TO the full enjoyment of a country house, there are few things more conducive than a large, well-filled kitchen garden. The farmers generally, with a wrong-headedness that is incomprehensible, neglect one of the most important sources of supply for the table; they devote themselves to the heavy crops—the staples of agriculture—that are scattered through the fields, and overlook the vast additional amount of food that may be concentrated in an acre. They condemn themselves to the everlasting routine of bread, potatoes, and salt meat, forgetting that the labor of a few hours occasionally of themselves or their children in the garden would furnish an agreeable, healthy, and nutritive variety of edibles. This, being a matter of dollars and cents as well as health, merited the closest attention from so practical a person as myself, and was taken in hand promptly, and the account of my success carries me back a little in matter of time.

It was late in April when the contract was closed for the building of the country house, and it was essential to prepare and plant the kitchen garden immediately. My ideas on the subject were vague. I knew what I wanted, but had not an accurate conception how those wants were to be converted into realities. I must have a choice, yet ample supply. Fresh asparagus is so delicate, fresh peas so tender, fresh lettuce so crisp, cauliflower so immaculate, cabbages so rich, beets so racy, and every other vegetable so much better when just pulled. There should be a plenteous variety, from the humble radish up to the aristocratic egg-plant—through all the range of carrots, turnips, celery, spinach, and cucumbers—every thing that creeps, climbs, or stands—but, above all, must there be a grand, deep, rich bed of asparagus, with heads as big as your thumb. The fruits, too, should not be forgotten: blackberries, gooseberries, raspberries, and especially strawberries; pears, plums, and apples—dwarfs and standards; currants, grapes, and quinces; the numberless productions of the earth that wise men eat before breakfast or after dinner. With these numerous necessaries, it was apparent that the planting must be done at once if it was to produce a satisfactory result this year.

But, before striking a spade, it was necessary to lay out the ground, and here, although the undertaking was different from planning a house, my natural abilities stood me in good stead. After much study, the plot was divided into beds of about five feet width, so that the plants could be plucked without treading on them; I laid out broad walks at right angles to one another, like grand avenues, to be shaded by the future pear and apple trees, and in my mind determined to cover them with pure, white, salt-water pebbles. I left a narrow border along the outer edge for currant and raspberry bushes, marked places for the fruit-trees every fifteen feet, and devoted one bed to strawberries, another to tomatoes, a third to sweet corn, and so on. I noticed that there seemed to be about as much walk as bed, but this I had been accustomed to in flower gardens in the city, and thought produced a pleasing effect.

Before these dispositions were determined on, the grass had grown considerably, the spring being early, and to get rid of it, as “Bridgeman’s Assistant,” which, with “Ten Acres Enough,” was my constant companion, contained no directions to meet the case, the advice of Weeville was called for. He said the land must be plowed, harrowed, and well dug over, and asked where the kitchen garden was to be placed. It was with no little satisfaction that I produced my plans, anticipating his surprise and pleasure, and laid them proudly before him. He gazed a moment, and exclaimed, “What is all this?” Not a little amused with his perplexity, I explained the design, and pointed out its advantages. He kept his eyes on it in a dazed sort of way, and then blurted out, “You have twice as much walk as you have bed.”

“Not quite—not quite,” I responded; “but still that is quite a feature; they will be attractive, covered with white gravel.”

“White gravel! What is that for?” he exclaimed. “Nonsense; your walks will be overrun with weeds, and you will have enough to do to keep them out of your beds. I’ll fix your garden for you, now I know where you want it.”

Before I could protest, he rushed away, taking my plans with him, as though they were of no value whatever, with that wretched conceit which characterizes your practical man, not even waiting to hear a full explanation of my views, and evidently not appreciating them. He set his men to work next day without so much as consulting me.

Leaving Weeville’s men hard at work with plow and harrow over the practical portion of the undertaking, I set to work with “Bridgeman’s Assistant,” and soon learned how to trench and make drills—which, to my great astonishment, proved not to be holes—and became acquainted with the uses of the various garden implements. The quality and nature of the soil was quite a puzzle; but, as it had been ascertained by sinking the well that the upper six feet was a stiff, clayey substance, and beneath there was a pure stratum of sand, there could be little doubt but it must be a loam, which is described as a mixture of clay and sand. It was a fine, strong yellow, and my general impression was that loam is dark; but of its depth there could be no question, as the well-diggers went down forty-five feet before they reached water, and encountered no rock whatever.

