While the crops are growing, we will find time to note the changes on
the home lot. Nearly in front of the farm-house, and fifty yards
distant, was a space well fitted for the kitchen garden. We marked off a
plat two hundred feet by three hundred, about one and a half acres,
carted a lot of manure on it, and ploughed it as deep as the subsoiler
would reach. This was done as soon as the frost permitted. We expected
this garden to supply vegetables and small fruits for the whole colony
at Four Oaks. An acre and a half can be made exceedingly productive if
properly managed.
Along the sides of this garden we planted two rows of currant and
gooseberry bushes, six feet between rows, and the plants four feet apart
in the rows. The ends of the plat were left open for convenience in
horse cultivation. Ten feet outside these rows of bush fruit was planted
a line of quince trees, thirty on each side, and twenty feet beyond
these a row of cherry trees, twenty in each row.
Near the west boundary of the home lot, and north of the lane that
enters it, I planted two acres of dwarf pear trees--Bartlett and
Duchess,--three hundred trees to the acre.
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