iSgo. 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



29 



in August. With so many ifs in the way, a 

 new beginner or careless worlier is likely to 

 get tripped up on one of them . 



There are less ifs to stumble over in spring 

 planting, and nearly all fruit growers take 

 the course that has been found to have the 

 least number of doubtful chances. The ob- 

 jection to late spring planting is just the 

 same as to fall planting, namely, the danger 

 of dry weather, and consequent loss of 

 plants. Like many other risky ventures, it 

 is all right when it succeeds." 



Our neighbor Burdett, of Long John 

 fame, who has u half century's experience 

 as fruit grower, maintains that early spring 

 planting gives better chances for securing 

 a small crop of berries than can be found in 

 fall planting, except when the best potted 

 runners are used with skill and care. When 

 the fruit stalks are forming during fall, the 

 plants cannot be disturbed without check to 

 the development of those fruit stalks, but 

 they will bear moving and handling much 

 better and with less danger to their frtiit, 

 while yet dormant in early spring. 



Preparation for the Earliest Crops. 



For our earliest Cabbage, Lettuce and 

 other outside crops we employ a method of 

 fall preparation, which is not generally in 

 use, we think, and which gives a start of 

 more than a week in the spring over ordin- 

 ary preparation. 



This is done by applying a heavy coat of 

 manure in the fall (shown by the darkest 

 part in the engraving below), and ridging 

 the land with the plow. The ridge consists 

 of a double furrow thrown up in regular 

 order across the field, as indicated in the 

 cross section illustration. 



Several advantages arise by this method. 

 The soil is thoroughly exposed to the bene- 

 fits of freezing in the winter, thus ensuring 

 finer tilth the coming season; the larva of 

 the May beetle and other insects are de- 

 stroyed by freezing. In the spring the soil 

 dries out sooner than in adjoining land that 

 is not thus ridged. Immediately it is dry 

 enough to level with the harrow, seeds can 

 lie sown, for the manuring and plowing 

 were done in the fall, and thus the crop is 

 started a loug time ahead of what would 

 have been possible on land tliat was only 

 manured and plowed in the spring. 



The Proper Use of Wood Ashes. 



We have a pretty high opinion of the 

 value of wood ashes, especially when these 

 are derived from hard wood, and not de- 

 teriorated or weakened by leaching. We 

 have no better domestic source of the valu- 

 able potash, of which a fair sample contains 

 from 4 to 7 per cent. This is in the form of 

 carbonate, very soluble, and the best for 

 agricultural purposes. Ashes also contain 

 m to 2>:< per cent of phosphoric acid, while 

 lime constitutes the bulk. 



Still,wood ashes contain no nitrogen, and 

 this lack probably is the cause that even 



, ^^ MANURE 



Preparation for the Earliest Crops. 



liberal applications of such ashes on the 

 land often give so little returns. Recently 

 we mentioned the experience of Mr. J. M. 

 Smith (Wisconsin) as told by him before 

 the American Horticultural Society, in 

 Cleveland. Dr. T. H. Hoskins refers to this 

 same thing in Rural New Yorker. 



Mr. Smith, he says, applied ashes success- 

 fully to land long in cultivation, with other 

 manure, and what seemed to him remarka- 

 able results, especially in increasing the 

 power of the soil to hold moisture. This is 



what will be always seen on such land. Biit 

 let any man with a thin, light soil apply 

 ashes, no matter how freely, and it is most 

 probable that he will see no improvement in 

 his crop, though he may be observing 

 enough to note a better growth of Clover 

 there in succeeding seasons. 



Upon a Potato crop treated with a light 

 dressing of manure, ashes will often do 

 marked good, and the same would be true 

 upon a thin sod for Corn or Beans. In the 

 first case, the manure gave a relative ex- 

 cess of nitrogen, needing the potash and the 

 phosphates of the ashes to make it available, 

 while the Corn crop, needing but little 

 nitrogen, would make prompt use of the 

 constituents of the ashes. 



