Gardening Suggestions for April 



WK are generally impatient to get 

 to work in the garden after the 

 long winter, and it is a pleasure 

 to feel once more balmy breezes and to 

 see the tender April skies. This may be 

 termed the preparatory month, when we 

 must put into effect the experience gained 

 last year and picture to our mind's 

 eye beautiful new combinations to be 

 tried from study and past observation. 

 For the sake of continuity, we will divide 

 the operations under three heads, name- 

 ly, the fruit, vegetable and flower garden. 



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Cions and How to Graft Them 



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Presuming that all pruning was car- 

 ried out in the orchard during March, 

 we have still left to do such work as 

 grafting, which is best done in April. 

 Many gardens having young fruit trees 

 of undesirable sorts, are easily trans- 

 formed into the better kind by the sim- 

 ple operation of grafting. People who 

 desire to have gardens or to do some sim- 

 ple operations, are sometimes frighten- 

 ed by extreme scientific directions from 

 undertaking them. Let me urge them, 

 if they are novices, to make the effort. 

 It simply consists in getting a cion or 

 shoot of last year's growth cut off any 

 time before .second growth starts, and at- 

 taching it in a suitable place on the tree 

 it is wished to alter. This cutting, pre- 

 ferably from three to four inches in 

 length, can be made either by a sloping 

 cut, figure one, or made wedge shape, 

 as figure two. Figure one cion is used 

 as a slip or tongue graft. As a slip graft 

 it is simply put into the end of a branch 

 that has been cut off. The bark is split, 

 as in figure three The cion is pushed 

 down the bark and tied firmly with wax- 

 ed cloth or matting and covered with any 

 medium that will prevent exposure to the 

 air, such as clay or wax. 



The wedge-shaped cion is pushed into 

 stock cut off and split, care being taken 

 to see that the back edges of the cion and 

 stock meet evenly on one side. I have 

 given these simple directions, becau.se I 

 think fruit growers 'should not tolerate a 

 poor fruit variety any longer than the 

 season it bears and proves worthless. 



J. McPherson Ross, Toronto, Ont. 



Then the art of grafting furnishes oppor- 

 tunity also to the grower with limited 

 space to have many desirable fruits for 

 consumption by securing two or more 

 varieties from one tree. 



After care of the graft consists in rub- 

 bing oft' any sprouts that usually shoot 

 from the branch below the graft, as if 

 allowed to grow they would rob the graft 

 of sap. Any system or form of grafting 

 may be tried which convenience may sug- 

 gest. This applies equally to all fruits. 

 Commence first with plums or cherries, 

 early in April, and finish up with apples 

 and pears. These I have often grafted 

 when the tree was almost in leaf, during 

 the latter part of May. Garden books of 

 all kinds give full directions in regard to 

 grafting. I only draw attention to it 

 here that I may urge fruit growers not 

 to let the month go by without attending 

 to it. 



Last year's growth in the small fruits, 



such as currants, gooseberries, black- 

 berries and raspberries, should be short- 

 ened, and old barren wood cut out. Dead 

 shoots or canes in raspberries should be 

 removed. Carry away all litter and rub- 

 bish, preparatory to wheeling in good 

 rotted manure to be forked among the 

 bushes. You cannot overdo fertilizing 

 currants and gooseberries as they are 

 gross feeders and to produce fine fruit 

 should be well fed. 



HAVE A HOT BED 



The first thing to do in the vegetable 

 garden is to make a hot bed which can 

 be placed in the yard or other place con- 

 venient for observation. An illustration 

 of a simple hot bed is given elsewhere 

 in this issue, and how to make one was 

 described in the March number. A 

 hot bed in a small garden allows you to 

 grow a variety of plants, such as toma- 

 toes, early cabbage and other vegetables, 

 as well as annuals for the flower beds. 



The Garden of a Working Man where Flower* Reign Supreme 



The chief flowers srown in this garden, owned by John Henderson, of Hamilton. Ont., were Pcrtnn- 

 ias, Phlox, Drummondi and Karigolds, with a few perennials and shrubs. 



At the baok is a bed of oannas. —Photo by T. J. Davenport. 



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