NOVEMBER 15, 1916 



1093 



"wish Queen Caroline would stop laying and go into 

 moult, but she is slowing down gradually. She 

 didn't stop with 510 eggs, but that was her accom- 

 plishment in two years. 



We believe the generation of chickens now coming 

 into laying will give some marvelous records, which 

 doesn't mean that we hope to beat the individual 

 record of Lady Eglantine. 



If I knew chickens as you know bees I'd get along 

 faster than I do. But we are putting deep study, 

 hard work, and the utmost of conscientious care into 

 the improvement of our strain. 



October 30. A. A. Christian. 



Together with the above came a clipping 

 from the PhiUidelphia North American of 

 Oct. 29. The clipping contained three pic- 

 tures of the Eglantines. Below is what we 

 find under the picture clipping. 



TWO HEXS LAY 1010 EGGS IN TWO YEARS. 



These seventeen Eglantine hens in twenty-four con- 

 secutive months laid 7389 eggs — an average of 

 4341.^. In their pullet year they laid 3933 — aver- 

 age 231 1-3, and in hen year, 3456 — average 203%. 

 Queen Caroline, upper right circle, laid 510, and 

 Queen Mary, upper left circle, 500. This picture, 

 made Monday, found some of the birds in the rough- 

 ness of moulting. Two more Eglantine hens are ex- 

 pected to complete 400-egg records — their period end- 

 ing October 31. Eighty-seven Eglantine pullets this 

 year qualitied in the 200-egg class — the best record 

 will considerably exceed 280. Eglantine Farms have 

 entered two pens in the competition to open next 

 Wednesday — one for scientitic observation. 



As some may be asking, we would state 

 that tlie Eglantine Farms are located at 

 Greensboro, Md. \ 



HIGH-PRESSURE GARDENING 



THE GARDENETTE; OR^ CITY BACKYARD GAR- 

 DENING BY THE SANDWICH SYSTEM. 



Something over a j'ear ago Robert Liv- 

 ingston, of the Living-ston Seed Co., wrote 

 me, saying that 1 must go and see Benjamin 

 F. Albaugh at Covington, Ohio, who was 

 making some wonderful improvements in 

 tlie Avay of growing stuff on a .small area of 

 gTound. Our friends will remember that 

 our tomato book, part three, is devoted to 

 ''how to support a family on one-fourth of 

 an acre." Well, I did not go to visit friend 

 Albaugh ; but I have just got hold of one of 

 the books he has recently put out, and it has 

 been a delight and a surprise to me to see 

 how nearly he and I had been experiment- 

 ing along the line of "high-pressure garden- 

 ing"' without either knowing about what the 

 other was doing. This book has 138 pages, 

 and it is not only full of beautiful and 

 enticing pictures on the inside, but it is also 

 covered with beautiful pictures of what he 

 has done in his backyard garden on the 

 outside. 



The "Sandwich System" is much on the 

 line of the hotbeds and cold-frames that I 

 described on thes^e pages twenty or tliirty 

 years ago. The reason why he calls it 

 " sandw'ich " is, as I understand it, that he 

 sandwiches rotting leaves, straw, coarse 

 stable manure, etc.. between layeis of s.^il, 

 nver sand, etc. Let me make some ex- 

 tracts — first from i)age 24, where we read : 



If only one square rod is available, it will pay to 

 have a " gardenette." 



Again, on page 7: 



The author has repeatedly produced on a plot con- 

 taining but four square rods about the following: 



Then he makes an enumeration of about 

 40 different vegetables which he grew on 

 tlie above four square rods, and adds: 



At a low estimate these are worth $40.00. Often 

 they would cost much more to buy. But it is not 

 only the market value of the vegetables, but freshness 

 and fine quality that should be considered. 



On page 10 we read the following; 



Finest vegetables can be grown on hard, stony, or 

 alkaline soils, whore ordinary cultivation would be 

 utterly fruitless. Even where " made " soils con- 

 sist mainly of brickbats and old wall plaster, the 

 sandwich beds flourish. A solid rock, a paved street, 

 or the tops of flat-roofed buildings, could be made 

 into a successful garden by this method. 



Further on he descnbes w^hat he calls his 

 "plant-incubator." This consists of a bed 

 for growing early plants for transplanting 

 by the heat of a common coal-oil lamp. I 

 think he uses sash with glass to some extent, 

 but mostly frames of the size of ordinary 

 sashes covered with cheap cotton sheeting; 

 and in order to keep out frost the better, he 

 stretches cloth on both sides of the fi'ame 

 so as to inclose a dead-air space. Let me 

 digress a little right here : 



During the past season here in Ohio we 

 have had the finest tomatoes w-e ever grew, 

 and w^e have also had more tomatoes to the 

 plant than I ever saw before. When I got 

 back from Florida, "Blue Eyes," who is now 

 quite a gardener, gave me six tomato-plants. 

 She said tlie seed came from one of the fin- 

 est tomatoes that grew the year befoi-e; and 

 the tomatoes from those sis plants were 

 large, smooth, and (if Mrs. Root had not 

 forbidden it) I would say they were the 

 most delicious tomatoes I ever tasted in all 

 my life. Well, I thought I had made a big 

 invention in the way of a tomato-trellis, and 

 1 was going to make a picture of it to put 

 in Gleanings. It con.sisted of three 

 stiaight stakes driven in triangular ^orm, 

 each one a foot or a little more from the 

 tomato-plant; then for a supjiort 1 got a 



