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GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS 



able, because the leafage is so cool and pleasant to eat in hot weather. A good variety to 

 stand heat is Mammoth White Cos , but when planted from June onwards the position should 

 be partially shaded, the soil deeply worked, and where ample water can be given. When 

 the position is hot and dry the plants do not heart in, but bolt off to flower. Whilst in 

 the summer, beds planted with Lettuce may be made to slope to the north, in the winter 

 they should slope to the south. Very thick sowing results in the production usually of far 

 more plants than are needed, and so many that are weak and drawn. Thin sowing and 

 early planting out thinly from seed-pans or beds prevent weakness and a drawn growth. 

 Lettuces, being in the young stage tender and succulent, are much relished by slugs and 

 snails. It is therefore, in planting out, needful to dust about the plants freely, especially 

 at night, with fresh-slacked lime or good soot. This needs to be followed up for a couple 

 of weeks after each planting until the plants become hard. Cabbage Lettuces need no 

 tying, as naturally they heart in firmly, neither should any good stock of tall or Cos 

 Lettuce ; the practice of tying them with bast or raffia is carried out chiefly to assist the 

 hearts to form and become blanched earlier. 



Varieties. Of Cos or tall varieties the finest is the Mammoth White Cos for summer, 

 and Black Seeded Brown Cos for winter. Of Cabbage varieties, Hardy Hammersmith 

 and Grand Admiral are good for winter, and Holborn Standard, All the Year Round, 

 Matchless, and Heartwell for summer use. 



Maize or Sweetcorn. This is a very popular vegetable in America, and during 

 recent years has been cultivated on a small scale in this country. Seed should be sown 

 in March or early April in pans or boxes filled with rich light soil, and when large enough 

 the seedlings should be potted singly into 5-inch pots. Grow as near the glass of warm 

 frame or greenhouse as possible, and from mid-April onwards give as free ventilation as 

 possible, the idea being to get sturdy, hard plants. When the pots are filled with roots 

 give weak liquid manure once or twice a week. The plants must not be put in their per- 

 manent quarters until the first or second week in June. Select a warm place in the garden, 

 trench the soil thoroughly, and heavily manure it a few weeks previous to planting. The 

 rows must be 2 feet or 2 feet 6 inches apart, and the plants 2 feet apart in the rows. 

 Plentiful supplies of water must be afforded during dry weather, as quick growth is essen- 

 tial. The seed spikes or cobs are the part used as a vegetable, these being picked whilst 

 green, and gently boiled with the outer coat intact. Good varieties are Early Yellow, 

 Quarantain, and White Sugar Cane. Variegated forms are often used in the flower 

 garden. Their cultivation is as advised above. 



Mushroom. This acceptable fungus is artificially grown both outdoors and indoors. 

 The common method for outdoor culture is to make up beds in ridge form of 

 stable manure and spawning them. The manure must be that of horses, and of those 

 that are healthy only. This should be one-half of droppings, the rest of rather short 

 straw. When there is much long straw the greater portion should be shaken out. The 

 manure should be kept in an open shed, or, if otherwise, when in a heap, covered up 

 with mats. As soon as collected it should be well shaken up, mixed, and put into a 

 neat heap. If it seems dry, then it should have, as the turning takes place, a liberal 

 sprinkling of water. The turning should be repeated in some five or six days, or when 

 the heap is found to have become hot again. If found dry, more water should be given. 

 A third turning may be needful to get the manure into good condition, and after that it 

 can be built up into a bed, having a base 2% feet wide and the same height in the 

 centre, trodden firm as put together. The heat of the bed should be tested with a stick 

 forced into it, and as soon as found to be hot pieces of mushroom spawn, such as are pur- 

 chased in dry, square cakes from seedsmen, should be well forced into the surface of the 

 bed at some 8 inches apart all over it. The cakes may be cut each into some eight pieces. 

 Next coat the bed over with 2 inches rather close loam from a pasture, give a good 

 watering, using tepid water, then cover it up well with a thick coat of straw litter, and if 

 it be winter then cover with mats also. Beds of this description produce mushrooms in 

 about two months. They can be made from September until April. If beds be made 

 slantwise or sloping under a wall or in a shed or cellar they must be from properly pre- 

 pared manure as described, be solid, spawned, and covered up. 



Onions. Sowing seed of these somewhat odorous bulbs was formerly limited to two 

 seasons the spring and late summer. Now it is a common practice to sow seed under 

 glass in January, putting the plants outdoors in April to grow into extra large bulbs. 

 Being somewhat deep rooters and gross feeders, Onions need both a deeply worked and 

 well-manured soil. Many growers adopt the rule of putting Onions on the same ground 

 every year ; others alternate the crops, Onions one year, Cabbages or Peas the next. But 

 whether the ground be so cropped or whether several crops follow the Onions, it is 

 indispensable that the ground be always trenched fully 2 feet in depth during the winter 

 to secure a good crop of bulbs and have a heavy dressing of well-decayed manure worked 

 into it, especially putting some down deep to attract roots to it, and thus furnish them 



