is
possible, that the Madeira Nut grafted upon the
black walnut, or upon either of the other two,
might thrive in this climate.

CHAPTER VI.

FLOWERS.

OF FLOWERS, AND OF ORNAMENTAL GARDENING 'N
GENERAL.

326. My reason for making Flowers a part of my
subject, have been stated in Paragraphs 6 and 97.
However, if the American Farmer have no taste

VI.] 1HE AMERICAN GARDENER. 205

for flowers, his wife and daughters may; and this
part of the book can, at any rate, do him no harm.
. 327. Under the head of Flowers come flowering
trees and shrubs; and, therefore, I must, in this
place, say a little of these and of ornamental gar-
dening. It is by no means my intention to attempt
io give an account of all the flowers that come into
the florist's catalogue. That catalogue, with only
a very short description of each flower, would fill
ten volumes, each surpassing this in bulk. I do not
blame the taste of those who study botany, and who
find pleasure in the possession of curious trees and
plants ; but, all that I shall attempt, is, to speak ot
those flowers that stand most prominent as to their
capacity of making a beautiful show and of sending
forth fragrance.

3*28. As to the spot for flowers, the smaller kinds,
and even small shrubs, such as roses, dwarf honey-
suckles, and the like, may be planted by the sides
of the broad walks in the kitchen garden, or, a lit-
tle piece of ground may be set apart for the pur-
pose. In cases where there are what are usually
called pleasure-grounds, large shrubs, and, if the
grounds be extensive, lofty trees come in. And, in
the placing of the whole of the trees and plants,
the most lofty should be farthest from the walk.

329. As to the manner of sowing, planting, trans-
planting, and cultivating, what has been said of fruit
trees and of garden vegetables and herbs applies
here. The ground must be good, well tilled, and
kept clean, or the plants and flowers will not be line.

330. Before I proceed to the Alphabetical List,
let me again observe, that I merely give a selection,
such as appears to me to be best calculated for gra-
tifying, at different seasons, the sight, or the smell,
or both. That there is a great deal in rarity ig

18

200 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

evident enough; for, while the English think no
thing of the Hawthorn, the Americans think no
thing of the Arbutus, the Rhododendron, the Kal-
inin, and hundreds of other shrubs, which are
amongst the choicest in England. The little dwarf
nrusli stuff, that infects the plains in Long Island
under the name of " Kill- Calf," is, under a tine La-
tin name, a choice green-house plant in England,
selling for a dollar when not bigger than a handful
of thyme. Nay, that accursed stinking thing, with
a yellow flower, called the " Plain-Weed " which
is the torment of the neighbouring farmer, has been,
above all the plants in this world, chosen as the
most conspicuous ornament of the front of the
King of England's grandest palace, that of Hamp-
ton-Court, where, growing in a rich soil to the
height of five or six feet, it, under the name of
" Golden Rod," nods over the whole length of the
edge of a walk, three quarters of a mile long and,
perhaps thirty feet wide, the most magnificent per-
haps, in Europe. But, be not too hasty, Ame-
rican, in laughing at John Bull's king ; for, I see,
as a choice flower in your gardens, that still more
pernicious European weed, which the French call
the Coquelicot, and the English, the Corn-Poppy,
which stifles the barley, the wheat, and especially
the peas, and frequently makes the fields the colour
of blood.

331. This is quite sufficient to show the power
of rarity in affixing value on shrubs and flowers.
The finest flowering trees and shrubs in England
have been got from America. The Wild Cherry,
which they call the bird-cherry, which here grows
sometimes to the height of a hundred feet and one
of which I can now see from my window more
than seventy feet high ; the Locust, most beautiful!

VTI.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

of trees and best of timber ; th« Catalpha, blossoms
far more beautiful than those of the horse-chestnut,
broad and beautiful leaves that do not scorch in the
hottest sun ; all the beautifully blowing Laurel-
tribe ; the Rose of Charon (as it is called here) and
the Althea Frutex ; the Azalia of all colours ;
Roses of several kinds. But, there is one shrub of
the larger kind, abundant here, that I never saw
there, and that is the thing which some call the
Morning Star. It has six leaves in its flower,
which is in the form of the flower of the single
rose. The whole flower when open, is about three-
times the circumference of a dollar. Some of
the trees bear blossoms quite white, and others
blossoms of a whitish peach blossom colour.
These blossoms come the earliest in the spring.
They are out full, in Long Island, in the first week
in May, which is rather earlier than the peach-
blossoms. In England, they would be out full, on
an average of years, in the last week of February,
which is an anticipation of all their shrubs. The
trees, which is a great quality, thrive well under
other trees, which, indeed, seems to be their nature.
You see, from a great distance, their bright and
large blossoms, unaccompanied by leaves, shining
through the boughs of the other trees ; and some
of them reach the^height of forty feet. This, there-
fore, is a very fine flowering tree ; and yet I never
:a\v one of the kind in England. How beautiful a
grove might be made of this tree, the wild-cherry,
the Locust, the Catalpha, and the Althea-frutex !
And here they are all, only for the trouble of sow-
ing ; for from the seed the tree will surely come.

