1889. 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



H5 



afrus roots are very sensiti\e to heat, and can 

 easily be forced to give us " grass " in Novem- 

 ber, so any money we in the north are to make 

 by forcing- Asparagus has to be made before 

 Mai-ch, for after that time an abundance comes 

 from the south and at a price we cannot compete 

 with. When the roots are grown shallow as 

 shown in Mr. Brown's sketch digging is an easy 

 matter; an ordinary nursery tree digger ivill run 

 them out quite easUy and do good work too. 

 When needed for forcing they should be dug 

 before winter sets in and housed or pitted so as 

 to be. accessible whenever wanted. In forcing 

 they need no light, and we can force them under 

 the benches of a green-house, in a hot-bed. In a 

 cellar, or anywhere where we can maintain a 

 temperature of 00 degrees or over. A brisk heat 

 gives us quick tender " grass ", a low tempera- 

 ture, perhaps a little stouter but always tougher 

 product; and no matter how we fix it we only 

 get about a certain amount of "grass" from the 

 roots anyway, and we may as well have this in- 

 side of a fortnight as dilly-dally four or five 

 weeks over it. Mr. John G. Gardner of Jobs- 

 town, N. J., forces a good deal of Asparagus for 

 market in winter; he uses four-year old roots, 

 lifts them in fall, stores them till needed, and has 

 them forced, and finished with them before 

 March. Asparagus plants that have been forced 

 in their beds are of very little account for next 

 year's us3; they will bear a good stand next 

 spring but the quality will be hard, at least this 

 has been my experience, and I have done a good 

 deal at forcing Asparagus. 



Hot-beds with Fire Heat. No matter how 

 you heat your beds, with fire-heat, manure, hops 

 or anything else, the same oW laborious, 

 wretched system of attention is necessary, name- 

 ly, that all work must be done from the outside. 

 In order to prepare the beds, sow the seed, set 

 the plants, stir the soil, clean out damp, water the 

 crops, gather the crops, ventilate, and all else, it 

 is out-door work. And then the continuous 

 covering at night and uncovering by day is part 

 of the daily routine. Hot-beds in March and 

 spring may be all right, but how about Januar5 

 and February, when they may be buried under 

 a snow drift for weeks at a time? No, if you 

 can afford to have a hot-bed heated with fire- 

 heat, be it by a smoke-flue or otherwise, depend 

 upon it, it is better and cheaper for you to make 

 it a greenhouse at once. In growing vegetables 

 for market our New York market gardeners 

 used to work a good deal with frames and hot- 

 beds, but of recent years so much and excellent 

 garden truck is raised in winter in the Southern 

 States and shipped north that it has materially 

 lowered the prices here, and the gardeners' pro- 

 fits. The winter frames and hot^beds had there- 1 

 fore to be abandoned and greenhouses built in- 

 stead, and now, considering how easy and cheap 

 it is to build serviceable greenhouses and how 

 easy they are to heat and work, we are wonder- 

 ing why on earth we didn't do this long ago? 

 And now most every truck farm near New York 

 has its range or ranges of greenhouses for Let- 

 tuce, Radishes, Rhubarb,Cauliflower, Parsley and 

 other crops, and the gardeners can hold their 

 own against the south. 



Aponogeton Distachyon, page 106, is hardy. 

 A bull-frog taught me this. When I lived near 

 Boston, in the summer of '77, 1 had a large plant 

 In a pot which I put out into a little pond that 

 was two to three feet deep, setting this pot on 

 another inverted pot. The plant died down in 

 summer, but in August re-appeared in vigorous 

 form and continued in copious blooms all fall. 

 But one day in October a big bull-frog kicked 

 over the pot and the plant was dumped out and 

 lost, as I thought. But next April it re-appeared 

 in leaves and flowers and continued in fine state 

 till the end of May when it died down. It again 

 re-apjieared in August as before, but bigger and 

 stronger than ever, and so on every year from 

 August tUl May. So long as the roots are Ijeyond 

 the reach of ice so long will they live, but of 

 course the water should not be over three feet 

 deep, if as much, for they are not large plants.— 

 William Falajncr. 



