Garden Topics. 



25 



G-arden 

 Early Rose Potatoes.— P. T. Quinn, 

 of New Jersey, informs the New York Tri- 

 bune that he sold, in the second week in 

 July, 100 barrels of Early Rose potatoes, 

 at S8.25, just $5 per barrel more than was 

 realized for last year's crop. 



Profitable Raspberries.~Mr. A. Fah- 

 nestock, whose place is near Toledo, Ohio, 

 has sold this season, in that city, about two 

 hundred and fifty bushels of raspberries, 

 with prices ranging from four to five dollars 

 per bushel. The yield was about sixty 

 bushels to the acre. The expense of culti- 

 vating (not including picking) is about ten 

 dollars per acre. His crop nets about one 

 hundred and seventy-five dollars per acre. 



Liquid Mineral Manures— Remarka- 

 ble Results. — A curious discovery has re- 

 cently been made public in France, in regard 

 to the culture of vegetables and fruit trees. 

 By watering with a solution of sulphate of 

 iron, the most wonderful fecundity has been 

 attained. Pear trees and beans, which have 

 been submitted to this treatment, have nearly 

 doubled in the size of their productions, and 

 a noticeable improvement has been remarked 

 in their flavor. A noted physician reports 

 that, while at the head of an establishment 

 at Engnein, or the sulphurous springs, he 

 had the gardens and plantations connected 

 with it watered, during several weeks of the 

 early spring, with sulphurous water, and 

 that not only the plantations prospered to a 

 remarkable extent, but flowers acquired a 

 peculiar brilliancy of coloring and healthy 

 aspect which attracted universal attention. 



Economy in Laying Out a G-arden.— 

 The farmer's fruit and vegetable garden 

 should be so arranged that it can be easily 

 cultivated by horse-power. It is a good 

 plan to lay out a rod or more at each end, 

 of greensward where the horse can be turned 

 around while either cultivating or plowing 

 it. This would do away with a great deal 

 of back-breaking work, and serve to keep 

 %e weeds well under, and the ground so 



Topics. 



stirred up that the crops would be highly 

 remunerative. Grape vines could be planted 

 along each side of the garden and trained 

 to trellises or fences. The vegetables 

 should be planted in rows from north to 

 south, and so far apart that the horse could 

 be driven between the rows. Then dwarf 

 pears and apples, plums, cherries and peach 

 trees, could be planted in the same way, at 

 one side, and kept under good culture. 

 Thus arranged there would be hardly any 

 hand-weeding or hoeing, for a one-horse 

 steel plow could take their place, and the 

 farmer, with very little trouble, could daily 

 enjoy the products of both garden and or- 

 chard. 



Bone Meal as a Manure.— Among all 

 the specific manures for grape vines, pear 

 trees, grass lawns, etc., none, perhaps, em- 

 body more of the ingredients of plant food 

 than bone meal. It should be applied as 

 early in the season after the frost is out of 

 the ground as possible. About half a ton 

 to the acre makes a dressing that will prove 

 valuable two or three years. We have used 

 it to advantage in the growing of potatoes, 

 peas, beets, etc. We sow it with the seed 

 in the drill or hill, and in the culture of 

 melons we have found it better than the 

 best manures. 



Standard Honeysuckles.-An exchange 

 gives the following directions to trim the 

 honeysuckle into a bush form, giving it 

 great beauty and effect: Buy a plant of it, 

 train or tie to a stout stake, prune freely 

 but not too severely, give good soil and cul- 

 ture, and "it will grow into a plant that 

 will astonish, by its flowering capacity, thou- 

 sands who have not seen it so trained." 



The Seckel Pear, according to a cor- 

 respondent of the Garde7ier's Monthly, at 

 Suspension Bridge, N. Y., is "wonderfully 

 improved" by applying ashes, lime and 

 bones, in autumn, and pruning and thinning 

 out the thick branches early in spring. 