332. I shall now proceed to give an Alphabetical
List of such flowering Trees, Shrubs, and Plants,
as I think worthy of cultivation ; or, rather; that I

208 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Clldp.

myself would wish to have about my house, or in
my garden. As I go on I shall state some par-
ticulars here and there relating to propagation and
management : but, to be very particular would be
superfluous, seeing that such full directions have
been given in the former parts of the work, as to
the sowing of all seeds, great as well as small ; as
to the raising of trees and plants from cuttings,
slips, layers and suckers, and as to cultivation and
tillage. Flowers are divided into annuals, bien-
nials and perennials. The first blow and die the
year they are sown ; the second blow the second
year and then die ; the third sometimes blow the
first year and sometimes not, and die down to the
ground annually, but spring up again every spring
I have not made separate lists ; but have included
the whole in one Alphabetical List. There are
sixty trees, shrubs and plants altogether ; and, if
properly cultivated, these will give a grand bloom
from May to November.

LIST.

333. ALTHEA FRUTEX.— It is raised from
seed, or from suckers. There are several sorts, as
to colours. They should be mixed to make a variety.
Save the seed in November or December. The pods
are full. Sow in the spring. Seed produces the
handsomest shrub ; and it is to be got almost any
where.

334. ANEMONE. — This is a very beautiful flower,
and worthy of great pains. It is raised from seed,
or from pieces of the roots. Sow the seed in spring,
The plant does not blow the first year. The root,
which is tuberous, is taken up in the fall, dried in the
sun, and put by in the dry till spring, when it is put
into the ground again. And, during the summer, it
sends out young roots, which must be taken off and

VI.] THE AMERICAN CARDENEU. 209

planted out, to become blowers. There is a great
variety of colours and of sizes of this flower.

335. ARBUTUS. — A pretty ever-green, as well
known as the oak tree ; arid is to be got every where.

336. ASTRE (China.) — Astre is French "for star,
and this flower, in its shape, resembles a star to our
view. It is annual, bears great quantities of seed,
and is sown early in spring. An infinite variety of
colours, and great quantities of blossoms. It gives
no smell ; but a clump of it furnishes a great mass
of beauty to the sight.

337. AURICULA.— This is one of the flowers,
the sorts of which are distinguished by having
awarded to them the names of famous men and wo-
men, famous cities, and famous battles, and so forth.
It may be raised from seed ; but the flowers pro-
ceeding from plants so raised, do not resemble the
flowers of the mother plant, except by mere acci-
dent. It is a chance if you get a. fine flower from a
whole sown bed. Now-and-then one of this des-
cription comes, however, and this adds to the list
of names, if it happen to be one of the like of which
has not made its appearance before. Auriculas are,
therefore, propagated by parting the roots, and every
root sends out several young plants annually. When
sown, they do not blow till the second year ; but the
old root lasts for many years. Some of these should
be potted, and kept to blow in the green-house. If
planted in the natural ground, they ought to be
covered a little in the winter. There are many
hundreds of sorts with names. So many indeed,
that the godfathers in England have been so put
to it for great personages to baptize the flowers
after, that they have been compelled to resort to
the heroes and heroines of Romance ; accordingly
they have Don Quickset and Sancho. However

18*

THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap

vanity supplies the florists, as well as the ship-
owners, with a great &tore of names, and auriculas,
Uke ships, are very frequently honoured with the
names of the original proprietor's wife or daughter.

338. AZALIA. — That little American Honey-
suckle that impedes our steps when shooting on the
skirts of woods. It however, blows 'profusely, though
it has no smell like the English honeysuckle.

339. BALSAM is an annual and a most beautiful
plant, with great abundance of flowers. Sow wher
you sow Melons, at a distance of four feet ; leave
only one plant in a place ; let the ground be rich
and kept clean ; it will blow early in July, and will
keep growing and blowing till the frost comes, and
then, like the cucumber, it is instantly cut down. I
have seen Balsams in Pennsylvania 3 feev high,
with side-branches 2 feet long, arid with a stem
much bigger than my wrist, loaded with beautiful
blossoms. Plant, branch, leaf, flower ; all are most
elegantly formed, and the colours of the flower ex-
traordinarily vivid and various. There are how-
ever, some more double than others, and some va-
riegated. The seed of these should be sowed, and
it comes in great abundance. The flower of the
Balsam has no smell.

340. BRIAR, (Sweet.)— A well known shrub of
the rose kind. Bows of it carefully planted and
pruned make very good hedges, and it will grow in
almost any ground, though fastest in good ground.

341. CAM1LLIA.— This shrub, which is of the
laurel-tribe, has lately been introduced in England
from Japan. It bears a flower, which, when open,
resembles a good deal a large full-blown rose ; and
these flowers, on different plants, are of -different
colours. It is raised, doubtless, from seed ; but it
may be grafted on the Hawthorn ; and, I dare say

VI.] TIIK AMERICAN GARDENER. 211

on the Crab. Some of Ihe plants have been sold
at 20 or 30 pounds each, By this time they are
probably sold at a dollar. The plant as well as the
ilo\ver are handsome ; and certainly cuttings for
grafting may easily be brought from England.
They will stand the winter as well as any of the
American laurels.

