Agricultural and Pastoral.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1635, 8 December 1874, Page 453

Agricultural and Pastoral.

Golden Rules for Gardening. Never grow a bad variety of anything, if you can help it. It takes the same room, and wants the same attention as a good one. Never look out for cheap seed-shops. It is only by getting good prices that a seedsman can supply the articles to be depended on. Let the draining of the ground be your first care. It is impossible to succeed to any extent with vegetables or flowers where the water is stagnant in the soil. Gather fruit in dry weather and with the sun shining, and place them as carefully in the basket as if they were glass. The smallest bruise commences a decay. Unless you want seed, remove the flower stems as soon as the bloom decays. The swelling of the seed-pods checks the further growth and blossoming of most plants. Never grow the same crops, nor crops of the same family, twice on the same spot without an intervening crop of a different nature. Never transplant shrubs and trees in a growing state. However carefully it may be done, the check is dangerous, if not fatal. Never tie up lettuces or endive, or earth up celery, except when perfectly dry. They are sure to spoil if you do. Never allow the surface of the soil in a pot, or in the ground to be long without stirring, unless it be naturally very open, as is the case with peat earth. Never grow a plant too fast; it is no credit to you, because anybody can do it, and it spoils the plant to a certainty. Eapid growth makes a miid flavor, slow growth a strong one. Therefore grow vegetables quick, and fruit moderately. The exceptions are where size is valued more than flavor. Carefully preserve the fallen leaves of trees, and procure as many as you can ; when rotted into mould the produce is invaluable. Hoc tlie surface of the ground all over once a fortnight, upon the same principle as servants sweep the rooms.

Let not the moisture that runs from the dunghcap be wasted ; it is too good for the cultivated part of the ground to be lost to it. Never allow weeds to bloom ; it is the worst proof of thoughtlessness. One day devoted this year will save a month's application next. Never remove a plant from one place till you are ready to put it in another, unless to get rid of it. Whenever a plant suffers the loss of root, always prune off a corresponding portion of the head.

Cut off with a sharp knife whatever part of a root may be broken, bruised, or damaged ; it instantly commences a decay. Never trample on the ground in wet weather, or while the ground is swampy; rather delay the work. Even planting out things is better as the ground dries a little. Encourage robins and toads. They are good friends to gardeners, because they destroy their enemies. Procure, whenever you can, turves cut from a pasture, to lay in a heap and rot. "A store is no sore." It is best of all composts. Always trench the ground before sowing carrots, parsnips, and beetroot,

Cover seeds from birds with a mat until they are well up, and then devote a day or two to actually scaring the enemy, until the plants gain strength. Prune all ornamental blooming trees and shrubs as soon as the flower has decayed; before they make their new growth, you can shape them as you like. To poor sandy soil one load of marl or loam is worth two of dung ; but give both if you can, and lime into the bargain. In apportioning crops, never grow too much of anything that does not last in season, and will not keep when gathered in. In removing trees and shrubs, never loosen a fibre with violence. You can remove what you please with the knife ; but if broken off or chopped, you lose the best. Leave your newly-trenched or dug ground rough until you crop it. In winter time it is exceedingly beneficial. When a crop is done with, clear it off, lay on your dressing, and at once dig or trench the ground ; put all the waste vegetable to the bottom; it is so much nourishment returned, and the ground looks neat. Never water a general crop till it actually begins to suffer; for rain may render it unnecessary, and watering once begun you must go on with it. When you do water, drench the ground all over. One soaking a-week is better than partial watering every day; and rain may serve you a turn now and then. Thin all sorts of fruit; not merely those on the wall,—for everybody does that,—but those on standards. Let there be not one above an average crop. The tree will give you this every year. Go round the place after a shower of rain to see where the water lies, and fail not to fill up the hollows in time. Never work with bad tools. The difference between the work done in a month would buy a set of new ones. Never give up a place to better yourself until you are sure of the new one, and certain that it is better.

Have a place for every tool, and never leave one out of its place; or to go further, " a place for everything, and everything in its place." Take every morsel of waste off the vegetables for the kitchen ; it is so much trouble saved to the cook, and so much manure for the garden. Do nothing carelessly. Whatever is worth growing at all should be grown well, be it ever so common. If you do not like a thing enough to take pains with it, do not grow it at all. Never waste animal or vegetable refuse. The very soap-suds from the laundry arc rich manure.

Whenever you have the opportunity, dig in the waste of the crop you took off; it is so much good returned. Study economy in the means you use to grow everything. It is impossible to be too careful in the matter. Cover all seeds with at least their own thickness of soil; but as some of it gets washed off, you must allow for it.