GARDENING. 



107 



Landscape Work. — One of our readers 

 has a garden to lay out and asks us what 

 we would charge for giving him a plan 

 for it. Our correspondent is on the right 

 track. Anyone having a nice house and 

 a piece of ground around it, should have 

 the garden laid out in the best, most 

 tasteful and convenient, and ])rettiest 

 way possible. Properly laid out to begin 

 with it is right forever,' make a botch of 

 it to begin with and it is probably wi'ong 

 forever. And the little it will cost you 

 now to have it done well will be a good 

 investment, and as years pass by and the 

 beauties of your home grounds mature, 

 you will appreciate them more and more, 

 and they will add to the value of your 

 |)roperty. General plans such as we give 

 in Gardening (and no more beautiful or 

 rational ones have ever been published) 

 are suggestive only. No man who never 

 saw your place can give you a true plan 

 for it, no matter what he may insist to 

 ihe eontran,'. Our practical duties at 

 Dosoris and Gardening completely occupy 

 our time and we are unable to do any 

 outside work. But we can confidently 

 recommend Mr. J. Wilkinson Elliott, of 

 Pittsburg, Pa., the designer of the plans 

 that have appeared in this journal, as a 

 man of good common sense and excellent 

 taste. 



The Stinging Primrose {Primula oh- 

 conica): Why?— When this little prim- 

 rose was first introduced to cultivation 

 its beauty, profusion rnd usefulness and 

 the fact that it was so easily raised from 

 .seed appealed so forcibly to florists and 

 amateurs, that it at once became a fav- 

 orite and was widely and extensively 

 grown. But the poisoned condition of 

 the hands of many of the gardeners and 

 florists who handled it in growing it or 

 gathering its flowers soon brought it 

 into disrepute. The poisoning appeared 

 as an eczematous inflammation of the 

 parts of the skin of the hands or arms 

 touched by the plants, caused by the 

 jointed glandular hairs of the leaves. 

 The irritation was not perceptible at 

 once as it would be in the ease of a sting- 

 ing nettle, but after an hour or so, and it 

 continued for several days, a week or 

 more. Alost of the workmen here were 

 badlv poisoned everj' time they handled 

 the primulas, on the other hand some of 

 them could handle it with perfect immun- 

 ity. But the strangest thing about it to 

 us is here; At first it used to poison us 

 every time we touched it; in a year or two 

 the irritation became less marked, and 

 now we handle the plants — repotting 

 them, cleaning them, or picking the flow- 

 ers from them without suffering any irri- 

 tation. 



The lily of the valley that the flo- 

 rists force in winteris imported European 

 roots. They are the best for them, being 

 the most reliable, for they have been 

 grown and selected specially for forcing, 

 and every pip produces a flower spike. 

 But amateurs can grow their own roots 

 and get fine flowers. We have a large 

 lot of this little plant in the garden and 

 every fall we topdress it with short man- 

 ure, letting it stay there over summer. 

 This gives us big fine pips, and beautiful 

 spikes. Before the winter sets in we dig 

 out about a hundred to a hundred and 

 fifty square sods of it for forcing. The 

 sods are well shaken to remove the loose 

 earth from them, and then they are 

 packed pretty close into li tie flats or 

 boxes, say 12 or 16 inches square by -t 

 inches deep, keeping the pips all looking 

 up, but none above the box. We pack as 

 many into each box as we can get with- 

 out hurting them, using light, fine dryish 



earth in the operation. When the boxing 

 is finished we set them out of doors in an 

 open frame by the side of a board fence 

 and spread some leaves or chaffy man- 

 ure over them, but not nearly enough to 

 exclude frost from them. They remain 

 there during winter except that so many 

 are brought indoors twice a week for 

 forcing. We start them in the hottest 

 place in the greenhouse — a place under the 

 bench near the boil r, and when the flower 

 spikes appear above ground move the 

 boxes up on to the shelf and in a week 

 or ten days when the bells begin to form 

 move them to a cooler place. We want 

 good foliage as well as good flowers. In 

 forcing lily of the valley, trying to estab- 

 lish the plants before forcing them is 

 labor lost, and common sand is just as 

 good as rich earth for boxing them in. 



The Grape Culturist, a treatise on 

 the cultivation of the native or hardy 

 grape by Andrew S. Fuller, com s to us 

 from the Orange Judd Co. It is a new 

 revised and enlarged edition of the work 

 which has been a standard f r thirty- 

 years. We are well acquainted with Mr. 

 Fuller; we know the man and the experi- 

 ence he has had, and we hail with delight 

 this comprehensive, plain, practical, easily 

 understood and up-to-date book on how 

 to grow grapes out of doors. Mr. Fuller 

 has been actively engaged in practical 

 horticulture for fifty years, and is a life- 

 long investigator as well as practitioner, 

 he knows the theory and the fact of the 

 matter, and has got the hard common 

 .sense peculiar to men of long experience. 

