HARPER'S A-B-C SERIES

A-B-C OF VEGETABLE GARDENING.
By Eben E. Rexford

A-B-C OF CORRECT SPEECH.
By Florence Howe Hall

A-B-C OF ARCHITECTURE.
By Frank E. Wallis

A-B-C OF HOUSEKEEPING.
By Christine Terhune Herrick

A-B-C OF ELECTRICITY.
By William H. Meadowcroft

A-B-C OF GARDENING. By Eben E. Rexford

A-B-C OF GOOD FORM. By Anne Seymour

16mo, Cloth

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK

A-B-C
OF
VEGETABLE
GARDENING

BY
EBEN E. REXFORD

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK & LONDON

A-B-C of Vegetable Gardening

Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published February, 1916

A-B-C OF
VEGETABLE GARDENING

A-B-C OF VEGETABLE GARDENING

FOREWORD

Not everybody has a garden. Some deny themselves the pleasure and the profit of one because they have never had any experience in gardening, and have somehow got the impression that special training is necessary to make a success of the undertaking. Here is where they make a mistake. There is no special "knack" about it. Any one who owns a bit of land, and has some time that can be given to garden-work, and an inclination to do so, can make a gardener of himself in a season—and a successful one, too—if he allows himself to be governed by the advice of some one who has had some experience along this line. After the first season he will not be likely to ask or need advice, for the practical knowledge which comes with one season's work among vegetables will not only be sufficient to enable him to go on with his gardening operations on his own responsibility, but it will have made him so enthusiastic over them that he will be eager to enlarge his knowledge of "the green things growing," and in doing this he will find a pleasure that will make him wonder how he ever came to consider gardening something to dread.

Others, who have but a small piece of land, may think it not worth while to attempt to grow vegetables on it. They labor under the impression that a garden, in order to prove a success, requires more land than is at their disposal. Here is where they make a mistake. Of course one cannot grow a large quantity of vegetables on a small piece of ground, but the one who undertakes to make the most of a small piece will be surprised at the amount that can be grown on it. In a garden that is not more than twenty-five feet square a friend of mine grows all the summer vegetables required by his family of four persons. This calls for what the scientific people call "intensive gardening," and makes it necessary to plant and plan for a succession of vegetables; but that twenty-five feet