JUNE 15, 1916 



505 



been achieved by girls in their teens, but 

 several girls under fifteen have done won- 

 ders. I think I saw in one of our periodi- 

 cals a picture of a girl only thirteen years 

 old who had made something like forty dol- 

 lars in growing and canning tomatoes on 

 only a sixth of an acre.* Now, you need 

 not say these stories were all " made up," 

 for you can see it done in almost every 

 progressive neighborhood; and if you live 

 in a city, by taking a little pains you may 

 see what is being done in a similar line in 

 the boys' and girls' gardens on vacant 

 spots of ground. The owner of the ground 

 usually not only lets it to poor people free 

 of charge, but plows and cultivates it so it 

 will be in good shape for gardening, and 

 sometimes furnishes manure and fertilizei's. 

 If a man has a piece of real estate in a 

 growing city, it is nothing strange if it 

 should transpire that he gets a better price 

 for it when it is covered with vegetables and 

 flowers than if it is left to grow up to un- 

 sightly weeds. May God bless the boys and 

 girls who are in love with modern agricul- 

 ture; and may the modern agiiculture ulti- 

 mately lead them to get in love with the 

 great Father above who gave us this beau- 

 tiful world with its wonderful possibilities 

 along the line of agriculture. 



I have given you pictures during the 

 winter of my Florida garden ; and some of 

 you may wonder what I am doing here in 

 Medina on this last day of May. Well, I 

 have not done very much as yet, because 

 the gi'ound has been too Avet to work ; and 

 in our Medina clay soil that means quite a 

 little more than it does down in Florida, 

 where one can always get to work two or 

 three hours after the heaviest kind of rain- 

 storm. I have peas up that are doing very 

 well; but my sweet corn, planted at the 

 same time, has, a great part of it, rotted in 

 consequence of the cold and wet. The 

 Golden Bantam, as heretofore, stands bad 

 weather very much better than the other 

 varieties. 



A year ago I spoke to you about a hand 

 cultivator to be run by a motor. There are 

 several such machines now on the market; 

 but they cost about $150, and weigh pretty 

 well toward 500 pounds. I have got hold 

 of something that, for an old man like my- 

 self, I think is better than a motor cultiva- 

 tor. In fact, it is very much simpler. It is 

 a little hand cultivator that I just bought of 

 Sears, Roebuck & Co. It weighs only 20 



* I find the following in Farming Bitsiness for 

 ■Tune 5 : 



01?:a Chick, of Ferguson, Ky., was awarded the 

 l;rst prize in the Canning Clubs of the state. In the 

 summer of 1915 she raised 5944 pounds of tomatoes 

 on one-tenth of an acre, and canned 1075 cans of 

 tomatoes alone. Her work netted her $121. 



pounds, and it cost only $1,95. It not only 

 pleases me because of its lightness, but the 

 tools that go with it are such hard-polished 

 steel that the result is, the tool is almost as 

 smooth as glass. It slides into the dirt, even 

 if it is damp, and the dirt slides off from it. 

 This is a wonderful improvement. I might 

 have thought of it long ago, for the reason 

 that my favorite implement in gardening is 

 a large-sized enameled spoon. This spoon 

 is always clean because it is so easy to rub 

 off the soil when you are thru cultivating or 

 when you are done using it. I jDrefer my 

 big spoon to any kind of trowel. In stir- 

 ring the soil around a plant, or in lifting 

 little plants from the seed-bed to be put out 

 in the garden, the spoon is about the handi- 

 est tool I ever got hold of. If I lay it down 

 and forget where I left it, I am like a fish 

 out of water, as the expression goes. 



A word more about the cultivator. I 

 have been using hand cultivators that cost 

 four or five dollars. But this little light 

 cheap cultivator I have mentioned is for me 

 away ahead of any of them. Of course it 

 has no arrangement for sowing seeds, etc., 

 and I do not believe I like a combined tool. 

 I like to have every tool made for a partic- 

 ular purpose with as few loose attachments 

 as possible to get lost and require time in 

 changing and adjusting. 



Perhaps you wonder why I do not say a 

 word about the maple sugar I mentioned 

 last year, as a " substitute " for an electric 

 or gasoline motor. Well, the maple sugar 

 does not always answer just right. Perhaps 

 when one is taking strong muscular exercise 

 day by day he can stard a fair amount of 

 sugar ; but where one has to spend a good 

 portion of his time sitting in the office, as 

 T am now while dictating this, he had better 

 be careful about too much sweet ; and no 

 sweet (nor anything else, for that matter) 

 between meals. 



THE STRIPED SQUASH AND MELON BUG. 

 Mr. Root: — I was quite interested last year in the 

 discussions and remedies to prevent the devastation 

 of the striped vine-bug. This may not 1 e .iust (he 

 proper name for it, but I think you will understand 

 the fellow I mean. At that time, I thought of writ- 

 ing you; but fearing it would be too late to be of 

 benefit for that year, I decided to wait till the early 

 spring, and I feel sure the remedy that I here oflfer 

 is a success under any and all conditions. It is not 

 my own invention, neither have I any interest in 

 either of the ingredients used, which consist of air- 

 slacked lime and either coal oil or turpentine, the 

 lime to be moistened with the liquid till it is highly 

 Kcented, and then sprinkled or sifted on the hills. 

 When scattered over the vines where bugs are thick 

 on them it seems that each individual bug tries to 

 be the first to clear the premises to get away from it. 

 T have used both the oil and turpentine, and see 

 little difference in results. This is what the K. M. 

 Kellogg people use for their melons, I have been told, 

 and that is the way I found its virtues. 



