No. 2.

Amid the hurry and bustle of planting, you must not forget or neglect to care for your strawberries. If you have not a bed of them, put in a piece of ground at once with the Wilson. If you wish to experiment, do so, but make these your standard, until you are sure of something better. If you have a piece already in, the winter covering must be taken off, and the beds thoroughly cleaned out. Don't leave a thing except the plants. After this is done, put on a coat of well rotted manure, or what is still better, if you can get it, ashes. If they are unleached, at the rate of about 150 bushels per acre. If leached, twice the amount.

Your tomatoes for late crop, peppers and melons, will be about the last things put in for the first crop; for you must remember that you are not a successful gardener until you can double crop nearly your whole ground every season. And you must be bearing this in mind, and be preparing for it all the spring. But by the time, and probably before your first crops are all in the ground, the seeds first put in will require your care and cultivation. In the meantime, if you have a good asparagus bed, your market wagon has had to be put upon its daily trips. And now comes a season of unceasing care and labor. Not a day, nor an hour, should be lost. In the highly manured condition of your soil, the weeds come up literally by the million. They must not only be destroyed, but the young plants must be cultivated, to improve and hurry them on for the early market. If it rains, there are sure to be plants to transplant. If it pours down, you will still find it necessary to be on hand, and watch your beds and see that the surplus waters of the felling flood are immediately carried off, and that your beds are made ready for work again at the earliest moment. To be sparing of care or labor now is ruinous, even if your work up to this time has been ever so well done.

And many times after a long day of twelve or thirteen hours' labor, your market man comes home with an order, or a letter comes with an order for so much of this, or that, to go upon the first train or the first boat in the morning. Tired and weary as you are, you must go back to the garden, and fill the orders, or soon find your business sadly injured. Do not think me drawing a fancy sketch, for I remember well, one week, two years since, when from four o'clock in the morning till eleven at night, some if not all of my sons were in motion. This was of course only for a few days. But from the first of May to the middle of August, you will find long days the rule, not the exception. From the middle of June to the 10th or 15th of August, comes the additional work of getting in the second crops. The varieties of the second are not so great as those of the first one. The last of June or first of July, the Early Horn carrots should be sown between the rows of your black seed onions. If your ground is in the right condition, and the weather favorable, they will come on, and by the time they need the ground, the onions will be ripe and they may be gathered, and the whole ground given to the carrots.

But sometimes at this season of the year, the dry weather and a burning sun together will kill the young plants after they are up. Such was my case last season, but after I found that the carrots would be nearly or quite a failure, I sowed the beds with turnip seed, and the result was, a fair crop of as pretty turnips for table use as I ever saw. In June, the radishes, lettuce, etc., are getting out of the way and making room for celery and late beets, as well as rutabagas, though I think a better way to raise these two last named crops, is to sow the seeds in a bed and then transplant them. Let me illustrate this. Last season, I intended to raise cabbage after my early potatoes, but before I had the ground all set out, my cabbage plants gave out, and I concluded to fill up the ground with rutabagas and beets. It was nearly or quite the first of August, and the weather was very dry, as well as very hot. But there was no time to spare, and the plants were set out. They were set twelve inches apart each way, and although they were well watered, for a time they looked like almost anything, more than what they were intended for, crops of beets and rutabagas.

But they were well cared for and they soon started.

The first of November showed as nice a crop of fair sized table roots, as I ever saw. A neighbor, who had seen them when they were put out, and a few days afterward, came to see the crop while we were gathering them. He looked at them; "well," said he, "that beats all; and did you expect a crop when you had the plants set out?" Of course I did, or I should not have had it done. Said he - "when I saw your boys putting in those plants, I told my wife that John M. Smith is good at making things grow, but if he gets a crop there, he is a smarter man than I take him for." But there was no secret about it; you can do the same thing almost anywhere in the state. Put the ground in good condition in the spring, and plant Early Rose potatoes; cultivate well and thoroughly, and in July you have a good crop of potatoes. Take them off, plow under the tops and some manure along with them, have good thrifty plants to put in, and then care for them, and the first of November, harvest a crop of beets, rutabagas or cabbage. Simply a case of good cultivation during the season, nothing more and nothing less.

