188 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



HORTICULTURAL OPERATIONS FOR JUNE. 



Search diligently for bugs and carefully watcli 

 their operations upon the cucumber, melon and 

 squash vines. They will be found in every little crack 

 and cranny immediately about the collar of the plants 

 and will eat them completely through just at the sur- 

 face, and sometimes below the surface of the soil be- 

 fore one is aware of their existance. As the weather 

 gets warmer they will be found flying about from 

 plant to plant and then will be more difficult to 

 catch. The easiest and quickest way to catch them 

 18 for two persons to take a piece of gauze about a 

 yard square, then each person walk on one side of the 

 row of plants with the gauze stretched between them; 

 walk qui'.^kly and spread the gauze over the hill of 

 plants before the insects have time to fly away. You 

 will then have time to roll it up gently and kill them 

 as they make their appearance. Repeat this night 

 aod morning for a short time and you will soon les- 

 sen their numbers, neglect it and doubtless you know 

 the effect from previous experience — you may loose 

 all your first plants. This is the only effectual method 

 of getting rid of them; save covering the plants tighly 

 with miUinet or glass boxes. I have tried soot, wood 

 ashes, air slacked lime, scotch snuff, tobacco water 

 and Peruvian guano, and nothing has been so thorough 

 as catching and killing. The guano has had a better 

 effect than any of the others, either by invigorating 

 the plant and enabling it to out grow the bugs or 

 keeping them away by offensive smell. 



S<}UASH Bugs. — Search for the " big squash bugs." 

 Take a pail or watering can half filled with strong 

 brine or strong guano-w^ater, catch them by hand as 

 soon as seen and pop them quickly into the liqui d. Tou 

 must be resolute and make no compromise if they do 

 stink or they will cheat you and get away. I have 

 often thought that if a few tons of them could be col- 

 lected they might be serviceable as an article of ex- 

 portation to China for the purpose of manufacturing 

 into stink-pots, especially now in time of war, for I 

 know of nothing that can be more oflensive. 



A Constant Supply op Vegetables. — To have 

 a constant supply of tender kitchen vegetables it will 

 be necessary to repeat the sowings of peas, string 

 beans, early Bassano and Long Blood beet, sweet 

 corn, summer crookneck squash, spinach, early short- 

 horn carrot, lettuce, radish, mustard and cress. In 

 order to have these vegetables in the best condition 

 for the table, they must be sown on warm, rich ground 

 that they may grow and come to maturity as quickly 

 as possible, for the quicker they grow the more sweet, 

 tender, delicious and wholesome they will be; and the 

 glower the more coarse, hard and strong, especially 

 the lettuce and radish. 



Lettuce.— When the lettuce are about half grown, 

 or a week or ten days before they are wanted for use, 

 take each plant and collect its leaves together and 

 tie a piece of string or bass-wood bark around it and 

 in a few days it will be as white as the heart of a cab- 

 bage and quite sweet, tender and crisp. 



Cabbage. — If a few early cabbages be tied in the 

 game way it will forward their hearting up a few 

 days. 



Cabbage and Cauliflowers. — Plant a second 

 ga|iply of early cabbage and early Paris cauliflower 

 as recommended last month. Also a good quantity 

 of Drumhead or Flat Dutch cabbage for winter 



Peas. — When the peas are up three or four inches 

 high it will be time to hoe earth up to their stems, and 

 when they are six inches high it will be time to stick 

 them, by placing fan shaped boughs along each side 

 of the row for the peas to clime upon. 



Preparing the Celery Trenches. — About the 

 first of June will be the time to plant out the celery 

 in the trenches. So prepare the trenches betv/een 

 the first rows of the peas that were sown five or six 

 feet apart. Stretch a line and mark out the trench 

 two feet wide, then dig it out one foot deep and throw 

 the earth alternately on each side. Now wheel io 

 about five or six inches thick of good rotten manure; 

 spread it in, well mixing it with the bottom soil. — 

 When done, if dry weather, give it a thorough good 

 soaking of water and rake it smooth. 



Planting out Celery. — Choose a dull day, if 

 possible, but do not wait too long; stretch a hne down 

 the middle of the trenches; then with a little garden 

 trowel take the plants up separately from the nursery 

 bed, being careful to preserve a ball of earth about 

 their roots ; pick off all the decayed, crooked or 

 broken leaves and suckers about the collar of the 

 plants; then plant them a foot apart along the mid- 

 dle of the trench; press them in pretty firmly with 

 the hands and give a good soaking of water. If the 

 weather should prove hot and dry they will require 

 watering every afternoon as soon as the sun has pass- 

 ed off a little, say five o'clock or so; give a good 

 quantity so that the water will soak to the bottom of 

 their roots. Directions for earthing will be given 

 next month. 



Tomatoes. — If a stake was driven to each plant at 

 the time of planting, as recommended last mouth, it 



„iemm 



TOMATO RACK, AND VINE AS IT APPEABS WHEN FIRST 

 PLANTED. 



will be time now to nail on some strips of wood to 

 form a sort of an espalier to train the plants upon. 

 Take a stout strip of wood and nail along on the top 

 of the po3ts that will keep them in their proper places; 



