IS'.' 



GLEANINGS IN REE CULTURE. 



::s'.i 



not wotidor that pooplo call growing plants a 

 piittoring small business, and want to get out 

 of It. 



TluTP, I declare I I almost forgot my head- 

 ing. While you are succeeding witli the plants 

 you are also succeeding in training the boys. 

 The boy who can successfully perform the op- 

 erations I have described, and have his plants 

 nil tjroii', is pretty well fitted to do other im- 

 portant business in life. For instance, without 

 the careful instruction I gave them they would 

 probably have taken the plants out of the 

 greenhousf>. without watering, and rattled all 

 the dirt oflf. They would have laid them on a 

 tray or in a basket with the delicate tender 

 tops bent or broken. In watering, if I had not 

 cautioned them and showed them how to do it 

 they would have turned on a flood of water and 

 washed out the plants and knocked them over, 

 besides spattering their clotnes and making 

 the paths a sloppy muddy place. As it was, 

 they did not soil their clothing nor the plants. 

 I like to see plants grow and thrive; but. dear 

 friends. I hope I am speaking truthfully when 

 I say I try to recognize every day and every 

 hour that it is of a thousand times mor^ im- 

 portance that these boys should grow up care- 

 ful, trustworthy, successful, obedient boys than 

 it is to grow the finest fruit or vegetables that 

 the world ever saw. God gave us the fruits 

 and the vegetables, and they are indeed a pre- 

 cious gift; but Christ Jesus himself came down 

 from his home in heaven, into this world, and 

 lived— yes, died— that the boys might have life 

 eternal. 



THAT "earliest" STRAWBERRY. 



CA few weeks ago [ spoke about the abov^ 

 strawberry, and alluded to the fact that it was 

 putting out blossoms before any other we have 

 on our grounds, say a week or ten days earlier 

 than Michel's Early, Rio, or any other of the 

 extra earlies. As soon as Mr. E. C. Green saw 

 It he said I would find it had the same fault as 

 Michel's Early — tbat it makes a great swamp 

 of plants but bears very few berries. Pointing 

 to one of the plants he remarked: 



" There, you see those runners coming out al- 

 ready along with your extra-early blossoms." 



The plant now has runners a foot long; but 

 each and every plant seems to have stopped the 

 blossom business, and comnuiiced putting its 

 energies into runners. Very likely this is a 

 fault of most of the extra earlies. 



rjTHE BREED WEEDER AFTER HEAVY RAINS.!r 



3After having written my enthusiastic notice 

 on page 3.53, la*t issue, we had a heavy soaking 

 rain which settled our clay soil down so solid 

 that it threw the weeders out for some days. 

 Before the soil was really fit to run the weeders 

 again, we had a rain lasting three or four days; 

 and now the weeds have got such a start that 

 we are obliged to use the cultivators instead — 

 at least until we get the ground fined up once 

 more in proper condition to use the werder. At 

 the time I wrote I had a little misgiving, and 

 therefore I used the expression, "This morning 

 I feel like calling the Breed weeder the greatest 

 invention." etc. We can with some trouble get 

 the ground in proper order to use the weeder 

 again: and on certain soil, say on muck land or 

 sandy ground, the weeders can be used almost as 

 soon as it stops raining. Our ground is very 

 thoroughly underdrained; but notwithstanding 

 this it takes some time for the water to get 

 away: and after a heavy rain it is apt to leave 

 a crust that the weeder can hardly break up. 

 Where we have made heavy applications of 

 stablf manure season after season this reme- 

 dies the defect in a great measure. 



Below we give you a cut of the Breed weeder, 

 made especially for onions and other small 

 stuff where there is not room for a horse be- 

 tween the rows. 





BREED WEEDER FOR ONIONS, ETC. 



rWe use the above mostly with two boys. 

 One of the boys pushes, an l the other pulls on 

 a small cord hitched to the front. This cord 

 he puts under his arms and over his neck so the 

 draft corner just a little above the waist. Both 

 boys either straddle a row of the plants or else 

 go between the rows. They are expected to 

 keep the wheels and their feet ofif the plants. 

 Where the onions are of proper size we run 

 crosswise of the rows as well s,^ lengthwise. In 

 this case the wheels bend a few plants over; 

 but the harm this does i-< more than counter- 

 balanced by the more perfect pulverizing we 

 get. Where we use boy power instead of horse 

 power these weeders can be run crosswise on 

 all sorts of crops as well as lengthwise. Good 

 results are obtained by going crosswise at one 

 time of cultivatine. and lingt^hwise the next. 



"EARLEEST IN THE WORLD" TOMATO. 



We clip the following from Horticulture for 

 March: 



I have just inspected a patcb of the "Earliest in 

 the World" tomato, in the garden of an acquaint- 

 ance in Ontario County, N. Y. It was a sight indeed. 

 All plants were trained to a stake, and trimmed 

 to one stalk each. There were immense clusters, 

 from five to seven speimens in a cluster, all of 

 good, singularly uniform size, and as smooth as an 

 apple, not a wrinkle to be seen in anj' of them, and 

 evenly colored. My friend claims to have left the 

 specimens unpicked, on some of the plants, tmtil 

 about half of the crop had i ecome fully ripe, and 

 then to have picked as much as half a bushel of 

 perfect ripe fruit from one plant, leaving about as 

 much green fruit on to mature later. This would 

 prove unusually good keeping qualities, too. The 

 plants were seven feet liigh and upward. Of course, 

 we can train any tomato up like that. When all the 

 growth is forcef] into a single stem, on rich ground, 

 we .?an run the plants up 10 or 12 feet high easily 

 enough. From the great thrift of the plants in my 

 friend's patch, I infer that growth lias been stimu- 

 lated by heavy manuring, possibly with liquid ma- 

 nure, and that tliis treatment may possibly account 

 for t he remarkably fine fruit and the great produc- 

 tiveness of the plants. It points out a way how to 

 get fine tomatoes, and plenty of thtm. 



Half a bushel from one tomato-plant, of per- 

 fect ripe fruit, is a pretty big story; but I 

 shouldn't wonder if w-e gathered a. good half- 

 bushel from some single plants on our grounds 

 last year, and they were left to sprawl about 

 just as they chose. I was astonished to see so 

 many tomatoes, each and every one " as smooth 

 as an apple." While reading the above it made 

 me feel glad to think we have a tremendous big 

 planting in our clant-bods, of this same variety, 

 both once and twice transplanted. We also 

 have plenty of seed of our own saving, for 

 tho.se who care to plant the seed as late as this. 

 Very nice tomatoes may be grown even now by 

 planting the seeds in the open ground. 



KILLING APPLE-TREE BORERS WITH BISULPHIDE 

 OF CARBON. 



Bisulpliide of carbon will surely kill trees if ap- 

 plied to them. Prof. Stedman, entomologist of the 

 Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station, at Co- 