There were many surprising statements in “Bridgeman’s Assistant.” It would seem natural that seeds, especially of radishes, beets, or carrots, should be planted at least a foot deep, so that the root might be long; but the author insisted that they should be covered with only two inches of earth. Unfortunately, however, as my investigations proceeded, some pleasing illusions were dissipated; one vegetable after another had to be given up, for the entire kingdom seemed to be governed by the most absurd laws; and when it was ascertained that strawberries would not bear the first season, and that asparagus might produce heads in the course of three years, I was in despair. Weeville, however, who confirmed these doleful discoveries, came to my rescue by inquiring in an enthusiastic way whether I had ever eaten a Daniel O’Rourke pea. I replied that doubtless I had, as I paid the highest price in market.

“Oh, pshaw!” he answered, “they are never sold in market; wait till you eat a Daniel O’Rourke pea, and then you can say you know what peas are. There are plenty of vegetables that you will be in time to plant; the ground is plowed and harrowed, and the Irishman is digging out the sods. A hard time he is having of it; the grass got up too high, and he has to break them up and shake each one out with a pitchfork. No person should live in the country without a garden; mine is the greatest comfort I have, and saves nearly half the expense of living.”

So, it being clearly an economy, my investigations were pursued diligently. A long list of the best vegetables still attainable was selected, consisting of early Mohawk and Lima beans, blood turnip-rooted beets, long orange carrots, long green cucumbers, sweet corn, large green-head lettuce, silver-skinned onions, Dutch parsnips, and Daniel O’Rourke peas, and purchased at the seed-store for the moderate sum of four dollars and fifty cents, according to the particular entry made in my memorandum-book at the time. The necessary tools, such as wheel-barrows, spades, hoes, drills, cultivators, etc., were added, but the charge for these seems to have been omitted; and when Weeville reported that the first planting—two rows of Daniel O’Rourke peas—had been completed, I invited a couple of friends to ride over on horseback to see my country place, for I was still living in the city. The house was then in its foundation state, but the garden would be well worth a visit.

It is a beautiful ride to Flushing. An intelligent man, named Jackson, has built an excellent turnpike—almost the only one in our country—and, with justifiable pride, has called it after himself. The scenery is diversified with hill and dale, with fertile fields and dense woods, and, before reaching the village, the highway skirts the bay, and presents a clear view for some distance up the Sound. We clattered along past the bridge and through the village out to the five-acre plot. There it lay, bare and charming, without a fence, almost without a tree; the house scattered in every direction; the foundation going up and the well going down; heaps of sand collected here and there, and a platform for mixing mortar directly where the flowers ought to be; but where the garden? We rode in every direction, and at last made out that a little bare spot which we had been over, forward and back, several times, and which was about twelve feet long by three wide, must be it. We did not dismount, but, consoling ourselves with the idea that the earth had been well stirred with our horses’ hoofs—for stirring the earth is essential to a productive condition, as Bridgeman says—we returned to the city.

Next day Weeville went to oversee the Irishman, who was hard at work struggling to subdue the sods on another twelve feet by three, and was surprised to find many of the peas out of the ground. He took a hoe and replanted them, treading them down so as to keep them under for the future; and, having done this with a dozen or more, turned to Patrick, and told him that he must be more careful hereafter, and must cover the peas well with earth.

“Sure and I am sorely puzzled, sir,” replied Patrick; “I have been all the morning poking the pays back under the earth. I’ve been thinking there must have been somebody over it, for they were all out of the ground intirely.”

Considering that three horses had been trampling back and forth over the bed the night before, Patrick was about right. But he had other difficulties to contend with more formidable than horses’ hoofs. The sod was strong, not having been disturbed for years, and it was many days before there was any thing resembling regular beds. In time, however, the peas appeared above ground; egg-plants were transplanted; beans crept up, and demanded poles to climb on; queer-looking, weedy affairs, that Weeville designated cauliflowers or tomatoes, as he pleased, made themselves conspicuous, and the success of the undertaking seemed assured—when one morning Pat rushed up to Weeville’s place, and, with staring eyes, announced that the cows had grazed off all the peas.

Any animal that entered that plot of ground appeared instinctively to know where the garden was, although better-endowed creatures might have trouble to find it, and either wanted to rest or pasture there, or at least to run over it. But when they proceeded to graze on the peas, it became serious, and upon Pat’s announcing, the following week, that they had been at it again, Weeville called upon me to say that there must be a fence round the lot, or he would not answer for the garden. Pat was set to work at once building fence.

Since the days of the Tower of Babel, when the world was divided up into tribes, the nations have been distinguished by peculiar aptitudes. The English nation has a gift for building pirate ships, the French for fashioning new dresses, the Chinese for growing pig-tails and cutting off heads, the Russians for eating candles, the Turks for stealing wives, the Americans for doing a little of every thing, and the Irish for digging holes. Pat never could learn to use a saw or an axe, or even to drive a nail without splitting the wood, but he could dig against the world. He proceeded at once to make the holes for the posts of the fence.

