y well.

An acre of land may appear a laughably small piece of ground to
produce such a variety of articles, but if well attended to the yield
will astonish those who are ignorant of gardening. The one important
thing to be attended to is, to see that all seed-crops are well
thinned out as soon as they are an inch above the surface. In very few
kitchen-gardens is this attended to, and for want of this care a dozen
carrots, parsnips, or turnips, are allowed to stand where one would be
sufficient. The one would prove a fine root; the dozen are not worth
the trouble of pulling, as they can get neither air nor room to grow.
To be well done they should be thinned by hand, and that being a
tedious "job," gardeners seldom can be induced to perform the work
properly.

As our ground became productive we added another cow, and more pigs
and poultry, but I shall not now say with what success. This little
book in only intended for the novice in farming, and details only the
results of the first six months of our "farm of four acres."

Perhaps I should have called it _five_ acres, as nearly the whole of
the acre of kitchen-garden was devoted to the cultivation of food for
our "stock."

We had a very broad sunny border at the back of the flower-garden,
which grew nearly all the spring and summer vegetables we required:
such as seakale, early potatoes, peas cauliflowers, and salads.

We have not yet said anything of the money we saved by our
kitchen-garden, but we must add to the profits of our six months'
farming the average amount we should have paid to a green-grocer for
fruit and vegetables.

Twenty-five cents a day to supply thirteen persons with these
necessary articles is certainly not more than must have been expended.
Still, $90 per annum is a considerable item of household expenditure,
and scanty would have been the supply it would have furnished; as it
was we had a profusion of fruit of all kinds, from the humble
gooseberry and currant to the finest peaches, nectarines, and hothouse
grapes, as well as an abundant supply of walnuts and filberts.

Had we bought all the produce of our garden, the value would have more
than paid our gardener's wages.

Nor must I omit the luxury of having beautiful flowers from the
greenhouse throughout the winter; these superfluous items did not
figure in our accounts. We should have purchased but bare necessaries,
and therefore entered but twenty-five cents a day for "garden stuff"