342. CARNATION.— Here is beauty and frag-
rance, and both in the highest degree. There are
various sorts, distinguished, like those of the Auri-
cula, by names ; and, what is said of the seed oi
the Auricula applies here. If sown, the carnation
does not blow till the second year. It is usually
propagated by layers. While it is blowing, it
sends out several side shoots near the ground.
These are pinned down, in August, to the earth
with a little stick with a hook at the end of it. A
little cut, or tongue, is made on the under side of
the shoot ; and thus the head of the shoot is brought
upright. The part that touches the ground is well
covered with earth ; and roots come out here be-
fore the fall. Then the stalk, which connects the
young plant with the old one is cut off: the young
plant is transplanted, and the next year it blows.
The old root does not stand another year well ; and,
therefore, its branches are thus made use of to keep
up the race and the sort. — Carnations are rather
tender as to frost. And must be well covered in
this country to live through the winter. It is best
to put them in large pots to give room for laying" ;
and to keep them in a green-house in winter, or in
some house, where they can have sun and air
However, they merit all the pains that can be be-
stowed upon them.

343. CATALPHA.— That beautiful Ar-c;ricaii
tree mentioned in Paragraph 329.

2155 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap.

344. CLOVE. — Is only a more handy and less
esteemed sort of Carnation, which see. It may be
propagated like the Carnation ; or, by cuttings,
which is the easier way. Instead of laying down
the side shoots, you cut them off. Then' you cut
away the hard part of the shoot, strip off three or
four of the bottom leaves. Tip the rest of the
leaves ; make a little split in the butt of the shoot,
and, then, with a little smooth pointed stick, plant
the cutting in the ground. This is to be done early
in August. The young Cloves will have roots in
the fall ; and you may transplant them into the open
ground or into pots to blow the next year. The
old Clove plant will, however, blow for many years.
I should think, that, with good covering, such as
directed for spinach, Cloves would live out the
winter in this country.

345. COLUMBINE.— A perennial. Very com-
mon ; but very pretty.

346. COWSLIP.— This is one of the four flow
ers, without which English pastoral poetry would
be destitute of that which awakens the most de-
lightful ideas. The Cowslip, the Primrose, the
Violet, and the Daisy, are of endless recurrence in
that species of writing. They all come early in
the spring ; and are all beautiful. Neither of them
is seen here, and they all might ; for they will bear
any severity of weather. The Cowslip is of the
Polyanthus tribe. It is of a delicate yellow colour
and sends forth many blossoms from the same stem
which rises about six inches from the ground. I
may easily be propagated from seed, which it bears
in great abundance, but, when you once have a plant*
the easiest way, is to propagate from offsets. Th
plants raised from seed do not blow till the second
year. Tho plant is perennial. The flower has a

VI.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 213

delicate sweet smell, and also sweet taste, as a prool
of which, cart-loads of the flowers, plucked from
the stalks, are sold in London to make " wine"
with ; that is to say, to furnish drinkers with an
apology for swallowing spirits under the specious
name of Cowslip-wine. The leaf of the ilowei
very much resembles in shape the under lip of a
cow, whence, I suppose, our forefathers gave the
plant the name of cowslip.

347. CROCUS. — A bulbous rooted plant, very
well known. It is recommended by its earliness.
It is perfectly hardy. The only thing to do when
it is once planted, is to take care that it does not fill
all the ground near it. There are yellow, blue, and
white Crocuses. And they are pleasant when nothing
else is in bloom, except, at least, the Snowdrop,
which departs soon after the Crocus begins to appear.

348. DAISY. — I cannot say, with Dryden's dam-
sels, in one of his fine poems, that "the Daisy swells
so sweet ;" for it has very little smell ; but it is a
most beautiful little flower, and blows without ceas-
ing at all times when the grass grows, howrever little
that may be. The opening of the Daisy is the sure
sign that there is growth going on in the grass ; and
these little flowers bespangle the lawns and the
meadow's, the green banks and the glades all over
England. Their colours present an endless variety ;
and those grown in gardens are double. The field-
Daisy is single, and about the size of a York-Six-
pence. Those in the gardens are sometimes as
broad as a quarter of a dollar. And there is one
other sort called the Hen-and-chicken Daisy, that
has a ring of little flowers surrounding the mair
flower. This plant may be raised from offsets or
seed, in which last case it blows the second year
It is perennial.

214 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. j Chap.

349. GERANIUM wants hardiness only to make
it the finest flower-plant of which I have any know-
ledge. Some give us flower with little or no leaf;
others have beauty of leaf as well as of flower, but
give us no fragrance ; others, like the rose, give us
this added to beauty of flower and of leaf, but, give
us them only for a part of the year. But, the Ge-
ranium has beautiful leaf, beautiful flower, flagrant
smell from leaf as well as from flower, and these it
has in never-ceasing abun-dance ; and as to variety
of sorts, as well as in leaf as in flower, it surpasses
even the flower of the Auricula. How delightful
the country, where Geraniums form the underwood,
and the Myrtles tower above ! Softly, my friends.
Beneath that underwood lurk the poisonous lizards
and serpents, and through those Myrtle boughs the
deadly winged adders rustle ; while all around is
dry and burning sand. The Geranium is a native
of the South of Africa ; and, though it will not re-
ceive its djeath-blow from even a sharpish frost, it
will not endure the winter, even in the mild climate
of England. But, then, it is so easy of cultivation,
it grows so fast, blows so soon, and is so little trou-
blesome, that it seems to argue an insensibility to
the charms of nature not to have Geraniums if we
have the means of obtaining earth and sun. — The
Geranium is propagated from seed, or from cuttings.
The seed, like that of the Auricula, does not pro-
duce flower or leaf like the mother plant, except by
chance. It is easily saved, and for curiosity's sake,
may be sown to see if a new variety will come.
But, a cutting, from any part of the plant, old wood
or young wood, stuck into the ground, or into a pot,
will grow and become a plant, and will blow in a
month from the time you put it into the ground
You must have plants, indeed, to cut from ; bu.

