606 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



High-pressure Gardening 



EARLY potatoes; ANOTHER "GREAT DIS- 

 COVERY/^ 



Perhaps most of you remember how I 

 urged you all last spring to plant just a 

 few early i^otatoes in your back yard. 

 Well, when I got back here to Ohio I un- 

 dertook to "practice" what I had been 

 "preaching," but could not find any Early 

 Ohio, Bliss Triumph, nor any other extra 

 early potato at any price. The best I 

 could do was to get a bushel of Early Rose ; 

 but these had to be shijiped from up in 

 Michigan. I tell you this so that you may 

 take warning and lay in a stock of early 

 seed potatoes this fall, so you will not be 

 caught as thousands of others were when 

 they were ready to plant. Well, I planted 

 my Early Rose, giving them the best soil 

 and the best cultivation on nicely drained 

 ground, and in response to my "high- 

 l^ressure" treatment they just grew and 

 grew ; and now, with the abundant rains 

 we have been having, some of the vines 

 will reach up higher than my head, and 

 they are still growing as thriftily and with 

 as rank a luxuriance as when I first plant- 

 ed them. There are not very many pota- 

 toes yet, and Mrs. Root says they are all 

 "going to vines," although I have assured 

 her that wherever there were rank vines 

 there would be potatoes sooner or later. 

 Well, the result is that, while our potatoes 

 are "Rose" all right, they do not seem to 

 turn out to be Early Rose. There is no 

 very brilliant discovery in that, js there? 

 Right adjoining my patcli my son-in-law 

 has a garden, and he got hold of some 

 State of Maine — the best he could do for 

 extra earlies. Now, while my Early Rose 

 potatoes were covering the ground with 

 rank luxuriant foliage, the State of Maine 

 was jjuffing up the ground, indicating that 

 there were potatoes there; but as the State 

 of Maine was still rather green and luxuri- 

 ant, we hated to dig them a whole hill at 

 a time; so we commenced "scrabbling" out 

 the big potatoes, leaving the hill to keep 

 on growing more.* Wiell, one of my favor- 



* Does somebody ask if it is the regular habit of 

 the author of the Home papers to wander off into a 

 garden belonging to a neighbor and help himself 

 whenever said neighbor happens to have better 

 "garden sass" than his own! My reply is, this gar- 

 den patch belonged to Blue Eyes, and I had been 

 spending considerable time in pulling great weeds 

 out of the potato-hills that nobody seemed to see 

 but myself. One day in pulling up a great red-top 

 weed a big nice potato came along with it ; and as 

 I went by her door I called out, "Con, I have pull- 

 ed pretty near a wagonload (?) of great weeds out 

 of your potatoes, and I am going to take along 

 some of the tubers for pay." She replied, "All 

 right, father; help yourself." So you may know 

 that I not only enjoyed thus digging out the big 

 potatoes, but I enjoyed doing it with a clear con- 

 science; and Mrs. Root and I also enjoyed admiring 

 the good qualities of the tubers at dinner time. 



ite implements, both in the greenhouse and 

 out in the open ground, has been a good- 

 sized kitchen spoon. This kitchen spoon, 

 however, is made of metal, and hence it is 

 apt to become rusty, especially if it is not 

 cleaned off thoroughly with the fingers 

 every time it is laid down. One day when 

 1 was in a hardware store I caught sight of 

 a big enameled spoon, and decided that it 

 would be just the thing to use ill the gar- 

 den. Well, my wonderful discovery is 

 this: Take such a spoon as I have de- 

 scribed, and a little basket. (I always 

 carry a little basket because a big one is 

 apt to give me "that tired feeling.") Now 

 with your basket and spoon go through 

 your potato-ijatch and find where the 

 ground is cracked open and is puffed up. 

 Scrape oft' the dirt with your spoon until 

 you get sight of the potato that is pushing 

 up the ground. Now slide your spoon 

 under this potato, push down on the han- 

 dle, and out jjops the tuber. Put the dirt 

 back, and go on until you have enough 

 potatoes for dinner; and do this, if you 

 can, just before dinner time. If you have 

 never tried cooking potatoes right fresh 

 from the ground, I think you will pro- 

 nounce this the nicest potato you ever tast- 

 ed — that is, if you have a State of Maine, 

 Early Puritan, a Thoroughbred, or a Bliss 

 Triumph. Put the dirt back carefully, and 

 your vines will keep right on growing — 

 that is, if you have plenty of moisture. 

 Pulling out the big potatoes acts like thin- 

 ning out the fruit on an apple or peach 

 tree. It enables the others to grow larger, 

 and it loosens up the soil, and this does 

 good and not harm. 



Now, you people who have been digging 

 out a whole hill while the vines were green 

 and thrifty have been losing perhaps half 

 the crop. Do not dig potatoes, if you can 

 lielp it, until the vines are all dead and 

 dry. So long as there is any green in 

 the stalks, the sap is gradually going down 

 into the tubers under ground. Some of 

 you may say that scrabbling potatoes out 

 of a hill is nothing new; but my discovery 

 is along the line with which it can be 

 done with a big enameled simoon. You can 

 get such a spoon of Sears, Roebuck & Co., 

 for a nickel. 



THE TRUTH ABOUT SV7EET CLOVER. 



Just about two years ago our booklet 

 on sweet clover of almost 100 pages 

 was sent out. We printed 20,000; and 

 judging from former experience we 

 thought they would last five or six years; 

 but just now our printers inform me 



