HINTS AND HELPS. 125 



ready for use soak and use the same as dried apples, or 

 mixed with dried apples for sauces and pies. A dozen 

 hills will supply an average family. Linnaeus is the 

 best kind for home use. 



For Seed Raising, select the earliest, highest colored 

 and most luxuriant plants. Allow but few seed stalks 

 to mature from each hill. When the seed becomes dry 

 and brown, bring the stalks indoors and strip off the 

 seed, spreading it out thin in a dry room away from rats 

 and mice. When thoroughly dry, store in tin boxes until 

 wanted. It should be all used the first or second season, 

 and will usually come up very poorly if kept until the 

 third spring. Seed is not produced in abundance until 

 the plants are three years old. Production of seed always 

 lessens the crop of the following year. Do not allow 

 the seed to become ripened and to scatter about the 

 farm, as the young plants are almost as hard to kill as 

 their relative, the yellow dock. One pound will sow 

 about six average hotbed frames and should yield at 

 least 1,000 plants. 



Ehubarb seed is sometimes sown in the fall and will 

 start a little earlier in the spring by that method, but 

 will not come up so evenly. In thinning, some allowance 

 may be made for the variety grown. The Linnaeus will 

 do very well two feet apart in the rows, the rows being 

 four feet apart. The Victoria and other large kinds do 

 better and are also more easily cultivated four feet apart 

 each way, while the Mammoth and other giant kinds 

 may be grown to advantage 4x5 feet. 



The Seed Bed should be on moist loamy soil, well 

 drained but not suffering greatly from drouth. It 

 cannot be made too rich, and nothing is better than 

 plenty of well rotted stable manure supplemented with 

 a sprinkling of nitrate of soda. The drills for seeds 