VI.] THE AMF11ICAX GAKDEXER.

these may be, in small number at any rate, in a win-
dow during winter. When the spring ccmes, cut
them up into cuttings, put these in the ground where
you wish to have plants during the summer. They
will be in bloom by July, and, before October, will
be large as a currant tree. Take off cuttings from
these during September, put them in pots, and they
are ready for the next spring. If you have a Green-
house, you have Geraniums in full bloom all the
long dreary winter.

350. GUELDER-ROSE.— This is called here the
Snow-ball tree. It is raised either from layers or
suckers. Its bloom is of short duration ; but, for
the time, makes a grand show in a shrubbery. The
suckers of it ought to be dug clean away every year

351. HAWTHORN. — This tree has been amply
described in Chapter I, under the head of Fencing.
Sometimes it is called Hawthorn, and sometimes
White-thorn.

352. HEART'S-EASE, or Pansey.—A. beautiful
little annual, which has great varieties, and all ot
them pretty. It blows all the summer. It may be
sown in the fall, without any care about covering
the ground ; but, it must not come up, in this coun
try, till spring.

"353. HEATH. — The common English heath is
hardy, but ugly. The Heaths from Africa are of
infinite variety. Insignificant in flower, however
and must be housed in Winter. They are propa-
gated from seed, or from slips, and will last a long
while. A few in a green-house are pretty ; and they
look gay in winter.

354. HOLLYHOCK.— This is a fine showy
plant for a shubbery. There are double and single,
and none but the double should be cultivated. It
may be raised from seed, or from offsets. If the

210 THE / MER1CAN GARDENER. fCIia^

former it docs not blow till the second year. I
will remain in the ground many years, and is per
fectly hardy.

355. HOLLYHOCK (Chinese.)— This is a more
tender and far more beautiful kind than the common.
It is raised from seed only ; blows the second year
and only that year. It is, therefore, a biennial.

356. HONEYSUCKLE.— This, amongst all Eng-
lish shrubs, is the only rival of the Rose ; and,, if put
to the vote, perhaps as many persons would decide
for the one as for the other. Its name indicates its
sweetnes-s of taste, and the smell is delightful almost
beyond comparison. The plant is also beautiful :
it climbs up houses and over hedges ; it forms ar
bors and bowers : and has a long-continued sue
cession of blossoms. It grows wild in all parts ol
England, in many parts covering the hedges and
climbing up the trees. There is little variety as to
sorts. That which is cultivated has a larger and
deeper-coloured bloom, but the wild has the sweet-
est smell. — It may be propagated from seed ; but
always is from cuttings ; put into the ground in the
spring, and treated like other wood-cuttings. See
Paragraph 275.

357. HYACINTH.— This is a bulbous-rooted
plant, and, like all the plants of that class, is peren-
nial. It may be rai-sed from seed; but, as in the case
of the Auricula and many other plants, it is many
chances to one, that, out of a whole bed, you do
not get a good flower ; and, perhaps, it is a hun-
dred to one that you do not get a flower to resemble
the mother plant. Therefore, none but curious
florists attempt to raise from seed. The roots are
propagated from ofF-sets ; that is to say, the mother
root, while i'tis blowing, sends out, on its sides, seve-
ral young ones. The old root, young ones and all, arc

VI.] HE AMERICAN GARDENER

put away in a dry place, out of the reach of severe
frost, till spring. Then, when you plant the old
one out to blow again, you take off the young ones
and plant them also. They do not blow the first
year, and, if weak, not the second. But, in time,
they do ; and then they produce offsets. This is
the way the Hyacinth is multiplied. It is a fine
and fragrant flower ; it blows early, and will blow
well even in glasses in a room ; but better in earth.
A fine flower for a green-house, where it would be
out in full bloom while the snow was on the ground.

358. JASMIN. — Has the merit of a very delighi-
ful smell, and that only. Its leaf and flower are
insignificant. It climbs, however, and is good to
cover bowers. It is easily raised from cutting?.
See Paragraph 275.

359. JONQUIL. — Au elegant and sweet smell-
ing bulbous rooted plant. Propagated, and culti-
vated, in all respects, like the Hyacinth, which see.

360. KALMIA. — An evergreen shrub of great
beauty, and of several varieties, great quantities of
which are seen in most of the rocky woodlands
of this country.

361. KILL-CALF. — Mentioned in Paragraph
328, which see. It is a dwarf shrub, and may be
raised from seed, or from suckers. It is very pretty.
When in bloom it resembles a large clump of Sweet
Williams. It is so pretty that it is worth having in
the green-house, where it would blow, probably in
April, in Long Island.