 More than that he has got the happy 

 faculty of communicating to others the 

 information he himself possesses in a terse, 

 convincing way. He commences by giv- 

 ing us a history of the grape vine and its 

 botanical characteristics. He tells us 

 how to propagate it from buds, grafts, 

 cuttings and seeds; and how to hybridize 

 it. Every detail of cultivation in the 

 garden and vineyard is given, for instance 

 soil, sitmtion, selection, planting, prun- 

 ing, training, fruiting, etc.; also the insect 

 and fungous diseases of the vine and how 

 to deal with them. And 38 pages are 

 devoted to a description of varieties. A 

 list of the best standard varieties is given 

 in one chapter; a list of new varieties in 

 another; and one of old and obsolete 

 kinds.in a third. Altogetherwe commend 

 this book as being indispensable to any 

 one interested in grape growing out of 

 doors; it is a sound book and one can 

 follow its teachings with pleasure and 

 profit. It is 12mo., freely illustrated, 

 contains some 280 pages, and costs $1.50. 

 You can get it from the publisher of this 

 journal. 



Plan for a Terrace. — A correspon- 

 dent of Gardening hastwo terraces, each 

 28 feet long by 20 feet wide, sloping 

 southward at an angle of one to four, and 

 separated from each other by steps. He 

 intends next springto plant these terraces 

 partly with tall growing foliage or decor- 

 ative plants, but mainly with low grow- 

 ing shrubs and plants, and he desires us 

 to say that he will give a prize of twenty 

 dollars for the best design; the competi- 

 tion being open to all. Theplans of both 

 tei-races are to be alike in design, but the 

 planting may or may not be alike. The 

 plans should indicate how the plants and 

 shrubs are to be arranged, regard being 

 had to uniformity of size in the case of 

 those bedded together. The spaces be- 

 tween the beds are supposed to be sodded. 

 All plants and shrubs, except perhaps a 

 few decorative plants, must be perfectly 

 hardy in a climate where the temperature 

 sometimes reaches 17' below zero; at all 



events, hardy with reasonable protection, 

 say a good thick covering of leaves. In 

 selecting the shrubs etc.. special re- 

 gard should be had to the quantity, 

 (juantity and duration of bloom. Plans 

 (Irawn upon a scale of four feet to one 

 inch may be sent to the editor of Garden- 

 ing any time before February 1 . Mr. J. 

 Wilkinson Elliott of Pittsburg, Pa., has 

 kindly consented to advise as to the 

 awarding of the prize. This will be an 

 interesting pastime for some of our sub- 

 scribers during the winter evenings, and 

 it is not improbable that some of the de- 

 signs may be worthy of publication in 

 Gardening. 



The Vegetable Garden. 



TOMATOES FAILING IN WINTER. 



E. H., Concordville, Pa , asks: 1. 

 "Will you please let me know where 

 can I get a book on tomato culture? 2. 

 The tomato plants we have in our green- 

 house this winter are not doing very well, 

 the leaves wilt and black spots come on 

 them, and then in a w eek's time the leaf 

 is dead and so it will go all over the 

 plant. 3. The stalk appears to be very 

 healthv but a great many blossoms dry 

 up and there are no tomatoes formed." 



1 . There is no book on the subject that 

 we have seen. 



2. Your plants are troubled with the 

 tomato leaf disease, which is very destruc- 

 tive to the crop in the winter months in 

 the greenhouse. By rigid cleanliness, a 

 moderate temperature and even, dry 

 atmosphere, and picking off every diseased 

 leaf as it appears you may keep the 

 disease in check enough to have the plants 

 bear and ripen some fruit; but really 

 badlv infested plants should be dumped 

 out as hopehss. Begin with a thoroughly 

 clean greenhouse, fresh soil, firmly jjacked 

 either in pots, boxes, or on benches; and 

 with stocky, perfectly clean young plants, 

 and once a fortnight spray them, wetting 

 the foliage on the under as well as the 

 upper side, with Bordeaux mixture. Do 

 this before there is a vestige of disease in 

 sight; after the disease sets in spraying 

 may not be a complete remedy or pre- 

 ventive. 



3. At this time of year you should hand 

 fertilize your tomato blossoms. 



TAB VEOETflBLE GARDEN. 



Globe artichokes.— We ha\c put a 

 shovelful of coal ashes on top of each 

 stool, a good armful of tree leaves on top 

 of that, and a little sedge over the leaves 

 to keep them in place. 



The asparagus tops have been cut, 

 cleared away and burned, and the beds 

 manured and forked. 



Brussels sprouts have been lifted, 

 stripped of their rough leaves, and heeled 

 in. straight up and close together in" a 

 pit where we can get at them to pick 

 them in winter whenever we want to. 

 Don't have them in the cellar, they smell 

 too bad. 



Mature cabbage and Savoys are buned 

 heads down in a close double row. 

 Smaller and younger headed Savoys have 

 been stripped of their rough leaves, and 

 heeled in heads up and as close together 

 as possible in a five feet wide bed, which 

 we cover with sashes or boards with 

 some sedge over it to keep out very hard 

 frost. 



Curled kale is put by in the same way. 



Cauliflower showing small heads was 



