Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1892 — ORCHARD AND GARDEN. [ARTICLE]

ORCHARD AND GARDEN.

Make » «»ood Carden, No man Should spend his labor and time over so large an acreage as to fail in making a first-class garden. In this much of the satisfaction and often no Attic part of the profit of country and farm life consists. It is rather disheartening for the city resident who goes into the country during summer for fresh air and tbc fresh home-grown small fruits and garden vegetables to look into back yards and find tin cans carelessly thrown away, which show that even for such common table luxuries as tomatoes, green corn, and often green peas, the farmer and his family have nothing better for him than he could himself buy at the retail grocery. If farmers wish to attract other men to their business, as it is clearly their interest to do, they must in every way make farm life as pleasant and enjoyable as possible. Labor-saving machinery enables the farmer to take life easier •if he will. He complains that low pricc9 for staple crops take off all his profit. Grow less of these crops then, and devote a larger share of time to

fruit, especially the small fruits, and to garden vegetables. So soon as the farmer grows enough of all kinds of vegetables for table use in their season, he has procured luxuries that only wealthy men can afford. As he thinks over what he would have been obliged to pay for such table delicacies, the harder lines of his life fade away. It seems worth while to live on a farm, and when he gets to feeling this way it Is ten to one that he falls into the habit of marketing snrplus he does not need, and thus after a few years develops into market gardening the natural way. First make a garden that will supply your table with all garden delicacies, and if there is a surplus it will be sure of a profitable market—American Cultivator. Manuring Hearing Apple Trees. It Is generally conceded that bearing apple trees need manure. But if a tree that has been in blossom is manured some year when no blossoms are formed, its growth is often so stimulated that it takes a year or two for it to get into bearing again. At this time of year it is easy to notice by the buds what apple trees will be in bearing this year. Manuring these cannot be a mistake, as the fertilizer will mostly go to perfect the fruit, yet leaving energy enough in many kinds of apples to form the buds for a fruit crop the following year.