362. LABURNHAM.— This is a tall and beau-
tiful shrub, loaded, v/hen in bloom, with yellow
blossoms, in chains ; whence it is sometimes called
the Golden Chain. I sent one out to Pennsylvania
in 1800 ; but, though alive now, it has never got to
any height, and has never borne blossoms, being

19

21$ THE AMERICAN GARDENER. fChap

continually nipped by the winter. That it will
grow and thrive in this country is, however, cer-
tain ; for I saw two very fine trees in grand bloom
in the garden, between Brooklyn and the Turnpike
gate, last spring. It is raised from the seed as
easily as Indian Corn is.

363. LARKSPUR.— An annual of no smell, but
of great variety as to colours, and when in a clump,
or bed, presenting a great mass of bloom. There
is a dwarf and a tall sort. The dwarf is the best.
There is a branching kind, which is good for nothing.

364. LILAC. — Desirable for its great masses of
Sne large bunches of bloom. There is the White,
ihe Blue, and the Reddish. It is propagated from
juckers, of which it sends out too many, and from
which it should be kept as clear as possible. It is
an ugly shrub when out of bloom. The leaves
soon become brown. Therefore, there should be
but few Lilacs in a shrubbery.

365. LILY OF THE VALLEY.— This the only
Lily that I should like to have. It is a pretty
little dwarf plant, that thrives best in the shade,
where it produces beautiful blossoms of exquisite
sweetness. It is a bulbous root, and propagated
from offsets.

366. LOCUST.— Well known, and sufficiently
noticed in Paragraph 329. It may be raised from
suckers ; but best from seed, which always makes
the straighest trunk.

367. LUPIN. — A species of pea or tare, and fre-
quently cultivated in the fields, and eaten in soup
and otherwise, by the Italians, and in the South of
France. It grows, however, upon a stiff stem, and
is upright, and branches out, like a tree in minia-
ture. There is a great variety of sorts, as to colour
of flower as well as to size of plant. The Yellow

V'l.l THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 219

dwarf is the best, and it smells very sweet. This
plant is, of course, an annual.

368. MAGNOLIA.— One of the finest of the lau-
rel tribe. It can be raised from seed, or from lay-
ers. A very fine shrub indeed. There are several
varieties of it.

369. MIGNONETTE. — An annual that bears
abundance of seed. The plant and the flower do not
surpass those of the most contemptible weed ; but
the flower has a very sweet smell. It may, if you
have a green-house, be had at any time of the year.
The plants may stand at four or five inches asunder ;
but, if they stand thicker, the bloom is inferior, and
does not last so long.

370. MORNING STAR.— This fine shrub has
been sufficiently described in Paragraph 329. It can
be raised from seed, or from layers.

371. MYRTLE.— The Myrtle is a native of cli-
mates where it is never cold. It will not endure
even November all out, in Long Island. To have
it, therefore, it must be housed in winter. It may
be raised from seed, cuttings, slips, or layers. The
leaf of the Myrtle has a fine smell ; and, when the
tree is in bloom, it is pretty. But, it is a gloomy look-
ing shrub. One Geranium is worth a thousand
Myrtles. The broad-leaved Myrtle is the best in
every respect, and especially because it is easily
brought to blow.

372. NARCISSUS. — A bulbous-rooted plant, ma-
naged precisely like the Hyacinth, which sec. It
blows early, is very beautiful, and has a delightful
smell. Nothing is easier than the propagation and
management of flowers of this tribe, and few are
more pleasing. The Narcissus is a very nice thing
for a parlour, or a green-house.

373. PASSION-FLOWER.— So called because

220 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chdp

the flower has a Cross in the middle, and rays, re-
sembling a glory, round the edges of it. It is a sin-
gularly beautiful flower. The plant is also beauti-
ful. It is a climber, like the Honeysuckle; and, like
that, has a succession of blossoms that keep it in
bloom a long while. It is raised from cuttings, which,
treated as other cuttings are, easily taken root.

374. PCEONY. — A perennial that may be raised
from seed or offsets. A grand flower for shrubbe-
ries. Each flower is usually as big as a tea-cup, and
one plant will sometimes produce twenty or thirty.

375. PEA (Sweet.) — There are a great variety in
the annual sorts as to colour of blossom, and, there
is a perennial sort, called everlasting pea. This
stands, of course, year after year. The others are
sown and cultivated like the common garden pea,
They should have some sticks to keep them up.
This is a very showy flower, and remains in bloom
a long while.

376. PINK. — This flower is too well known to
need describing here. There are a great variety of
sorts, as to the flower; but all are cultivated in the
same way ; exactly as directed for the Clove, which
see. The Pink root will last a great many years ;
but, the flower is seldom so fine as the first year of
the plant's blowing.

377. POLYANTHUS.— Every thing that has
been said of the Auricula (which see) maybe said
of .the Polyanthus. It is a very pretty flower, and
universally esteemed. It blows finest out of the hot
sun. Polyanthuses are best in beds ; for a great part
of their merit consists of the endless variety which
they present to the eye. The Polyanthus has a de-
licately sweet smell, like that of the Cowslip.

378. POPPY.— A very bad smell, but still is tc
be sought for on account of its very great variety

Vi4 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 221

in size,;.height, and in flower ; and on account of the
gayness of that flower. The seed pods of some are
of the bulk of a three pound weight, while those of
others are not so big as even a small pea. The
smallest, however, contains about a thousand seedc^
and these come up, and the plants flourish, with very
little care. A pretty large bed, with two or three
nundred sorts in it, is a spectacle hardly surpassed
in beauty by any thing in the vegetable creation. It
is an annual, of course. It is well known as a me-
dicinal plant ; but, it is not so well known as a plant
from the seed of which sallad-oil is sometimes
made ! The Germans, on the Rhine, cultivate whole
fields of it for this purpose. It may be as well,
therefore, for us to take care not to use German
Sallad-Oil, which, however, can with great difficulty
be distinguished from oil of olives.

