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WISCONSIN STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.
VEGETABLE GARDENING.
THE FARMER'S GARDEN.
A. J. PHrLIPS, West Salem, Wis.
A Mr. I. W. Ingham of Bradford county, Pennsylvania, sent
a paper on the above subject to be read at the summer meeting of
this Society at La Crosse last summer, which varied so much
from my idea of a Wisconsin farmer's garden that I am asked
to reply to it. And in order to do so I will have to give some
of his main points so my audience can understand this paper.
First. He says the discoveries and improvements of each mem-
ber tend to stimulate to greater effort by contact with each
other. This I am free to admit is so. Second. He claims that
a majority of the farmers have poor gardens. I will amend this
by this change: that the minority have poor or no gardens.
Third. He said that the late Waldo F. Brown of Ohio said
that a majority of farmers fall below their privilege in not hav-
ing a good garden. He answered that by saying that farmers
had the privilege of going to summer resorts or to the seaside but
they did not go because they had not the time or money to spare.
I reply to this by saying that no class of people have more time
and money to spend on vacations than the Wisconsin dairy farm-
ers for from my station more farmers went to the Chicago,
Omaha and Seattle expositions than did any other one class of
men. Fourth. He says the field crops are the farmers' main de-
pendence while his garden is not. I reply by saying that no place
on the farm of the same size and run by the same expense affords
the farmer and his family more of the necessaries and mainte-
nance of his family and friends than does the garden, for when
company comes unexpectedly, when threshers come, when corn
shredders and silo fillers come, when carpenters or masons come
to make improvements or repairs during the summer and fall,
what is the first thing his good wife does? She may scold a lit-
tle on the side because she has not had more time to prepare;
then she sends some one for a few groceries; then to help out in
supplying a bountiful meal, she gets a move on and sends the
hired girl or hikes to the garden herself for the bulk of her sup-
plies, and she usually gets it without first mowing down the weeds
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