“And think, too, how I worked,” Albert moaned.  “Hereafter I shall not make fun of inoculation.”

There is not much more to tell of this garden.  The poppies yielded well.  These were supported as they grew by stakes, as tomatoes are.  Carrots need rather mellow, upland soil.  The boys found that their carrots did not do so well as the other vegetables.  The soil was a bit heavy and moist for them.  They found this out about beets:  beets should not be transplanted.  Transplanting puts them back.  Albert transplanted a few and learned this fact.

XI

GEORGE’S CABBAGE TROUBLES

George had a long task in stone picking.  The old slope seemed to be full of stone.  George would pick continuously from school to supper time, and next morning declare that new stones had grown in the night.

The ditching was very little work.  It meant digging a ditch about two feet deep and then making at either end of this gutter a side ditch at a very severe angle to the main ditch.  These side ditches were directed along the sides of the hill for about six feet, and the water thus directed would conduct itself off.  Of course the angle was such that the ditch led away from the garden spot.

[Illustration: 

Slope            slope
---------------------
/        ditch          \
side   /   --------------------  \  side
slope /  /                     \  \ slope
/  /        garden         \  \
/  /                         \  \

Picture this as the ditch George dug right above his garden.  The water passed through the side slopes away from the garden.]

As the stones were picked off he piled them into the gutter, where this stony bottom also helped the drainage problem.

George was a master hand at ploughing, for he had always done his share of it, so ploughing meant nothing to him.  First, you will remember George had one foot of dressing to put on the land.  This he ploughed in; and then reploughed.  After this the slope was harrowed.  You all know that the harrow simply makes fine the soil after the plough has done its work of throwing up the earth.  The rake is a kind of harrow.  Of course, when the garden plot is large, the rake is impossible, and then the harrow, really a big rake dragged by a horse, must do this work.

It took the boy longer than some of the others to do his work, for George did more work at home than the others.  He was probably better informed on farm matters, however.  His father was a real farmer; the other boys’ fathers farmed, too, but not as a business.

Anticipating the amount of time this preparatory work would take he had not started his cabbage inside.  To get an early crop of cabbage, seed must be planted in January or February; then one may start in March.  But for the late crop plant in the open in May or June.  This is just what George did.