THE PLEASURES OF GARDENING.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 58, 10 March 1868, Page 3

THE PLEASURES OF GARDENING.

To the Editor of the Nelson Evening Mail. Philosophy can never be more honorably or beneficially directed than when multiplying the stores of comfort and usefulness. — Dr. Chalmers. Sib — It would be impossible to convey to your readers (within the limited space allowed) all the required information about the ' tilling of laud ' and the proper food for various plants profitable and necessary, even if I were at all learned in this matter. None, will doubt, however, that whatever enhances' the productive power of the land and the labor of a country, augments at once the profits of industry aud of real property. Tbe order to ' iucrease and multiply and replenish the earth,' has never been revoked, and never will be, ' till the earth is full and time shall be no more/ With respect to the farmer ' shaking ' his turnips, if any success attended the act, it does but suggest, in a small way, that one of the fundamental laws of nature in the growth of vegetation is the absolute necessity of air, as well as good and proper food. Doubtless the hoe would be pretty freely used between the rows of turnips after ' every morning's * experiment ; and it is a question whether farmers, and gardeners generally, do not stand iu their own light, by not ' assisting nature ' in stirring aud working their land well, before sowing, and while the plants are growing. Farm-yard manure, iu its customary proportions of solid and liquid, contains all the important constituents for root crops, or vegetation geuerally, aud I trust our farmers will be more conservative in securiug, than the hitherto wasteful neglect of, so important an assistant iu their cultivations. Guano or bone dust may be given to secure what farmers call a * plaut,' but let the land be in good heart by a pleu tiful supply of solid food, aud a brisk circulation of air. The more food, the more cattle may be fed by its cousuniption, and the more cattle, the greater are the means of reproduction, so that the heaviest imaginable Crop consumed at home by well fed stock cannot impoverish or exhaust, but will on the contrary augmeut the power of reproduction. Tbe term exhaustion should find no place iu the vocabulary of an intelligent farmer. I fear there is too much veneration for the plough amongst us. The pressure caused by four bullocks, or even a couple of horses, raust harden more and more the substratum of the soil, and thus end.nger its becoming cold and wet, particularly in nndrained land. Spade husbandry would be especially beneficial in cases where the top soil had been exhausted by grain crops, in bringing into use the lower strata. In a garden the spade might often be advantageously employed in the process of double digging, and the fork afterwards among growing crops. I am, &c, A Lover of Gardening.