For young fruit trees, ashes supplying the 

 non-volatile elements for making wood, are 

 an excellent fertilizer, causing a free but 

 firm growth. On bearing fruit trees, stable 

 manure or some other complete fertilizer is 

 called for, and without such a food supply 

 the leafage will be pale and scanty, and the 

 crop light and poor. With ashes alone, the 

 surest way to bring up worn land of a light- 

 ish nature is to grow Clover, for which ashes 

 constitute a complete manure. The Clover 

 will gather in a large supply of nitrogen 

 and store it in its stems, leaves and roots. 

 Used in this way, ashes will surely and 

 rapidly build up such a farm. There is 

 occasionally a case where clays are bene- 

 fitted by potash. If ashes give a marked 

 result on Clover the soil needs them. 



The Rural, editorially, adds the timely 

 advice that in places where good wood ashes 

 are cheap, farmers should never buy chem- 

 ical fertilizers until the ashes have been 

 tried. A first-rate supplement to unleached 

 ashes is raw-bone flour, being strong in 

 phosphoric acid, in which ashes are weak, 

 and furnishing nitrogen of which ashes are 

 destitute. 



COMMENTS BY READERS. 



A departmetit to which all aye invited to send notes 

 of experience and observation concerning topics that 

 recently have been treated on in this Journal, Many 

 such contributions monthly are welcome. 



Stratagem Pea. For home use the Strata- 

 gem is one of the very best Peas grrown, but it 

 has its drawbacks. To begin with, the seeds are 

 more costly than most standard sorts, also they 

 are so large that they don't go as far in the row 

 as the same measure of smaller Peas. Now lor 

 something not generally known about Peas. 

 Large-seeded Peas, no matter what their quality 

 may be, are disliked on aristocratic tallies, and 

 our highest toned French cooks absolutely refuse 

 to cook them. Alpha, Advance and Champion 

 of England are ideal Peas In size. It is rather try- 

 ing to see the splendid Stratagems served to the 

 servants and the lesser Peas to McAlister. Stra- 

 tagems with us on rich sandy land grow ^% to 3 

 feet high, and Telephones 7 or 8 feet high. 

 Telephone is a Pea of fine quahty, but it grows 

 too rank and doesn't crop enough. 



Evergreens in Summer. So you admire 

 their beauty. I am glad you do. Let's see. Every 

 Evergreen is perfect ; they display no mark ot 

 drouth or other enervation, their color is of the 

 deepest green, their form ot the comliest, and 

 everything is clean and tidy about them. With 

 deciduous trees on the other hand, the Horse 

 Chestnuts are dropping their leaves, so too are 

 the Catalpas and the Walnuts and the Hickories, 

 and the foliage of the Lindens is crumpling and 

 falling, and the Plane tree leaves are dusted and 

 deformed with mildew. And dead branchlets, the 

 work of insects, are hanging all over the (laks, 

 and disgusting web nets of caterpillars are 

 everywhere. Still we have room for all kinds of 

 trees. 



Chinese Box as a neat enclosure for cemetery 

 lota p. 2.53. This is ail right in a way, but I must 

 take exception to the "enclosure" of any kind. 

 The only enclosure to a cemetery lot should be 

 the outside fence ot the cemetery, and there 

 should be no enclosure of any kind whatever, 

 whether iron rail, stone curb, or plant hedge, 

 inside the cemetery In most all new prominent 

 cemeteries, and the new portions of old cemet- 

 eries, enclosures of lots in anyway are absolutely 



prohibited. And too the graves are filled in 

 level with the giound and not left in mounds as 

 before. And all this admits of keeping the 

 cemetery like a spacious park garden. 



Anemones. Your note p. 358, about our 

 pretty wild Rue Anemone, prompts me to advise 

 your readers to trj' some Crown or St. Bridget 

 Anemones. They have large, many-colored, 

 single flowers and are easily raised from seed 

 sown indoors in spring. If well taken care of— 

 I plant them out in a moist half-shady bit ot 

 ground— they will bloom well the following 

 spring. In fall I lift them from the open ground 

 and plant them somewhat thickly into a cold 

 frame as I do Pansies or Daisies, and get many 

 splendid flowers in late winter and spring. 



