The American gardener

Front matter

AMERICAN GARDENER;

OR,

A TREATISE tS THE SITUATlONj SOIL, FENCING AND LAYING-OUT OP GARDENS; ON THE MAKING AND MANAGING OF HOT-BEDS AND GREEN- HOUSES 5 AND ON THE PROPAGATION AND CULTIVATION OF THE SEVERAL SORTS OF VEGETABLES, HERBS, FRUITS AND FLOWERS.

Preface

1. The proper uses of a Preface appear to be, to give the reader information, which may be useful, during the perusal of the work to which it is prefixed ; 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 ; w^hich preparation is always a great advantage 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 better understood and practised than it now is in America ; and, very few persons will deny, that there is, in this case, plenty of room for improvement. America has soil and climate for surpassing those of England ; and yet she is surprizingly deficient in variety as well as quality of garden products. I am not alluding to things of ornament, or appertaining to luxurious 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 having. It is incredible to those, who have not had occasion to observe the fact, how large a part of the sustenance of a country-labourer's family, in England, 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 dis anguished as by their fondness of their gardens, and by the diligence, care and taste, which they show in the management of

PREFACE.

them. The reproach which Solomon, in the words of my motto, affixes on the slothful and ignorant husbandman, they seem to have constantly in their minds ; and to be constantly on the watch to prevent it from applying to themselves. Poverty may apologize 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 labourer's house, his habits, his qualities as a workman, and almost his morality, maybe judged of from the appearance 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 attention to small spots wear away. To desire to possess land is a univ^sal desire ; and vanity makes us prefer quantity to quality. You may prove as clearly as daylight, that it is better, in certain cases, to possess one acre than a hundred ; but where do you find the man that prefers the one acre ? When large parcels of land 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 the objects of this work; and, I think, I shall, in the ^^rogress of the work, show, thn/ ^e garden may, besides its intrinsic utility, be made to be a most valuable helpmate to the Farm,

PREFACE.

4. It is impossible to write a book that shall exclusively apply to every particular case. Some persons 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 neither 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 w^ill 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 j^r5^ Chapter treats of the Situation, Soil, Fencing, and Laying-out of Gardens ; the second, of 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 under 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 arrangement must naturally tend to make the work of reference 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 two Indexes at the end, one of the names of the several pi ants, Sind, the other, of the matters generally. For the same reason, I have numbered the paragraphs throughout the work. A more proper term might have been found than that of Vegetables, seeing, 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

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natural shape, as human food ; as we generally call these only by the name oi vegetables^ I have chosen that word in preference to one, which, though more strictly proper, w^ould be less 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 same may be, and, perhaps, with more r^^ason, said o( pictures. An Italian, while he gives his fortune for a picture, w411 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 hesitate not a moment to prefer the plant of a fine carnation to a gold watch set wdth 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 ti?ne^ for sowing, planting, and so forth, that shall be applicable 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 times of the year, or month, it is to be understood, that I am supposing myself 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 employ Gardeners ought by no means to leave them to do as they please. Their practical experience is

PREFACE.

ivorth something ; but, if they are generally found rery 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 spade-work, they, from habit, do things well and neatly. But as to the art of gardening, they generally 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 ordered them to do ; and offered me none of their ad- Dice or opinions,

9. There is a foible of human nature, which greatly 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 skilful Tnan. " 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 at all, had large quantities of very fine 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 perverseness : 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 had choice ; and that would be an imputation on his 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 garden 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 owner must be diligent as well as skilful. He must \ook forward. It is a very good way to look attentively at every part of the garden every Saturday, and to write down some, at least, of the things to be done during the next lueek. This tends to prevent those omissions, which, when they have once taken place, are not easily compensated for. Seasons wait for no man. Nature makes us her oilers freely ; but she will be taken at 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 rational and most conducive to health. It is a pursuit, not only compatible with, but favourable to, the stttdy of any art or science. It tends to turn the minds of youth from amusements and attachments of a frivolous 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 Hempstead, Long Island, 1819.

