February, 191 o 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



35 



prevent branches from forming bushes 

 and regretful confusion that cause a 

 great harm to the circulation of the air. 

 This is why we should not leave more 

 than one or two plants a mound. 



MAKING THE MOUND 



I come back to the making of the 

 mound : when the leaves touch the glass 

 I raise the box a little ; then when 

 branches reach the edge of the window 

 I remove the hot-bed. Therefore, I com- 

 plete my mound. I dig the ground 

 around the hotbed, stir the land, and 

 with a rake again hill up the land a lit- 

 tle towards the melon plants. I again 

 put some mould on the top of the 

 mound ancj on the melon plant as far as 

 the seed leaves. 



I make a circular mound with depres- 

 sion in the centre where the plant is in 

 such a manner so as to form a basin, in 

 order to contain the quantity of water 

 needed. Afterwards, I put a thickness of 



one inch or one and one-half inches of a 

 black substance (like dung) all around the 

 mound, in a manner so as to mask all the 

 surface of the mound. This is done to 

 have all the heat possible penetrate the 

 depth of the mound. In fact, of all col- 

 ors, black absorbs most heat, and the 

 more a mound will absorb of solar heat 

 the more melon plants will develop ; the 

 fruits then will be juicy and delicious. 

 Therefore, the whole plant absorbs an 

 excessive heat which is an advantage 

 over flat layers. 



My mounds finished, I put four shin- 

 gles (about middle size) in each, leaving 

 them a little larger than the branches of 

 the melon, then I put on my hotbed with 

 the frame entirely closed. I open it only 

 to water or to warm the plants. I take 

 off the hotbeds in June only when the 

 heat of the temperature is strong. When 

 the fruits are half grown, I gradually 

 take them away from the leaves, or rath- 



er, if the weather is cloudy, I place them 

 on a large shingle which I sharpen at one 

 end and which I put in the mound ; at 

 the other extremity I put a support. 



The height of my mounds is eighteen 

 or twenty inches, having a circumfer- 

 ence at the base of 100 inches at least, 

 and at the top, a circumference of seven- 

 ty or seventy-five inches. 



VAEIETIES AND SEED SELECTION 



I have cultivated a great variety of 

 melons with seed coming from Los An- 

 geles, California, but the best ones that 

 I have found are those of Montreal and 

 of Cantaloupe. Select those varieties that 

 are known to give the best results. 



We should always select the seed. The 

 best seed is that which is taken from the 

 middle part of the slice of the melon. 

 This is the first one formed, and it reach- 

 es always its full development. A melon 

 seed, well cultivated, requires four 

 months to cover the period of vegetation. 



A Fe^w Facts About Potatoes 



W. J. L. Hamilton, South Salt Springs, British Columbia 



P 



ALTHOUGH everybody grows pota- 

 toes there are a few interesting 

 facts about them that are not gen- 

 erally known. To obtain an early crop 

 of potatoes, not only should an early 

 variety be chosen, but the tubers should 

 be exposed to the sun under glass until 

 they have turned green, and until the 

 sprouts on them are an inch or more 

 long. The longer these sprouts are, the 

 better, if the sets are carefully handled 

 so that they are not broken off. This 

 sprouting has the effect of developing 

 a number of short joints on the young 

 shoots and, as the young potatoes form 

 at the joints, it stands to reason that the 

 more joints we have underground, the 

 heavier the crop will be. If after plant- 

 ing, the potatoes are earthed up, more 

 young tubers will form, but as these do 

 not develop until the plant has made 

 considerable growth, the ensuing crop 

 though heavier is later than if the plants 

 are not earthed. 



POTATO CULTURE IN IRELAND 



In Ireland, where the labor is not 

 grudged, I have seen very fine crops of 

 potatoes grown in wet boggy land by 

 the following method : 



After being plowed, the land is mark- 

 ed out in strips alternately four feet and 

 two feet wide. .Strawy manure is spread 

 on the four-foot strips, and on this man- 

 ure, the freshly cut potato sets are even- 

 ly distributed, at from twelve to eighteen 

 inches part, according to the variety of 

 potato used. 



The soil from the two-foot strips is 

 then shovelled all over the four-foot 

 beds, covering the potatoes to a depth 

 of three to four inches. When the pota- 



to tops have grown a few inches above 

 the soil, the bed is given another top- 

 dressing of the soil from the two-feet 

 strips, which are by this time converted 

 into deep trenches. 



Good crops are obtained in this way, 

 and a second crop is obtained from the 

 land at the same time by inserting cab- 

 bage plants two feet apart along the 

 edge of the trenches at about the level 

 of the manure. These generally also 

 yield a fine crop. By further deepening 

 these trenches can be converted into 

 drains, whereby the land can be easily 

 reclaimed. This hint may be worth not- 

 ing, although I doubt if the method 

 would become popular in this labor- 

 saving country. 



GROWING EARLY POTATOES IN CELLAR 



New potatoes in small quantities can 

 be produced early in the year, when they 

 will fetch fancy prices, by the following 

 method : 



Fit up a number of wide shelves in a 

 dark cellar and on those place two inches 

 of almost dry soil. Select good-sized 

 tubers and half imbed these in the soil, 

 setting them two and a half to three 

 inches apart. Sprouts will shortly form 

 with small potatoes at their base. The 

 tops of these sprouts should be nipped 

 off with .scissors. The small potatoes 

 can be gathered and marketed when 

 about the size of a large walnut. Sev- 

 eral crops will be borne before the bed 

 is exhausted. The cellar must be per- 

 fectly dark. A very slight sprinkling of 

 water may be given carefully from time 

 to time to the potatoes, though too much 

 does harm. 



In fertilizing potatoes, sulphate of 



potash and not muriate of potash should 

 be used, as the latter tends to make the 

 potatoes waxy. If nitrogen has to be 

 supplied, nitrate of soda is preferable to 

 ammonia salts. As a rule, however, this 

 is not needed, especially if potatoes are 

 planted on a turned under clover .sod, 

 which gives nitrogen equal to about fif- 

 teen loads of barnyard manure per acre. 

 As potatoes like a strawy manure, this 

 clover particularly suits them and it has 

 another beneficial effect in that its fer- 

 mentation produces a slight acid reac- 

 tion in the soil which has a tendency to 

 check potato scab. 



Fertilizer for Lettuce 



In what proportions should dried blood 

 and nitrate of soda be used on lettuce?— 

 M.A., Dundas, Ont. 



I would suggest the following per 100 

 square feet of surface ; Nitrate of soda, 

 one-half pound ; superphosphate, one 

 pound ; finely ground bone, one pound ; 

 sulphate of potash, one-half pound. To 

 facilitate distribution, this may be mixed 

 with four or five times its volume of dry 

 loam. Work the fertilizer well into the 

 surface soil, say to a depth of two to 

 three inches, by raking. 



If preferred, dried blood may be sub- 

 stituted in part for the nitrate of soda in 

 the proposed mixture, say one third 

 dried blood and two thirds nitrate of 

 soda. 



When the lettuce is, say, two or three 

 weeks old, a further application of ni- 

 trate of .soda, at the rate of four ounces 

 per 100 square feet, may be made, if 

 the growth is not vigorous. — Frank T. 

 Shutt, Chemist, Dominion Experimental 

 Farms. 



