5i6 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 303. 



elevation of 3,000 feet. The Kew plants are four feet high, 

 Gladiohis-Hke, with leaves one and a half inch wide and 

 twenty inches long. The flowers are nodding in a loose 

 spike and are half as large again as those of A. bicolor ; 

 they are three inches wide, the segments regular and pure 

 snow-white, with a broad band of crimson at the base of 

 each segment ; the tube of the flower is curved and six 

 inches long. So far, this plant has thriven best in a warm 

 house. It is a good garden-plant and interesting botani- 

 cally. 



London. 



W. Watson. 



Cultural Department. 



Sub-Irrigation. 



ONE of the difficulties in agricultural and horti- 

 cultural practice is the removal of surplus mois- 

 ture from the soil at one time, and the supply of mois- 

 ture in another, since a proper distribution of water in 

 the soil is a prime element in the successful growth of 

 crops. Different plans for supplying water to the roots 

 of plants have been devised by what is known as sub-irri- 

 gation, and we present the statement of a method that was 

 employed by Professor Lazenby, in the Horticultural De- 

 partment of the Ohio State University, where water was 

 applied to the soil of the forcing-house and hot-bed under 

 the surface, and a system of irrigation and drainage was 

 arranged for the out-of-door garden. The main features of 

 the plan, as described in Agricultural Science, are the fol- 

 lowing : 



For Vegetable Forcing- houses. — Water-tight benches 

 were constructed for the houses by using hardwood flooring 

 of Georgia pine and pouring white-lead into the grooves. On 

 the side benches, which are four feet wide, two lines of three- 

 inch drain-tile were laid, extending their whole length of one 

 hundred feet. In the middle bench, seven feet wide, three or 

 four lines of tile were used, and the ends were laid in cement, 

 which extended partly up the sides of the joints. If the joints 

 had been left wholly open, water would run out of them too 

 freely at first, and would not be carried to the farther end of 

 the line as quickly as was desired. When the sides of the 

 joints are cemented the water passes through the whole 

 length of tile before much runs out, and then it escapes from 

 all the joints alike and is distributed evenly. Instead of drain- 

 tile, sewer-pipe was used in one of the side benches, and one 

 and a half-inch iron pipe with quarter-inch holes every two 

 feet on the lower side was also used. In each house a 

 small space was reserved for surface-watering as a check upon 

 the results. The crops grown were Radishes, Lettuce, Toma- 

 toes, Parsley and Cucumbers, and in spite of the predictions 

 of many that it was "always necessary to sprinkle foliage in 

 greenhouse plants," and that " the air would be so dry that 

 the plants would wither," the growth and health of the crops 

 were remarkable. By careful weighing and actual market re- 

 turns it was found that the Radishes averaged more than fifty 

 per cent, better, and the difference in earliness and quality was 

 as marked as the difference in quantity. With surface-water- 

 ing especially, when the weather was cold, there was a rank 

 top growth and small development of root. When pulled for 

 market the tops would often weigh more than the roots, and 

 many plants with unusually large tops would have small, 

 tough, spindling roots. With under-surface watering the tops 

 were comparatively small and the roots larger, almost double 

 the weight of the former, and well developed in every part. 

 The effect on Lettuce was equally evident, as the yield was 

 twenty-five per cent, greater, and the lettuce-rot, which was 

 quite bad where surface-watering was practiced, was held in 

 check. The effect on Cucumbers was not less beneficial, but 

 the results were less marked on Tomatoes and Parsley, al- 

 though the advantages were discernible. On the average it 

 was found necessary to run water into the tiles only once a 

 week, a great reduction of labor. The proper amount to use 

 is easily determined by the appearance of the plants or the 

 condition of the soil, and there is little danger of overwater- 

 ing, for the tiles act to a certain extent as drains, and by allow- 

 ing free access of air the soil does not become sour. The re- 

 sults obtained for three successive years demonstrated that 

 for the vegetable forcing-house under-surface watering is a 

 success, being economical of water, economical of time and 

 labor, and a check to fungous diseases. It keeps the soil in 



the best condition by preventing surface-hardening and water- 

 soaking, and is the best method of securing an even distribu- 

 tion of moisture to the roots of growing plants. 



