194 



THE CANADIAN 



HORTICU.LTURIST 



August, 1907 



bloom. There were many other tin- 

 common and interesting plants in flower. 

 Mr. Lewis is justly proud of his fine col- 

 lection of azaleas, which were a perfect 

 blaze of color during the spring. He has 

 also been successful with rhododen- 

 drons. His collection of ericas is fine. 

 Climbing roses were beginning to bloom 

 in one part of the garden and gave 

 promise of soon making a fine show. 



Mr. Lewis kept a man until this year, 

 but he found that the latter had not 

 that fine sense of discrimination be- 



tween cultivated plants and weeds which 

 is essential to successful gardening, so 

 now he is adopting a new method and 

 is letting the garden look pretty much 

 after itself, he and a lady assistant mere- 

 ly keeping the faded flowers cut off and 

 pulling out the prominent weeds. There 

 are so many beautiful flowers in this 

 garden that weeds have little chance to 

 grow and if there were weeds they would 

 seem insignificant in comparison with 

 the thousands of blooms to which the 

 attention is compelled. 



A. "Western MetHod of Grooving Celery 



S. Larcombe, Birtle, Manitoba 



MY present method of growing 

 celery is by far the simplest, easi- 

 est and the most successful that 

 I have ever tired I have abandoned 

 raising plants in hot-beds or boxes, and 

 sow the seed in open ground. I choose 

 a plot of good deep soil with an even 

 texture. This is thoroughly enriched 

 with well-rotted manure, ploughed deep- 

 ly and well cultivated in order to procure 

 a thorough mixing of the manure with 

 the soil; this is one of the essentials to 

 success. 



A plot with a slope either to the 

 north or to the south is best; at the 

 bottom of the slope I grow the celery. 

 It is sown crossways, using about 

 twenty-five per cent, of the plot. This 

 in most seasons will give plenty of 

 moisture, which is necessary for success- 

 ful celery growing. 



Sow in rows about six feet apart, and 

 use a Planet Jr. drill for sowing. Sow 

 on the flat, not in a trench. One ounce 

 of seed will sow 600 feet. Bake or other- 

 wise destroy sixty per cent, of the seed, 

 then thoroughly mix destroyed seed 

 with good seed ; even in this way celery 

 will come up plenty thickly in the row. 



From May 4 to May 12, according to 

 the season, is a good time for sowing. As 

 celery seed is slow to come up, I put a 

 stick at the end of each row to mark 

 them, then if weeds appear I draw a 

 line from stick to stick, which gives me 

 the whereabouts of the celerv and en- 

 ables me to hoe and keep clean from 

 row to row. 



As soon as the plants are, say, an 

 inch high, thin to single plants. When 

 four inches high thin to about five inches 

 from plant to plant, then let them grow 

 from twelve to fourteen inches in length, 

 when they should be watered thorough- 

 ly; hill up the next day, if plants are 

 dry. Never hill up when plants are 

 wet, as it will produce rust ; keep hilling, 

 say about every two weeks or as long 

 as the celery keeps growing. By follow- 

 ing this method I rarely have a plant 

 run to seed, and can grow good celery 

 from thirty to thirty-four inches in 

 length, and with less than one-half the 

 labor necessary for the older and earlier 

 methods. As to varieties. White 

 plume and Paris Golden are the best 

 varieties for the west ; both being early 

 and of good quality. 



THe Vegetable Garden in SasKatcKe-wan 



>Vn^us MacKay, Supt., Elxperimental Farm, Indian Head 



NOTHING is more apparent to visit- 

 ors, or any one travelling through 

 Saskatchewan, than the absence 

 of even fair vegetable gardens. Mile 

 after mile may be passed of splendid 

 wheat, or other grain crops, but a minute 

 inspection about the farm buildings has 

 to be made, to determine whether the 

 little patch not in grain is pigweed, left 

 to ripen, or vegetables dying a lingering 

 death from want of care. It is true, 

 here and there a creditable garden is 

 seen, and it is well known that both soil 

 and climate cannot be surpassed to pro- 

 duce in abundance the finest of vegetables 

 in quality and size. 



Admitting that farmers have plenty 

 of work elsewhere than in the garden. 



yet this need be no excuse for neglecting 

 one of the necessary branches by which, 

 not only can money be saved, but the 

 health, comfort and happiness of the 

 family be assured. Every settler should 

 have and can have, year after year, 

 potatoes, cabbage, turnips, beets, par- 

 snips and onions the year round. He 

 can also have in their proper season, 

 cauliflower, celery, pease, beans, toma- 

 toes, radish, lettuce, cucumber, citron, 

 squash, and so on; and, in addition, 

 every garden should have rhubarb and 

 asparagus growing in it from year to 

 year. 



PREPARATION OF LAND 



To insure success each year, irrespec- 

 tive of the seasons, new land must be 



broken and backset, or old land must be 

 fallowed. With new land, the breaking 

 should be done before, or early in, June, 

 and shallow, and the backsetting in 

 August, or as soon as the sod has rotted, 

 which usually takes six weeks after bein;; 

 broken. After the backsetting, an\ 

 cultivation that will leave the surface 

 fine and smooth should be done, to give 

 the vegetable seeds, when sown the follow- 

 ing spring, a fair chance to germinate 

 To prepare old land for vegetables, ii 

 should be plowed as deep as possible 

 before the June rains are over, cultivated 

 two or three inches deep during the grow 

 ing season, and plowed four to six inches 

 deep and harrowed before frost sets in. 



Obviously, a settler, to have a garden 

 near his house (where it should be foi 

 the sake of convenience) must prepare 

 the land either by summer-fallowing 

 (after it has been broken and backset 

 and one crop taken from it), or, as the 

 great majority of gardens are prepared, 

 by plowing or digging in the fall or jusi 

 before sowing or planting in the spring 

 The fallow preparation will ensure a 

 good return every year. The latter 

 preparation is the cause of failun- 

 throughout the province, and will con 

 tinue to be so, so long as the seasons 

 remain as they are. 



The chief cause of failure is want oi 

 moisture. A second cause is lack of 

 time to prepare the soil at the proper 

 season. Both are overcome by fallow- 

 ing the land the year before sowing or 

 planting. 



Two plots are therefore necessary : 

 one being prepared, the other growing 

 vegetables, year about. These plots 

 may be large or small, according to the 

 household, and winter storage capacity. 

 They should be long and narrow, to per- 

 mit of horse cultivation, otherwise the 

 pigweed will continue to ripen, and the 

 vegetables to die. 



A Planet Jr. cultivator, an Iron Age, 

 or some other of equally good make, is 

 one of the vegetable garden requisites. 

 For horse cultivation, all vegetables 

 should be sown or planted in drills. For 

 potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, radish, 

 lettuce, onions, and so forth, the drills 

 should be thirty inches apart; for cab- 

 bage, cauliflower, pease, beans, and com, 

 thirt3'-six inches apart. 



CULTIVATION 



It is useless trying to grow vegetables 

 without cultivation after they are above 

 ground. Deep cultivation is not neces- 

 sary, but shallow is, and it should be 

 repeated often, especially during the 

 last of July and all of August. While 

 the rains are falling in June and early 

 July, the soil is better without being 

 stirred, but when dry weather sets in, 

 and the top starts to bake or crack, it 

 should be gone over to break up the 

 evaporation. One or two inches deep 

 is sufficient. 