As a general rule, in the latitude of Green Bay, it is safe to set the large drumhead varieties of cabbage the first, but not later than the 10th of July. Celery not later than the 15th, and have a good crop. It is safe to set the Winningstadt cabbage till August 1st. The blood turnip, beet and rutabaga may also be set at this time and realize good crops. Flat turnips may be sown safely till the 10th of August, and get a good crop for table use. It may be said with regard to beets, turnips, rutabagas and cabbage for winter use, the later they are grown, provided they get a good fair growth, the better the quality, and the better they keep through the winter. A word about setting out cabbage plants. The Jersey Wakefield will do nicely and head well, at 18 inches apart each way; the Winningstadt at 20. Most of the drumhead varieties should be 24 inches apart, while the Mammoth, Marblehead and Drumhead should be at least three feet apart each way. It is utterly useless to attempt to raise the last named except upon very rich ground; but when the conditions necessary for a good crop of it are complied with, it will produce an almost marvelous crop, and the heads will be of a very good quality, still, I think it can hardly be said to be a profitable crop for general cultivation.

A few words with regard to an asparagus bed. Your garden will never be a complete one without a good bed of asparagus. The objections to it are, that it is a very expensive crop to get started, and that it takes four or five years from the first sowing of the seed, before you can realize a full crop. But if yon have a large element of eastern people among your customers, you will find it among your most profitable crops, and after it once gets to bearing it is not an expensive one to care for, but yields its annual crop with an almost absolute certainty, and that too at a time in the spring when your expenses are very heavy, and you will have but little coming in to meet them.

The new variety named Conover's Collas-sal, seems really to be an improvement upon the old kinds. The seed should be sown in a bed prepared the same as for onions, and sown early in the spring. Let it grow here the first season. When the plants are one year old, prepare your permanent bed, and be sure that you make it very rich. I would not put out a bed of an acre with less than 75 loads of good manure, and if 100 are put on, all the better. Make the rows three feet apart. I take a shovel plow and make the furrows about five inches deep, then put the plants in the furrows one to every 16 or 18 inches, spread out the roots in as near their natural position as possible; fill the furrow and pack down the earth somewhat over the plants, if your soil is a light one, level off your bed nicely, and your bed is made. This should be done early in the spring, and in about a month the plants will begin to show themselves above the ground, which should be kept perfectly clean during the season. Early the next spring cut off all the old tops close to the ground, and put another coat of manure over it and dig it under, though you must be very careful not to dig deep enough to injure the roots of the plants, which by this time have filled nearly the whole ground after you get, say four inches deep.

After your manure is dug under, rake off your bed nicely, or if you will improve it still more, before raking, sow on it the best quality of superphosphate that you can get, at the rate of say 500 pounds per acre, before you rake it. About the first of May nice purple shoots will begin to show themselves above ground, and you may begin to cut, though you must do it very sparingly this season, or you will injure your beautiful bed for many years to come. You are now at the beginning of the third year, and you will get your first returns. The bed must be kept clear of weeds, and each succeeding spring give it a good coat of manure, and work it in as I have directed. The fourth season, you may realize some profit from it, and the fifth, a full crop. From this time on, you may expect an annual crop, as well as a good profit from it for the balance of your life, if you will continue to care for it. There is a bed in my father's garden, which father has told me was there when he was a little boy 7 or 8 years old, and he is now in his 83d year.

The friends of Conover's Collassal have claimed that this variety would produce a crop one year earlier than the common kinds. My own experience has not proved the assertion to be true, although I think it an improved variety and very cheerfully recommended it for general cultivation.