Missouri as a Fruit State. In your Febru- 

 ary issue, page 110, Ben Davis, Willow Twig and 

 Jonathan are named as the Apples recommended 

 by the State Horticultural Society of Missouri- 

 This must be an error, and if, in proper time, 

 you can drop into any county of this grand State 

 and look at her orchards, fruit gardens or fruit- 

 trees anywhere you'll most likely be satisfied 

 that no particular variety or varieties of Apples 

 need be recommended, nor of Pears, Plums, and 

 of any other fruit, large or small. All varieties 



seem to find in Missouri a soil so rich in all the 

 elements of plant food that nearly all will do 

 well.— ^. A. Blmntr, yiculison Co., Mo. 



Crown Grafting. Last spring I tried this 

 method of grafting, published and illustrated in 

 the February number, but the only giafts that 

 grew were two that were set up so high that I 

 could not pour in the mud, and therefore 

 covered them with grafting wax. The weather 

 was exceptionally dry; the water soaked away 

 and evaporated, leaving a cracked surface. I 

 made the mud thin enough to pour, and in a wet 

 season it would probably have retained moisture. 

 Shall use wax this spring as I consider it safer.— 

 L. S, WilUanm-me, N. Y. 



Improved Peanut fur the A'urt/i. 



The Axe for Peach Yellows. A New 

 Jersey Peach grower, in February number, finds 

 fault with Prof. E. F. Smith, because he has not 

 done in a year and a half, what twenty years ex- 

 perience with the disease has failed to accom- 

 plish; namely, find a cure. If the writer will 

 heed the one deduction, that the disease is less 

 prevalent where the diseased trees are thorough- 

 ly removed, he will, in a few years, thank Prof. 

 Smith for his advice. Had the same fact been 

 understood and heeded a dozen years ago, it 

 would have saved the Peach growers of Southern 

 Michigan thousands of trees and thousands of 

 dollars in money. There where many who did 

 not believe in this radical preventive, but I think 

 not one can be found here now. I do not believe 

 that a case of yellows of the kind we have in 

 Michigan, has ever been cured, and I have a 14 

 years' practical experience with the disease, 

 and a knowledge of what has been done. If 

 Prof. Smith will impress other Peach districts, 

 with the fact that speedy removal of all 

 affected trees is a pretty certain preventive of 

 the yellows, I, for one, am perfectly willing to 

 grant him the next 15 years to find a cure. The 

 removal of diseased trees has reduced the an- 

 nual loss of trees by the disease in this section to 

 below one per cent, while about six yeeirs ago it 

 reached fully ten per cent. In localities where 

 the removal of diseased trees has been most 

 rigidly enforced, growers are most successful, 

 and suffering practically no losses. No system 

 of planting, cultivating, manuring or doctoring 

 has given us exemption from the dread disease. 

 —A. O. Ch.iUey, Van Biiren Co., Mith. 



OxALiSES, Page 606. Glad the Elder's wiie 

 grows these, they are an interesting race, but in 

 order to name varieties from descriptions, the 

 descriptions should be full and precise. The 

 purplish pink and white flowered varieties are 

 probably Oxalis rosea and O. r. var alba both 

 capital and continuous summer bloomers and 

 easily raised from seed. Instead of 0. tropseo- 

 loides say O. comiculata rubra. 



LiLiUMS FROM SEED, PAGE 108. "Tell your 

 readers not to turn out their Lily seed pans to 

 soon." This is sound logic. In December, '87, 

 I sowed a number of large flat boxes with L. au- 

 ratum and L. superbum seed, and the seedlings 

 aren't up yet, but every one is fresh and burst 

 or bursting, and probably all will come up next 

 April and May. I sow the seeds In boxes filled 

 with Ught earth, cover % inch deep, then place a 

 layer of swamp moss over the soil to keep it from 



being heaved out of the boxes in winter and 

 dried up in summer. In winter I keep the boxes 

 in a cold frame; in summer in a shad.v, cool place 

 out of doors and never allow to get dry. Now 

 seeds of Lilium tenuifolium, callosum and pul- 

 chellum come up, if sown in a warm green- 

 house, inside of two weeks after sowing. 