379. PRIMROSE. — A beautiful little flower of a
pale yellow and delicate smell. It comes very early
in the spring; and continues a good while in bloom.
Of the fibrous rooted flo\vers it is the next to the
Daisy in point of earliness. It is a universal fa-
vourite ; and, in England, it comes abundantly in
woods, pastures and banks. It is perennial like
the Cowslip, and is propagated in the same manner.
How beautiful a Long Island wood would look in
April, the ground beneath the trees being decked
w ith Primroses !

380. RANUNCULUS.— Is a flower of the nature
of the Anemone, which see. It is propagated and
cultivated in the same manner. These two flowers
are usually planted out in beds, where they make a
very fine show.

381 RHODODENDRON.— It never occurred,
perhaps, to any American to give this fine name to
the laurel with a long narrow leaf and great bunches
19*

222 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [CIlllJ.

of blue, pink, or white flowers, the balls,'or pods,
containing which, appear the year before the flower
It is, however, a beautiful shrub, and not less beau-
tiful on account of its frequently covering scores of
acres of rocJcy sides of' hills, or on account of En-
glish Gardeners believing that it requires bog-earth
(though fetched from many miles distance, at vast
expense) to make it grow and blow !

382. ROSES. — A volume larger than this would
not describe the differences in all the sorts of this,
which has, for ages, been considered as the Queen
of Flowers, the excellences of which to attempt to
describe would be to insult the taste of every reader.
I shall, therefore, merely speak of the propagation
and the management of the plant. All roses may
be propagated from seed; but, as the seed seldom
comes up till the second year, and as the plants
come to perfection slowly, the usual mode of pro-
pagation of all sorts, except the China Rose, is by
suckers. These come out near old stems, during
the summer ; they are dug up in the fall and planted
out. In the spring they are cut down near to the
ground, and, the next year, they blow. — The China
Rose is so easily raised from cuttings, that little
bits, put in the ground in spring, will be trees, and
have a profusion of bloom before the fall. This
Rose is in bloom, in England, from May till Janu-
ary, if the soil and situation both be good. — It is very
strange that Mr. MARSHALL should set this down
amongst " tender shrubs," and say, that " it will not
do abroad, except in the summer months.11 It
stands the winter as well as the oak, and, I have, for
years, had it, against the front of my house, blowing
finely at Christmas, without any attempt at cover
ing. In America, in the open air, it might not be in
bliom at Christmas ; but it stands the winter as wel/

VI.] THE A3IERICAN GARDENKR, 223

as any tree that can be nanred. It is beautiful for
the Green-house ; for there it, mixed with Gerani-
ums, blow beautifully all the winter long. As to the
management of roses ; the ground should be good,
and dug every autumn as directed for fruit trees, and
should be manured frequently. They should (except
when trained against walls or over bowers) be kept
cut down low ; for, when they get long stems and
limbs, they, like peach trees, not only look ugly, but
bear but few flowers, and those very mean ones.
They should, therefore, be cut to within a foot, or
less, of the ground; and all dead or weak wood should
be pruned out close, without leaving any ugly stubs.

383. SIBERIAN CRAB.— This Shrub is, by
some, esteemed for its fruit, of which they make a
conserve, more, I imagine, to gratify the sight than
to gratify the palate. But, as a tall shrub, it yields,
for the time, to very few. There is the red-blos-
somed and the \vhite-blossomed. The branches of
both, when in bloom, present ropes of flowers,
while the trunk, the limbs, the branches and the
leaves, are all delicate in form and in hue.

384. SNOW DROP.— Is the earliest of all flow
ers. In England it blows in January. Once in the
ground it is not very easy to get it out again. No-
thing but carrying- it away, or actually consuming
it with fire will rid you of it. No sun, not even an
American sun, will kill a Snow-Drop bulb, if it
touch the ground.

385. STOCK. — There are annuals and biennials
of this name; and, if 1 were to choose amongst all
the annuals and biennials, I should certainly choose
the Stock. Elegant leaf, elegant plant, beautiful,
showy, and most fragrant flower ; and, with suit-
able attention, bloom, even in the natural ground,
from May to November in England, and from Juno