While he was thus occupied, however, the garden was neglected, and as he could not by any possibility keep the holes in a line, and consequently wasted much time, the weeds grew apace. It requires a great many boards to reach round five acres, and the holes for the posts had to be very numerous. The cows, having discovered the superior qualities of Daniel O’Rourke peas, paid them regular visits, and kept them well cropped, so that the garden fared badly. Pat dug so many holes, in consequence of making them either out of line or at an improper distance, that he might almost be said to have trenched the lot; and by the time he was through, and before the posts were all up, or the fence more than half finished, it was time to cut the grass.

This was a season of scarcity of labor. The high prices had satisfied the working-men that their time was too valuable to waste on every menial kind of drudgery, and they were particular, not only in selecting their masters, but their employment; so that Pat had to be the main reliance, with the occasional aid of a half-grown boy, to take hold of all the “odd jobs” required by a country place. He not only planted the garden, and built the fence, and helped in the house, and dug in the well, but he must mow the grass and milk the cow. In fact, if there was any thing that nobody else could or would do, Pat was called upon.

The grass was very fine. A handsome flower, with rich yellow centre, surrounded by a single white row of radiating petals, called a daisy—the lovely flower celebrated so frequently in English poetry, and the apt simile for all that is virtuous and innocent—had grown to great luxuriance, proving the uncommon richness of the soil. Its stalk was a foot long, and the pretty floweret topped the grass, and by its vast numbers lent a uniform tone of color to the entire lot. There seemed to be almost as much daisy as there was grass, which was what the natives called “switch grass,” and they were both knee-high. This crop was especially thick and heavy on the upper portion of the plot, as the carts and wagons had been in the habit, entirely regardless of the enormous damages they occasioned, of driving over the lower end, and the cattle of the neighborhood had grazed it pretty thoroughly. There was, consequently, only about an acre and a half left to mow, and Pat, with the aid of the boy, had that done in a day or two.

In my youthful days, often “of a summer day” I had “raked the meadow, sweet with hay,” and consequently had learned the importance of sun in hay-making. Unfortunately, no sooner was the hay cut and scattered about than there came on the heaviest rain of the season; it was a veritable northeaster, and lasted four or five days. The barn, which was expected to hold the crop, existed as yet only in anticipation; and when the hay did finally dry, it had to be collected in a pile, which Weeville called a stack, and left to the mercy of the elements. However, the labor cost only about seven dollars, and I was offered seventeen dollars for the stack, so that there was a clear profit of ten dollars. This was so encouraging that I felt almost inclined to lay down the entire five acres in grass, until I remembered that if an acre and a half produced ten dollars, five acres would only yield about thirty-five dollars—hardly sufficient interest on property valued at ten thousand dollars.

When the hay was stacked, and one board nailed on the fence so that the cattle could no longer wander wheresoever they listed, a careful examination of the garden gave the following result: Weeds profuse and luxuriant; vegetables scarce and sickly; peas about six inches high, well cropped, without flowers or pods; tomato-plants small, and well shaded by the surrounding weeds; egg-plants entirely invisible, having probably gone back into the egg in disgust; bean-poles tall and vigorous, beans about one foot high, being nearly up with the neighboring grass, and apparently unable to climb any higher. The other garden-truck was not to be found, and it required great discernment to distinguish the garden from the residue of the five acres. Weeville said it was no matter, after all, as he could supply me with whatever I wanted from his garden, and that it was always cheaper to buy vegetables than to raise them!

My glorious anticipations had dwindled; asparagus, cabbages, beets, strawberries, raspberries, pears, and plums had been given up; and now the hope of peas, beans, tomatoes, lettuce, and egg-plants was to be destroyed. That garden on which I counted so greatly—which was to have furnished not merely cheap food for my family, but subject for exultation over city friends—had proved a failure. Daniel O’Rourke peas were not to be; crisp lettuce could not be dressed in that style of art upon which I pride myself, and handed exultingly round to friends after the woodcock and claret, as so much superior to the stale, insipid stuff purchased in the markets. Egg-plants, richest of vegetables, were not to be pressed upon the surfeited guest as coming from my garden. Beans had proved a delusion, and tomato-vines a snare. All my study of horticultural works was to be thrown away.

It is true, we had raised an egg-plant, but it was small—so small that we thought of sending it to the agricultural fair as a rare production: it measured one inch and a half in circumference. We also raised one tomato, but a careless wretch trod on it, and crushed it and our hopes together. There was a fine lot of wild radish, which my friends pronounced to be weeds, although I had hopes for a time that a few of them would become tame. I was disappointed, however: they covered the new beds, as fast as these were cleared and dug, with a luxuriant clothing of bright green, and their leaves were pretty and graceful, but their roots never would come to any thing worth mentioning. It is deeply to be regretted that Nature has so constituted plants and weeds respectively, that the former won’t grow and the latter will. I did not eat a Daniel O’Rourke pea after all.