The Ginkgo Tree, Page 109. You omit one 

 fact regarding it, namely, that it is one of the 

 easiest of all trees to transplant, even after it is 

 15 or 20 feet high. 



"The Blue Spruce requires constant moist- 

 ure until well established," page lU. Very 

 favorable conditions, no doubt, but not at all 

 necessary. We have Blue Spruce Picea imngens, 

 in all sorts of soils, even in very poor dry soil 

 where the subsoil is sand to the antipodes, I pre- 

 sume and all do well, only where the conditions 

 of soil are very poor, at planting time we fill up 

 the hole with good loam and afterwards in fall 

 add a mulching of manure, but we do not add 

 to the natural moisture as that would be too 

 much trouble. No, the Blue Spruce is a very ac- 

 commodating tree for an evergreen, and the har- 

 diest evergreen we have got. — Falconer. 



How Mt Window Garden Was Arranged. 

 A window 5x8 feet was built out from a sitting 

 room with the floor made strong, covered with 

 cement; inclined sufficiently to carry surplus 

 water into a drain, and putting therein sufficient 

 earth to elevate the plant bed. I cover it each 

 fall and spring with a carpet of moss from the 

 woods, leaving in a few wUd Violets and Ferns 

 in variety. A fine specimen of Monstera, or 

 Philodendron pertusum occupies a central posi- 

 tion, with a large Screw Palm Cycas revoluta on 

 the edge of the fioor by it and while the space 

 between the moss and the sitting room is strewn 

 with a few large fossil corals. Gypsum specimens 

 and a few bright shells heightens the effect of 

 the moss, the result is a charming window gar- 

 den. Generally there are nine to ten large Palm 

 like leaves on the Monstei'a, which about fill the 

 window, but with their long stems and leathery 

 leaves permit some blooming plants to set around 

 near the glass. Overcrowding is most fatal to 

 the beauty of a window garden. With large hang- 

 ing basket in center. Begonias, foliage plants and 

 Primroses on brackets, and the spaces of white 

 wall at the sides planted to Ivies, Maderia vines, 

 the Jasmine-like Solanum, Yellow Jasmine, 

 which blooms farthest from the glass). Passion 

 Flower, Constance Elliott, and Max vines, fes- 

 tooning small pots on the ground would spoil the 

 effect of the arch abo\e but as the structure is of 

 brick, and the room warmed by natural gas, I 

 spray the entire collection as often as necessary, 

 and thus keep down the red spidei-s.- Sara A. 

 Pleas, Hcrino Co., Ind. 



Tomato Staking and Rot. One season I care- 

 fully staked a few hundred plants but hardly got 

 a sound Tomato from them while from the same 

 variety alongside that lay on the ground the 

 fruit was sound.— .A. M. Nichols. 



On Growingf Peanutsat the North. 



The successful cultivation of the Peanut at 

 the North at least for home use has been 

 made feasible by the recent introduction of the 

 early "Improved" variety shown in illustration. 

 The pods of this sort grow in a cluster around 

 the main stalk, not spreading as the old varieties. 

 Select warm, rich soil, preferably of a somewhat 

 calcareous nature, and plant in rows two and 

 one half to three feet apart, placing a single 

 kernel every 12 inches in the row, and cover one 

 inch deep. Give good cultivation, keeping the 

 ground mellow and slightly drawn up around 

 the plants. Pull up the plants before frost, or at 

 once after the first light frost; hang up in 

 bunches to cure, and afterwards gather and sort 

 the pods. It is highly interesting to watch the 

 growth and development of .this semi-tropical 

 fruit or vegetable. There is no danger that Pea- 

 nut growing will ever reach such proportions at 

 the North, that we will have to ask ourselves, as 

 they do in Virginia, what to do mth all this 

 wealth. In the South, glowers have been com- 

 pelled to think of new uses for the crop. In 

 Virginia part of the crop is utilized for the man- 

 ufacture of flour from which a most excellent 

 and palatable buscuit is made. The roasted 

 kernel often serves as a substitute for coffee, and 

 it is also used in the adulteration of chocolate. 

 The natives of Georgia make pastry of pounded 

 nuts. We are in sympathy with these efforts to 

 make use of the "poor man's fruit," but we pro- 

 test against its being palmed off as "chocolate." 