224 THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

to November here, — The annuals are called ten
week Stocks. And of these there are, with a pea-
green leaf, the Red, White, Purple and Scarlet,
and, then, there are all the same colours with a
Wall-flower or Sea-Green leaf. So that there are
eight sorts of the annual Stock. — Of the biennials,
there are the Brompton, of which there are the
Scarlet and the White ; the Dutch, which is Red ;
the Queen's, of which there are the Red and the
White ; and the Twickenham, which is Purple. —
As to propagation, it is, of course, by seed only. If
there be nothing but the natural ground to rely on,
the sowing must be early ; the earth very fine aad
very rich. The seed is small and thin, and does
not easily come up in coarse earth. If the plants
come up thick, thin them, when very young. And
do not leave them nearer together than six inches.
They, however, transplant very well ; and those
that have not place to blow in may be removed, and
a succession of bloom is thus secured. If you have
a green-house, glass frame, or hand-glass, you get
flowers six weeks earlier. — The biennials are sown
at the same time, and treated in the same way.
They blow the second year ; but, if there be great
difficulty in preserving them, in the natura-1 ground,
through the winter in England, what must it be
here ! Indeed, it cannot be done ; and yet, they are
so fine ; so lofty ; such masses of beautiful and fra-
grant flowers ; and they continue so long in bloom,
that they are worth any care and any trouble. There
is but one way : the plants, when they get ten or a
dozen leaves, must be put into flower-pots. These
may be sunk in the earth, in the open ground, till
November (Long Island,) and when the sharp frosts
come, the pots must be taken up, and placed out of
the reach of hard frost, and where there is, however,

Vri.J THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

sun and air. When the spring comes, the pots may
be put out into the natural ground again ; or, which
is better, the balls of earth may be put into a hole
made for the purpose ; and thus the plants will be
zTi the natural ground to blow. In this country they
should be placed in the shade when put out again ;
for a very hot sun is apt to tarnish the bloom.

386. SYRINGA, or Mock-Orange.— A very stout
shrub, with blossoms much like that of the orange,
and with a powerful smell. It is propagated from
suckers, of which it sends out a great many.

387. SWEET WILLIAM.— A very pretty flower.
Makes a fine show. Comes Double by chance ; and
is very handsome whether double or single. It is
propagated from seed, the plants coming from which
do not blow till the second year. The Sweet Wil-
liam root does not last many years. It may be pro-
pagated by parting the roots ; and this must be done
to have the same flower again to a certainty, because
the seed do not, except by chance, produce flowers
like those of the mother plant.

388. TUBEROSE. — This is a bulbuous-rooted
plant that sends up a beautiful and most fragrant
flower. But, even in England, it cannot be brought
to perfection without artificial heat in the spring. If
fjot forward in a green-house, or hot-bed, and put
out about the middle of June, it would blow beauti-
fully in America. It is a native of Italy, and the
roots are brought to England and sold there in the
shops. It is propagated and managed precisely like
the Hyacinth, which see.

389. TULIP.— Beds of Tulips vie with those of
Carnations and Auriculas. They are made shows
of in England, and a single root is sometimes sold
for two or three hundred guineas. And, why not ;
as well as make shows of pictures, and sell them

226 THE AMERICAN GARDENER.

for large sums ? There is an endless variety in tho %o
lours of the tulip. The bulbs, to have the flowers Tine,
must be treated like those of the Hyacinth. The tulip
may be raised from seed ; but it is, as in the case ol
the Hyacinth, a thousand to one against getting from
seed a flower like that of the mother plant.

390. VIOLET. — This is one of the four favour-
ites of the Spring in England. It is a little creeping
plant, that comes on banks under the shelter of warm
hedges. The flower is so well known to excel in
sweetness, that, " as sweet as a violet" is a phrase
as common as any in the English language. There
is a purple and a white. Abundance of seed is borne
annually by both; and the plant is perennial. If you
propagate from seed, the flower does not come till
the second year; but, one plant, taken from an old
root, will fill a rod of ground in a few years. — There
is a little plant in these woods in Long Island, with
a flower precisely like that of the purple violet ; but,
the leaf is a narrow oblong, instead of being, as the
English is, in the shape of a heart ; the plant does
not creep ; and the flower has no smell.

391. WALL-FLOWER.— It is so called, because
it will grow, sow itself, and furnish bloom in this
way, by a succession of plants, for ever, upon old
walls, where it makes a beautiful show. It bears
abundance of seed, plants from which produce flow-
ers the second year. Some come double, sometimes.
If you wish to be sure of double flowers, you must
[propagate by slips of double-flowering plants. There
are the yellow and the mixed, partly yellow and
partly red. All have a delightful smell, blow early,
and are generally great favourites. I am afraid this
plant, even with covering, will not stand the winter
out of doors in America, unless in the south front of a
building, and covered too in severe weather; for, even
in England, it is sometimes killed by the frosts.

227

INDEX

TO VEGETABLES AND HERBS, FRUITS AND
FLOWERS.

VEGETABLES AND HERBS.

Artichoke

Paragraph.

* 3Jft£Tfl.ph.

Hyssop .--- 226

Asparagus

193

Jerusalem Artichoke

Balm ...

- 194

Lavender ... 228

Basil -

195

Leek 229

Bean -

- 19tf

Lettuce - - - 230

Bean (Kidney)

197

Mangel Wurzel - 231

Beet ...

- 198

Marjoram - - - 23'2

Brocoli -

199

Marigold 233

Burnet -

- 300

Melon .... 234

Cabbage -

201

Mint ... 235

Calabash

. 202

Mustard - - - 236

Gale

203

Nasturtium - - 237

Gale (Sea) -

- 204

Onion ... 238

Camomile

205

Parsley ... 239

Capsicum

- 206

Parsnip - 240

Caraway -

207

Pea - 241

Carrot -

- 208

Pennyroyal - 242

Cauliflower

209

Pepper — see Capsicum.

Celery -
Chervil -

- 210
211

Pepper-grass — see Cress.
Potatoe - 245

Gives ...

