192 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



July, 



Does it pay to let weeds and especially 

 Burdocks, Sticktights and Canada Thistles 

 grow along the fences and about the sheds 

 and barns and in the streets? You have to 

 hoe the crops that comes from their seeds. 

 They sow themselves in your Oats and 

 Wheat, and deteriorate your crops. They 

 depreciate the value of your land also— and 

 they go into your character and above all 

 the character of your children. I do not 

 believe, it pays you to have foul corners of 



ands of ways whereby we lose by trying too 

 hard to save. 



Hilling Up as a Means of Fighting 

 Potato Rot. 



The rot fungus usually reaches the tuber 

 by way of gradual descent from the blighted 

 foliage. If the tubers are well covered with 

 soil, the passage of the germs from above 

 ground to the Potatoes underneath is ob- 

 structed, and rot attacks may thus to some 

 extent be prevented. For this reason the 



BilUrw Potatoes to Prevent Rot of Tuber. 



the sort. It usually is an easy matter to 

 prevent them. It is not easy to work out 

 the consequences. 



Does it pay to have piles of brush and 

 heaps of stones and all sorts of other rub- 

 bish about your place? In the United 

 States there are tens of thousands of acres 

 lost to value by such shiftless methods. I 

 know places of only a few acres where not 

 less than half an acre is lost to profit. This 

 is where the farmer fails to make ends 

 meet. On these lost spots he could grow 

 Berries, Grapes and vegetables enough to 

 pay the interest on his mortgage. 



Does it pay to buy trees, and plant in or- 

 chard, and then let the trees grow up to 

 suckers till ruined? On the whole, could 

 you conceive a more idiodic job than to 

 buy Apple trees at fifteen cents each; 

 costing planted about thirty cents each; let 

 them occupy the ground for two years as a 

 mere nuisance; give no fruit, and then die 

 out? Yet orchards of this sort are planted 

 every year, and they stand around as a 

 shame to their owners. 



Does it pay to hire men to pick Apples and 

 let them toss or drop them in the baskets; 

 then pour them into piles; then once more 

 pour them into barrels, with nails sticking 

 in on the sides, and dirt, or mould in the 

 bottom? In the early winter you must be- 

 gin to pick out rotten Apples, and by spring 

 you have thrown out half or more of all you 

 have stored. You have said to your neigh- 

 bors: "It is a bad year for Apples to keep." 

 Nonsense, years average a good deal alike, 

 and if Apples are picked in the way most 

 Apples are, they will rot any year and every 

 year. Does it pay, do you think? 



Does it pay to dig so many of your flowers 

 for winter storage and lose two-thirds be- 

 sides time and trouble, when you can buy 

 small thrifty new plants of nurserymen in 

 the spring for a trifle ? I find it above all 

 needful to save time and labor; and one 

 point gained is to grow plants that make 

 least trouble and let most of the tender ones 

 freeze in winter. The honest florist deserves 

 our patronage, especially when we gain by it. 



So one may take a rational accounting of 

 his methods, and reach some startling re- 

 sults. Evidently it does not pay to grow 

 weeds at any season of the year. It as 

 surely does not pay to lose the occupancy 

 of some of our best land; and when crops 

 are raised it does not pay to let them be 

 wasted by carelessness. There are thous- 



advice is frequently given to hill the Pota- 

 toes very thoroughly whenever the foliage 

 is attacked by the disease. 



The hilling method, it is true, is being 

 superceded by level culture; in an emer- 

 gency, however, it may be well to resort to 

 hilling. 



Our illustrations, reduced from Gardeners' 

 Chronicle, show two ways of hilling, an im- 

 proved one at the left which leaves the 

 tubers well protected and out of reach of 

 the fungus spores, and the ordinary one at 

 the right, where the tubers are more or less 

 exposed, or so as to allow of ready access 

 of the spores of the fungus. 



These hints may serve as a guide in the 

 treatment of Potato patches invaded by the 

 disease, when the preventive treatment of 

 spraying with the Bordeaux mixture had 

 not been resorted to. 



The Soja Bean. 



