Hoiv an Amateur Grows Asters 



'HE aster is one of the grandest flow- 

 ers and one that is largely grown. 

 In its culture, one great fault with 

 amateur gardeners is that, as soon as the 

 Srst warm days of spring arrive, they get 

 he gardening fever and begin to sow 

 eeds in pots or boxes in the house. There 

 Ss nothing gained by this, except perhaps 

 la few days earlier bloom. In the majority 

 ttf cases, the result is poor, weakling 

 plants with only a few mediocre flowers. 

 )ur aim should be to strive for the best. 

 About the last week in April or the 

 Srst week in May, choose some spot 

 Jose to a south wall, and fine the soil 

 rell. Obtain a box, say, eight inches 

 ligh, and knock out both the top and 

 jttom leaving the sides. Sink this in 

 the soil, one inch at the back and three 

 iches in front to form a slope. Cover 

 be top with factory cotton to protect 

 'from winds and sun. Sow your seed 

 thinly in this and when up an inch high 

 thin the plants out to stand three inches 



W. Norman, Elmira, Ontario 



apart every way. You will then have 

 strong sturdy plants that will be a de- 

 light to handle. 



To transplant, make a hole with a 

 pointed stick, fill the hole with water and 

 when this has soaked in, put in your 

 plant, bed it in firmly and then cover 

 with dry soil around the stem leaving 

 no sign of moisture. Do not water 

 again. It is one of the amateur's great- 

 est mistakes to use too much water. 

 Leave the result to nature. Keep the 

 surface soil loose and again do not water. 

 When your plants are about three parts 

 grown, it is well to mulch around and 

 between the plants with some well-rotted 

 manure. Trim off a few of the side 

 shoots and your bed will be a delight to 

 v'ou and will show what the aster is cap- 

 able of doing if properly handled. If you 

 desire to show for exhibition, leave only 

 three or four of the finest buds on each 

 plant. 



If a plant seems sickly and you have 



no other to replace it, take it up care- 

 fully, shake the soil off the roots, and 

 you will probably find the latter covered 

 with a small white maggot. Get some 

 boiling water and dip the roots in and 

 out as quickly as possible, fill the hole 

 with boiling water and when cool replace 

 your plant. Step it in firmly, shade for 

 a day or two and it will probably be all 

 right again. 



If you desire to own the best asters m 

 your neighborhood, save your own seed. 

 Select the very best bloom, then strip off 

 the plant all other blooms and buds, 

 thus sending all the strength of the plant 

 into the flower selected. You will have 

 noticed that from a package of seed with 

 the same soil and treatment you get 

 good, bad and indifferent plants. The 

 reason is that commercial growers grow 

 aster seed like flax, and so forth, by the 

 acre, conseouently what can you expect ? 

 Pick off all flowers as they fade. This will 

 prolong the flowering life of the branches. 



Irrigation for Vegetables and Small Fruits 



IN almost any season there are periods 

 when if water could be applied to 

 growing crops of vegetables or small 

 fruits it would improve them. Whether or 

 not it will pay to irrigate in Ontario and 

 eastern Canada, depends largely upon 

 the availability of the water supply, the 

 kinds of crops being grown, and the 

 nature of the soil and of the season. In 

 recent issues of The Canadian Horti- 

 culturist were published extracts from 

 Mr. W. T. Macoun's excellent address 

 on this subject given at the last conven- 

 tion of the Ontario Vegetable Growers' 

 Association. In the course of the ad- 

 dress, Mr. Macoun said: "I leave the 

 question of whether it is practicable to 

 irrigate or not with our vegetable grow- 

 ers, who are intelligent enough to know 

 when and where it will pay them." The 

 following interesting letters sent to Mr. 

 Macoun may aid in answering the ques- 

 tion: 



AT LEAMINGTON 



From Mr. J. L. Hilborn, Leamington, 

 Ont., Nov. 3, igo8: "There has never 

 been any irrigation practised here. 1 

 am the only person who has used water 

 to any extent outside, and I have done 

 it only in a small way. For about ten 

 years I have had a 200-barreI tank ele- 

 vated about twenty-five feet ; have pipes 

 laid through greenhouses and two lead- 

 ing out twenty rods or so where I grow 

 chiefly cucumbers, but we pour the water 

 on through an inch hose, using about 

 twenty barrels an hour for three or four 



hours, say, three times a week, and m 

 that way getting once over them each 

 week. We have to do it in this way to 

 get best results as we do not like to be- 

 gin until about five o'clock p.m. I use 

 a windmill chiefly ; when necessary, I at- 

 tach a gasoline engine. 



"One of my neighbors uses a gasoline 

 engine to raise water from the lake, for 

 use chiefly in greenhouse and cold 

 frames. We have both tried applying it 

 with the hose on strawberries, which is 

 very satisfactory in a small way." 



GUELPH AND BURLINGTON 



Mr. A. McMeans, O. A. C, Guelph, 

 Oct. 31, 1908: "No one in this locality 

 practises irrigation. We have given 

 some thought to the subject and are 

 planning to install one-quarter to one 

 half an acre next year with the Skinner 

 system. 



"When in Ohio this summer, I visited 

 Storr- Warner Co., at Lodi, where they 

 grow 100 acres of celery on muck land, 

 tile drained into a creek that runs along 

 one side of the celery field. If the 

 weather is dry they dam the creek and 

 the water backs up the tiles, thus using 

 the tiles for sub-irrigation in dry weather 

 and for drainage in wet weather; it is 

 giving excellent results. 



"Mr. H. R. Rowsome, of Burling 

 ton, Ont., this year irrigated two acres 

 of celery, with a two-horse power gaso- 

 line engine, drawing water from the 

 lake, a distance of 400 feet, with a lift 

 of twenty-one feet, applying 30,000 gal- 



47 



Ions in fifteen hours in one application. 

 Mr. Rowsome says he has two acres of 

 extra good celery; whereas, if he had 

 not irrigated, his crop would have been 

 practically worthless. He figures that 

 he has paid for his pumping plant in the 

 results that he has secured this season. ' 



MONTKEAL ISLAND 



Mr. R. Brodie, Westmount, Que., 

 Nov. 2, 1908: "I had a talk with an 

 Italian (my neighbor) on Saturday and 

 gained the following information : He 

 has about $100 invested in rubber hose 

 that is used for his plants in hotbeds, as 

 well as for his melons and cucumbers. 

 He paid fifteen cents per 1000 gallons for 

 water; altogether $38. I allow $8 for 

 plants, and $30 for melons, about two 

 acres of melons ; one man ten weeks 

 steady watering at $10 a week ; that 

 would be: Labor, $100; water, $30; 

 wear and tear on hose, with interest, 

 $10'; total, $140, for two acres." 



NEAE TORONTO 



Mr. Thomas Delworth, Weston, Ont., 

 Nov. 7, 1908: "Very little has been at- 

 tempted around Toronto. Mr. John 

 MacNamara, of Bracondale, north of 

 Toronto, adjoining the city limits, tried 

 it some years ago. An artificial hike 

 had to be made by a land company to 

 boom villa sites just north of his pro- 

 perty on higher ground. He got iiis 

 supply from the lake by a pipe let into 

 the dam. He told me at the time that 

 it was successful with strawberries. I 