Freesias. I am glad you have a good word 

 for these, p. 25fl. I grow them in thousands and 

 am doubling the supply every year. They are 

 so lovely, so eas.v to grow and so accommodating, 

 I have them in unbroken quantity between 

 December and April. Their flowers are white, 

 elegant, deliciously fragrant and can be used for 

 most any purpose or associated with most all 

 other flowers, even with Orchids. And as pot 

 plants, when in full bloom, ladies are perfectly 

 delighted with them. The main points I find in 

 their cultivation are, repot them early so as to 

 give them a good long season to grow before 

 flowering, perfect drainage in the pots, complete 

 protection from frost, light airy winter quarters, 

 timely staking, and keep them growing after 

 the flowers are plucked as long as the leaves 

 will keep green.— W'm. Falconer, 



Japanese Miniature Gardening. A Japan- 

 ese botanist gives the following interesting par- 

 ticulars as to the means by which the stunted 

 trees, like the Pine shown on page 10, are 

 produced. The seeds are sown in very small 

 pots, and the seedlings allowed to grow until the 

 pots are full of roots, when they are shifted into 

 other Ipots scarcely larger than before. Thus 

 treated the greater part of the main tap-root 

 dies, the remaining portion emitting secondary 

 roots, which are sub.1ected to a similar starving 

 process, with a result that they often project 

 above the surface, and support the plants as on 

 stilts. The branches as they grow are tied down 

 and twisted in all possible directions, something 

 after the approved pattern of a specimen plant 

 at a European flower show! Actual pruning is 

 not resorted to, the starving and bending of the 

 new shoots as they are formed being found 

 suflicient for the purpose. Sometimes as a result 

 of this incessant torture all the branches die, 

 leaving only the stump, in the shape of a thick 

 shapeless stock, on which buds are grafted, so 

 that from the same stock numerous different 

 varieties may issue.— E. Ex. 



The Japan Quinces. Mr. Fuller's commenta 

 on the above, on page 255 of last volume, agree 

 with my notion about this fruit. Some seasons 

 my flowering Japan bears very handsome fruit 

 like a very large Apple, hard and astringent 

 while green, but when ripe has a most delicious 

 fragrance, so that one specimen put in a peck of 

 common Quinces will give it the flavor in pre- 

 serving. This is on the old Pyrus Japonica or 

 Scarlet-flowering Quince from Japan. But of 

 late years we have another Japan Quince that is 

 destined to make its mark in the south. A speci- 

 men of the fruit was sent me that weighed near 

 two pounds. Color a dark green with a kind of 

 bronze cheek. It differs in form from our 

 American Quinces, is much hardier and has a 

 different taste. The specimen alluded to never 

 got soft, but when we considered it ripe had it 

 preserved, and although quite different from our 

 homegrown, and not quite as good to most 

 tastes, it was still what I call good, and if we 

 could grow them here I would try it. A novelty 

 and a curiosity they are anyhow.— Samuei Mil- 

 ler, Mo, 



Keeping Onions over Winter (page 19). For 

 this purpose we have erected two large rooms in 

 the end of our barn, above ground. These rooms 

 are almost frost-proof in the coldest weather; are 

 provided with double windows at each end of 

 rooms, and double doors from entrance from 

 drive-way on floor of the barn. All the walls 

 have dead-air spaces. BuUding paper is tacked 

 on the inside of each boarding that forms the 

 hollow space. We use thousandsof bushel boxes, 

 made of slats and the Onions are kept in them. 

 Our aim is to put in dry, weU-cured stock, and 

 to place it in such a way that it may always be 

 airing at suitable times, and yet always be secured 

 against low degrees of temperature.— H. H.Hurd, 

 Ont, 