Some years ago we received from Europe 

 seed of a much-lauded introduction from 

 Japan, the Soja Beau {Soja hispldn). In- 

 deed so much was claimed for it that we 

 watched it for a few years with considerable 

 interest. It is an annual Bean-like plant of 

 bushy growth, as shown in accompanying 

 engraving, and of easiest possible culture, 

 succeeding well in rather thin soil, and, like 

 other plants of the same order (Lr (;i(?iii /lo.srr) 

 seeming to draw much of its nutriment from 

 the atmosphere. 



No doubt it is prolific. The seeds are of 

 rather small size for a Bean, and of various 

 colors. From Mr. Gregory more recently, 

 we had a black variety, but we vi'ould prefer 

 the sort we first obtained, which was of the 

 color of Lentils. 



The new vegetable came so strongly rec- 

 ommended as a culinary article, that we 

 had set great hopes, expecting it would 

 really "tickle the palate." We were 

 doomed to disappointment, probably owing 

 to lack of knowledge about its proper prep- 

 aration. Still we believe it is good culinary 

 material, and worth more extended trial. 

 We stopped experimenting with it, which 

 probably was a mistake. 



Undoubtedly it is a highly nutritious, 

 nitrogenous food. While poultry and other 

 stock will not touch the ordinary Bean, they 

 pick up the Soja with evident relish, and 

 this is the use we made of our stock. Alto- 

 gether, the plant is interesting, and perhaps 

 may be made very useful. 



A Handy Soil Marker. 



D. M. FARNSWORTH, MARQUETTE CO.. MICH. 



The device illustrated, on opposite page 

 I find quite useful tor neat, quick work 

 in sowing, pricking out and transplant- 

 ing. Take a piece of board an inch thick 

 and two inches wide, and of any desired 

 length; draw a line down the center of 

 each side and one edge, and with a plane or 

 sharp knife pare it down to a sharp edge; 

 fasten a handle of convenient size and length 

 at center of strip on the upper edge, and the 

 device is complete. 



Grasp the handle firmly, press the sharp 

 edge into the earth, and you have a straight, 

 even drill of uniform depth for sowing. By 

 marking and cross marking, as in Corn 

 planting, you have even spacing for prick- 

 ing or transplanting. To mark ofl' the dis- 

 tance to next row, you might also put on a 

 runner at one side fastened to rod of iron 

 passing through the marker, as shown in 

 lower figure. This runner can be adjusted 

 any distance and do perfect work. Of course 

 handle and marking strips can be made any 

 length, from a few inches to several feet. I 

 think that after trying one you will make 

 several of different sizes. 



The Coming Strawberry. -Will It 

 Ever Come? 



C. y. VALENTINE, UNION CO., N. J. 



The advancement in the line of new and 

 better Strawberries will probably be slow. 

 Judge Miller's oflferof .f!l,OUO (in ISS'J) should 

 stimulate eilorts to improve this fruit; but 

 it does seem that his demand that the com- 

 ing berry shall have the color and product- 

 iveness of Crescent, the size of Bubach, the 

 firmness of Capt. Jack, and the quality of 

 Ladies' Pine is almost too great, and that 

 he is not likely to be called on in the very 

 near future for the money. Yet, is not this 

 about what all raisers of seedling Strawber- 

 ries are aiming at ultimately, and do they 

 not expect it in time? 



It was not stipulated that the new plant 

 should be perfect-flowering, in the belief 

 possibly, that the requisite productiveness 

 could be obtained only in a pistillate variety. 

 Had he also been a little less exacting as to 

 its quality, it would seem more probable 

 that his object might be obtained in his time, 

 but looking over all the berries that have 

 been introduced with a great flourish during 

 the past 15 years, I cannot see that the ad- 

 vance in quality warrants us in expecting 

 theidesired berry during our own generation. 

 Some insist even that we have had no ad- 

 vance in quality, and any one who buys 

 berries in the general market, may be easily 



Bii«h of Soja Beam. 



pardoned for doubting the assertion that 

 the Strawberry is the finest fruit ever 

 created. But it does seem a bit presump- 

 tions for the man who knows this royal fruit 

 at its best, to ask that it be made even a 

 little better! 



Still there is much general talk about the 

 great advancement that has been made. It 

 i,s rather annoying, however, to be con- 



