The garden yard

Intensive cultivation reaches its climax for the present in what is called the French System, in vogue in and about Paris, and in some parts of England, where rents are so enormously high that even an inch of space counts, and must be made to produce its utmost. It has not been in favor in this country, because, so far, the pressure of rent has not compelled people to look so much after the inches. But, if the present land-tenure system continues, there is no telling when the French system of cultivation will become a necessity. In its simplest terms, the French system is hot-bed cultivation with perfect fertilization and irrigation, usually without artificial heat. The secret of it is—manure, unlimited quantities of it, of the finest quality and rotted to about the condition of leaf-mould. The beds are made on the top of the earth, the foundation being fresh stable manure that has been turned several times and thoroughly sweetened. Cover an area sufficient to accommodate the number of frames you intend to use, with great quantities of manure, so that after it has been tramped, pressed and rolled flat, it will be from 6 to 8 inches deep at least. Sometimes it is made two feet deep. The frames are then placed on this bed, the manure extending well beyond them on every side, and a distance of 18 inches is left between the rows of frames. A layer of fine, rich, dark soil, mixed with manure that has been rotted during the previous season, is then spread on, to the depth of six inches, pressed down and raked. The bed is then ready for planting. Generally four crops are grown in each frame, radish, lettuce, carrots and cauliflower being the usual combination.

The radishes are sown first, quite thinly, then a thin layer of carrot seed. These are covered with about half an inch of fine soil well pressed down. Cabbage-lettuce is next set out, the plants being placed nine inches apart, and, so far, three crops are growing at the same time. The fourth, cauliflower, is not planted until the radishes are off,—in about three or four weeks,—the lettuce has been cut and the carrots are showing well above the ground. Then three or four cauliflower plants are set in each frame between the carrots.

But one of the most interesting parts of this work is the growing of the lettuce and cauliflower plants for transplanting to the hot-bed frame. These are grown under “cloches” or bell-shaped glasses 17 inches across the bottom and 15 inches high, on a seed-bed prepared just as the hot-bed was prepared, except that the manure foundation is anywhere from 12 to 15 inches deep after being pressed down. These beds are not covered with frames, but the cloches are placed on them in two rows, and within the circles made by them the seed is sown.

As soon as they come up, they may be transplanted from the cloches to the hot-bed direct, or they may be pricked out under other cloches, four plants to a glass, usually one Cos lettuce and three cabbage-lettuce. These are again transplanted to the hot-bed where the radish and carrot seed were sown, and follow the radish in being picked. Lettuce seed is also sown in cold-frames about the first of October and successive sowings are made until the end of that month.

Immediately after the lettuces are picked the bed is watered and weeded, and among the growing carrots the cauliflower is set out. Cauliflower is grown under cloches, the seed being sown as lettuce seed is, under the glass or in the open seed-bed, from October to November, and pricked out under the cloches as soon as the plants are well up. They can be planted out in the hot-beds in February, and are ready for market between the middle of May and the first of June. About April the process of hardening begins, and by the end of that month the frames and sashes are removed and the beds stand in the open. During the time the crops are growing under glass, they need a great deal of attention, that neither the sun nor the frost may injure them. For this reason they are covered, uncovered and recovered several times during each day with mats or frames.

When the cauliflower is off, the bed is forked over and planted with endive, spinach, celery or other garden crop. When the season’s crop has been harvested in October, the soil is gathered up in a great heap, and the beds are topped with decayed manure in the leaf-mould state. This is the best thing to plant in, and if one had enough of it, the crops could be grown on a concrete floor; because in such soil plants find all that they need.

To bring it down to the fine point, the French system consists of manure, more manure, irrigation, availing of every ray of sunlight, and unremitting care. It requires three years to get the system in good working order, and here such intensive cultivation seems unnecessary. It shows what man will do in the way of developing the possibilities of nature, when by law or custom he is debarred from free access to the land, and must needs make a very small portion yield a great return.

We are not in much danger of Malthus’s over-population, and the much-talked-of “pressure of population.” Where so tiny a piece of soil can be made to support so many and give them a good living, too, it is foolish to argue that the cause of poverty is found in the increase of population. This country alone could support many times the population of the whole world today if natural opportunities were free. It has been said that 80,000,000,000 could then be more comfortably supported here than 80,000,000 now are. To find the cause of most of the poverty, and even crime, in the world, we must look beyond the population statistics to the restrictions and monopolies that prevent population from providing for its own needs from natural sources. And when once you begin to investigate monopolies, you will find the mother of them all—Land Monopoly.

A new sash for use in hot-beds and cold-frames has been placed on our market within a year or two, for which its makers claim many desirable things. It seems as if their claims were being well sustained by the experience of those using the Sunlight Double Glass Sash, as it is called. The frames are made of red cypress and are fitted with rustless springs and stops to hold the glass in the grooves and thus do away with the expense and bother of glazing. There is a space of dead air between the two layers of glass, which resists the cold from without, and prevents the escape of heat from within. The sash are sufficiently air-tight for ordinary weather, and when the thermometer falls, the moisture which has gathered between the two layers of glass, freezes and seals the sash practically air-tight.

The makers claim that Sunlight Double Glass Sash save more than half the labor, worry and expense of growing plants in cold-frames and hot-beds, and insure better plants, and, therefore, better crops, than can be secured under the same conditions from single-layer sash. They do away with the necessity of covering the frames with mats or boards, being warmer than the single-layer sash even though covered with mats or boards. Frames or beds filled with half-hardy plants, such as lettuce, cabbage or cauliflower, need no extra covering even in zero weather; and as far north as northeastern Ohio, with the thermometer nearly down to zero, even tomatoes, peppers and eggplants have been raised without additional covering, although this may not always be done. Light is never excluded from the growing plants by night or day, and in the short winter days of this climate, there is some advantage to that. Even when snow and ice lie on the sash, there is some light getting to the plants, and in clear weather the heat from the sun’s rays during the day is stored up in the bed and held by the double glass with the air-space between. That is why even in zero weather the half-hardy plants need no extra covering.

It is quite possible that the gardeners of this country may make a system of their own for intensive cultivation, to equal and perhaps excel the French system with its repeated covering and uncovering of the frames. The sash are made in Louisville, Ky.