- 212

Potatoe (Sweet) - - 246

Coriander

213

Pumpkin - 247

Corn -

- 214

Purslane ... 248

Corn-Salad

215

Radish , - - 249

Cress (Pepper Grass)

- 216

Rampion ... 250

Cucumber

217

Rape ... 251

Dandelion

- 218

Rhubarb - 252

Dock -

219

Rosemary 253

Endive ...

- 220

Rue - - - - 254

Fennel -

221

Ruta-Baga — see Turnip.

Garlick -

- 222

Sage - - 256

Gourd -

223

Salsafy ... 257

Hog
Horte-Radish -

- 224
225

Samphire ... 258
Savory - - - t9

INDEX.

Savoy -

Paragraph.
- 260

Paragraph.
Tansy ... 267

Scorzenera

261

Tarragon ...

268

Shalot -

- 262

Thyme -

269

Skirret

263

Tomatum ...

270

Sorrel -

- 264

Turnip ...

271

Spin age -
Squash -

265
- 266

Wormwood ...

272

FRUITS.

Apple -

- 300

Medlar ....

313

Apricot

301

Melon

314

Barberry

- 302

Mulberry -

315

Cherry

303

Nectarine

316

Chestnut

- 304

Nut

317

Cranberry

305

Peach

318

Currant

- 306

Pear ... -

319

Fig -

307

Plums -

320

Filberd -

- - 308

duince -

321

'Gooseberry

309

Raspberry

322

Grape -

- 310

Strawberry ...

323

Huckleberry -
Madeira Nut — see

311

Walnut.

Vine — see Grape.
Walnut

325

FLOWERS.

Althea Frutex

- 333

Heart's-ease (Pansey)

352

Anemone -

334

Heath - -

353

Arbutus

- - 335

Hollyhock

354

Astre (China) -

336

Hollyhock (Chinese) -

355

Auricula

- 337

Honeysuckle -

356

Azalia

338

Hyacinth ...

357

Balsam

- - 339

Jasmin -

358

Briar (Sweet) -

34ft

Jonquil -

359

Camilla

- 341

Kalmia -

360

Carnation

342

Kill-calf

361

Catalpha

- 343

Laburnham

362

Clove

344

Larkspur ...

363

Columbine -

- 345

Lilac -

364

Cowslip -

346

Lily of the Valley

365

Crocus -

- 347

Locust ...

366

Daisy

348

Lupin -

367

Geranium

- 349

Magnolia

368

Guelder-Rose -

350

Mignonette -

369

Hawthorn

- 351

Morning-Star •

370

•229
INDEX TO THE GENERAL MATTER

[ The Figures refer to the Paragraphs, and not to Pages.}

Paragraph

Addison 121

Boxes, earthen-ware preferable to, for plants -

Bacon, Lord 121

Cultivation, in general 126, 176

as relates to Fruits ----- 291
Curwen, Mr. John Christian -

Cowley 121

Drilling, mode of ------ 162,163

Diseases of Trees 298

Dryden 348

»-i • OA

Fencing ------ ---JO

for shade and shelter - - - - 33, 48

expense of 47, 50, 51

seed for, how to procure - - - -
duick-set, described - 39
Garden, its praises, the produce and pleasures de-
rived from 2,3,121

Green-houses -- 97

the usefulness of - - 100,117,118,121

Girard, Mr. Stephen 308

Hot-beds -

frames for common in America 71

hand-glasses useful ----- 94

Herbs, preserving and forcing of them - - - 117
Hampton Court, vine at- - - - - - 310

flowers at ------ 331

Hulme,Mr. 310

Laying out of gardens --57

LeGau,Mr. 310

Lucern, depth of its roots - - - - - - 193

Loves of the plants - - - - - - - 141

Manures 28,29

Missing, Mr. 188

Marshal., Rev. Mr. ... - 145,281,282,382

M'Allister, Mr. 55

Planting ...-283

Propagation in general -.--.- 125
as relates to fruits ----- 273

of cuttings ------ 276

of slips • «... 277

230 INDEX.

Propagation of layers ------- 278

suckers 279

grafting ------- 281

stocks 285

Paul, Messrs. 282, 308

Situation for a garden ------ 12

Soil 16

Sowing 155

and planting in pots ... 110 to 114

Seed, sorts of - 128

when true 125

when sound ------- 131

saving and preserving of - - - 130

table of dui ation of 150

Sorts of plants, error respecting changes of - - - 188
Setting of fruit, an erroneous notion - - 141 to 145

Trenching, best mode of - 20

Transplanting -------- 1G9

Temple, Sir William 122

Tull, Mr. 182 to 183

Roots, to find their length horizontally - - - - 184
Walls, not necessary for fruit - - - - -

Watering of plants, not recommended - 187

Women, duly appreciated in America - - - 101

Myrtle - 371

Narcissus ---------

Passion-Flower ----•--• 373

Poeony

Pea (Sweet) 375

Pink - - 37G

Polyanthus --------- 377

Poppy _.-..---•

Primrose .---.---- 379

Ranunculus -------- 380

Rhododendron - - - - - - - -381

Roses 382

Siberian Crab 383

Snow Drop 384

Stock 385

Syringa (Mock Orange) ------ 386

Sweet William 387

Tuberose 383

Tulip 389

Violet 390

Wall-Flower 391

YA 09(84

• :^