Chapter 1

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

SITUATION.

12. Those who have gardens already formed and planted, have, 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 circumstances.

13. The ground should be as nearly on a level as possible ; because, if the slope be considerable, the heavy rains do great 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-garden. Of ornamental Gardening I shall speak a little in the Chapter on Floivers. From a Kitchen-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 of those roots. It is a common but very erroneous notion, in England, that the trees, which grow in the hedges that divide the fields, do injury by their shade only. I had a field of transplanted Ruta Baga, in the hedge on the North West side of which there were five large spreading oak-trees, at some distance from each other. Opposite each of these trees, w^hich 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 w^heat 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. Grdss^ which matts the ground all over with its roots, and does not demand much food from any depth, does not suflfer much from the

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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. jft 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 practised upon a large scale. It is better to trust to judicious tillage and to the dews and rains. The moisture 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 a bed of lime-stone, sand-stone, or sand, below. But, we must take what we find, 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 gravel, 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 heaviest wheat grows in land with a bottom of clay ; but, if there be clay within even six feet of the surface, tihere will be a coldness in the land, which will, in spite of all you can do, keep your spring crops a week or ten days behind those upon land which h(is 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 be carried off ; but, if you have a s^ony 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 hammer your tools to pieces amongst the stones ; for it has 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 choose, and have still to choose, they will have built, and yet will build, their houses on spots peculiarly 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 ploughings : 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 ; it 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

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and 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 ought 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 shove] 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 another 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 operation, a man that knows how to use a spade, wil trench four rod in a day very easily in the month a October, or in the month of November if the grour be not frozen. Supposing the garden to contaU

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[Chap.

an acre, and the labourer to earn a dollar a day, the cost of this operation will, of course, be forty dollars ; v/hich, perhaps, would be twenty dollars above the expense of the various ploughings and harro wings, necessary in the other way ; but, the difference in the value of the two operations is beyond 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 dollars ? 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 latter one half in bulk. And, as to trees of all descriptions, from the pear-tree down to the currantbush, the difference is so great, that there is room, for no comparison. It is a notion with some persons, that it is of no use to move the ground deeper than the roots of the plant penetrate. But, in the first place, the roots go much deeper than we generally suppose. When vre 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 \\ie\\ 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 too fine to be seen by the naked eye. Upon pulling up a common turnip, who would imagine, that the side, or horizontal roots, extend to several feet ? Vet I have traced them to the length of four feet; and Mr. Tull proved, that they extended to six feet, though he could not see them to that extent 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 cultivated 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 communication 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 hottom 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 /or ages. There is, however, one objection to trenching in certain cases. The soil may not only not be good to the depth of two feet, but 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 by any means ; for, even in the case of trees, they Avould perish, or become stunted, because their roots would not find their way from the bad soil to the good. In such cases the top soil must, in the trenching, be kept at the top ; and, in order to effect this, your mode of proceeding, in the trenching, must be someAvhat different from that described in paragraph 20.

23. Your first trench must be opened in the manner 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 tw^o feet all the way along, and, for this once, throw it over the open trench to add to the earth that you have already throwni 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 7iew two feet wide, that is the third two feet. Take the top foot deep off from this, and throw it on the top of the earth that you have just turned into the first trench ; and then, where that first trench v/as there will be earth two feet deep ; the bad soil at bottom and the good soil at top. Then you go on regularly. 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 tw^o 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 do still more. See Asparagus in Chapter IV.

25. It must be observed, however, that, though the soil be good in its nature 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 for ages. 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 trees 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, compost. Then, when the frost is gone, the ground will be instantly fit for digging and planting ; and, it wdll bear almost any thing that can be put into it.

27. Thus w^ill the ground he 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

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of ashes, lime, 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 horsedung, rotten leaves, and mould shovelled up under 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.