if small, and it be worked
with the spade, _right_ lines are easier made with the spade than curved
ones. One or more walks, at least eight feet wide, should be made,
leading from a broad gate, or bars, through which a cart and horse, or
oxen, may enter, to draw in manure, or carry out the vegetables; and if
such walk, or walks, do not extend around the garden, which, if in a
large one, they should do, a sufficient area should be thrown out at the
farther extremity, to turn the cart upon. If the soil be free, and
stony, the stones should be taken out _clean_, when large--and if small,
down to the size of a hen's egg--and the surface made as level as
possible, for a loose soil will need no draining. If the soil be a clay,
or clayey loam, it should be underdrained two and a half feet, _to be
perfect_, and the draining so planned as to lead off to a lower spot
outside. This draining _warms_ the soil, opens it for filtration, and
makes it friable. Then, properly fenced, thoroughly manured, and plowed
deep, and left rough--no matter how rough--in the fall of the year, and
as late before the setting in of winter as you dare risk it, that part
of the preparation is accomplished.

The _permanent_ or wide walks of the garden, after being laid out and
graded, should never be plowed nor disturbed, except by the hoe and
rake, to keep down the weeds and grass; yet, if a close, and well-shorn
grass turf be kept upon them, it is perhaps the cheapest and most
cleanly way of keeping the walks. They need only cutting off close with
the hand-hook, in summer.

We have known a great many people, after laying out a kitchen garden,
and preparing it for use, fill it up with fruit trees, supposing that
vegetables will grow quite as well with them as without. This is a wide
mistake. _No tree larger than a currant or gooseberry bush should ever
stand in a vegetable garden._ These fruits being partially used in the
cooking department, as much in the way of vegetables, as of fruits, and
small in size, may be permitted; and they, contrary to the usual
practice, should always stand in _open_ ground, where they can have all
the benefits of the sun and rain to ripen the fruit to perfection, as
well as to receive the cultivation they need, instead of being placed
under fences around the sides of the garden, where they are too
frequently neglected, and become the resort of vermin, or make prolific
harbors for weeds.

Along the main walks, or alleys,