To lay out and plant the garden of a street-house, where the principal object is the culture of fruit and vegetables.

111. General Arrangements

The mode of laying out and planting a suburban garden, entered through the house, where the object is to save expense to the occupier, by raising vegetables to be consumed in his family, differs considerably from those recommended where the object is economy in the first cost, or economy in the after-management. It may be necessary to premise, that, by profit, we do not here allude to the sale of articles, but simply to the production of such fruit and vegetables as shall be most useful in the household economy of the occupier. We shall suppose the extent of the back garden of fig. 34. to be nearly the same as in fig. 31.; because the same directions are alike applicable to both, or to any other garden similarly circumstanced. We shall also suppose that the drainage, levelling, service pipes, etc, and also the walks, are completed, and the front garden sloped, as advised in § 78.; and the ground trenched, improved if necessary, and thoroughly manured. In addition, there ought to be a manure tank formed, and so connected with the privy and the sink of the back kitchen, as to receive the drainage from them.

To this there ought either to be a fixed pump, or a moveable cover, to admit of readily dipping a bucket into the tank If a pump be employed, it ought to be one of large bore, so as to bring up mud as well as water. In using this liquid manure, great care must be taken never to put it on the leaves of the plants, and either to follow it by watering with clear water, to as to prevent the surface of the toil from being disfigured; or, what is preferable, to use it chiefly during or immediately before rain. As the supply of liquid manure will be regular throughout the year, it ought to be regularly used; and at those seasons when it may not be proper to water annual herbaceous vegetables with it, on account of disfiguring or dirtying their leaves, it may be applied to perennials, such as tart rhubarb and sea-kale, and to the roots of fruit-trees and fruit shrubs. The liquid manure from a house, where the family consists of five or six persons, and where they wash at home, if used as it is produced, so as to allow none of it to run off by the drain, will be quite sufficient for a garden 200 ft in length and 60 ft. in breadth.

Liquid manure, however, though powerful in a recent state, is always more efficacious after being a week or two fermented; but for this purpose two tanks are necessary, as will be hereafter described, when treating of the arrangements suitable for large gardens. All the laying out being completed, we next proceed to the planting.

112. The front garden we would devote chiefly to ornamental flowers or plants, some of which should be, at the same time, useful in cookery. The general surface we would keep in turf, forming round it a narrow dug border, and, in the centre, a bed in the form of a circle, square, diamond, or any other regular figure. In these borders, and in the central bed, we would plant no trees or shrubs, but only such ornamental herbaceous plants as could be rendered useful in the kitchen: for example, in the centre bed we would plant a Judas tree, the flowers of which make excellent fritters when fried in batter; or a mulberry; and in the alternate beds of a circular shape round it, we would plant an eatable gourd, or vegetable marrow, the fruit of which is one of the most useful of summer vegetables, either boiled or fried, and serves either to mix with apples, or to use alone, flavoured with lemon and sugar, for fruit pies. The best kind of gourd for using, when young, is the vegetable marrow. In the other beds we would plant a mammoth gourd, or American butter-squash pumpkin, the fruit of which should be allowed to ripen, for the purpose of being used for soups and pies, and also as a vegetable, when boiled, in the winter time.

The fruit of both these species, when the plants are regularly watered every warm evening with diluted liquid manure, or even with simple water, will sometimes attain an enormous size, weighing from 100 lbs. to 200 lbs.; and, as it will keep the greater part of the winter, even though cut, it is a most valuable resource for soups, and is so used in some of the first families in England. When cut, a circular orifice, of about 4 in. in diameter, is made on one side, and the piece taken out is, after cutting off part of the flesh, preserved as a stopper to exclude the air. When a piece is wanted for soups or pies, the stopper is taken out, and a sufficient quantity scooped out of the inside with a knife or an iron spoon. This may be practised throughout the whole winter, and the fruit will still continue quite fresh. The mammoth gourd is much used in soups by the French, even of the humblest class, and in the public hospitals, as well as by the Italians and the Americans; and though in England it is as yet scarcely known, except at the tables of the nobility and gentry, it is well deserving of general cultivation. It gives a fine flavour and creamy richness to soup, and is very nutritious.

The flowers of all the gourds and pumpkins are delicious fried in butter; and the points of the young shoots, boiled, are equal to spinach in tenderness and in flavour.

113. In ike border next the house, in order to be trained against it, if facing the south, we would plant a vine or a fig; and, if it faced the east or the west, a Glout Morceau pear, which is a never-failing bearer, of excellent flavour, and a good keeper. If the front faced the north, we should not recommend any tree or shrub to be trained against the house, unless it were iyy, which keeps the house warm, excludes rain, and always looks well. As ornamental flowers in this border, and also in those of the two side walls, we would plant scarlet runners, which would give a length of 70 ft. of this vege-table, and would afford an ample supply for a family of six or seven persons during the whole summer. For the runners to twine on, pieces of packthread should be nailed to the walls, and to the house, at about 6 in. apart, and reaching from within 1 ft. of the ground to from 4 ft. to 6 ft. above it, as may be suitable to the height of the side walls. The lower ends of the strings are fastened to a horizontal rod supported by props at about 6 in. from the wall. The kidney beans, being sown between the wall and the rod, will attach themselves, as soon as they come up, to the strings, and continue to twine round these till they have reached the top, flowering and fruiting as they advance.