For Seed-reds and Seedlings. — In the hot, dry weather of 

 late summer and early autumn it is hard to secure an even 

 germination of fine vegetables- seeds by surface-watering on 

 account of the rapid evaporation. Besides this, great injury is 

 often done by washing out some seeds and burying others too 

 deeply. The method of watering here is by placing two water- 

 tight benches or shallow tanks, one near the potting-room, and 

 another under one of the soil-benches, and into these an inch 

 or so of water is turned. Seeds are then sown in fiats with 

 perforated bottoms, and containing about two inches of fine 

 black muck. The flat is then placed in the watering-bench, and 

 as soon as the soil is saturated they are set on a frame above 

 the bench, and when occasion requires are watered in the 

 same way. During the very hottest and driest weather one 

 watering sufficed for three days, and would ordinarily answer 

 for five or six. By the plan of sprinkling the surface once or 

 twice a day it would have been almost impossible to keep the 

 soil equally moist throughout and prevent the surface from 

 washing and baking ; besides this, the seeds would have been 

 disturbed, and the young seedlings more or less injured by 

 damping off. It seems clear that under-surface watering is 

 the way to supply moisture evenly and economically to ger- 

 minating seeds and late plants for the greenhouse or hot-bed. 



Combined Drainage and Irrigation in the Garden.— In 

 early spring, and often at other times, the soil is too wet, and 

 it is as often too dry in summer and autumn. An attempt was 

 made to modify this irregularity of supply and keep the soil- 

 moisture under control upon a level spot in the vegetable-gar- 

 den, which was divided into five plots, each twenty-five feet 

 by forty. Through these plots lines of three-inch tile were laid 

 on an exact level, with the ends embedded in cement. They 

 were eight inches deep, and the rows two and a half inches 

 apart. At one end of each line an upright tile was placed, into 

 which water could be turned, and at the other end of the line 

 the tile continued beyond the plants, and acted as an outlet 

 when the tiles were used as a drain. A valve was set at the 

 beginning of ttiis outlet, so that when desired water could be 

 held in the tile — that is, when the soil was too wet the valve 

 was open, and the tiles acted as a drain ; when it became too 

 dry, water was turned into the tiles, the valves were closed, 

 and the tiles acted as a reservoir, from which the water could 

 pass into the soil. In the early spring, some early Beets 

 planted here matured while moisture was still abundant, and 

 showed little difference in yield between the tiled and the un- 

 tiled plots. For Onions and String Beans, which matured later, 

 the water was turned into the tiles at five different times. The 

 Onions increased over fifty per cent., the Beans were more 

 than doubled in weight, while thequality was greatly improved 

 and the season lengthened. The soil in the tiled plots was dry, 

 and in a fit condition to work several days in spring before the 

 adjacent untiled plots, so that the experiment, so far, seems to 

 prove that this method has all the advantages of under-surface 

 watering in the greenhouse. 



A Neglected Vegetable. 



WITH the excepfion of a row or two of plants grown from 

 purchased Onion sets for use in the green state, or of a 

 few stalks of the Egyptian-tree or Winter Onion, or of a clump 

 or two of "Chives" in some out-of-the-way corner, the genus 

 Allium is seldom worthily represented in the home-garden. 

 The majority of amateurs claim that at present average prices 

 dry onions can be bought at much less cost during autumn 

 or winter than they can be produced, except by a skilled mar- 

 ket-grower on a large scale. Under some circumstances this 

 may be true. The chief reason, however, for this neglect of 

 one of our most important vegetables is that amateurs look 

 upon it almost disdainfully as a sort of outlaw without the re- 

 finement or delicacy which is looked for in the inhabitants of 

 the home-garden. This is a great injustice, especially since 

 the introduction, in 1888, of the Prizetaker, the best of all 

 Onions now in cultivation in America. It resembles the im- 

 ported Spanish Onion in color and shape, equals it in mildness 

 of flavor, and bulbs are easily grown to weigh from one to two 

 pounds each. I have seen specimens weighing five and six 

 pounds. In short, if the home-grower proceeds in the right 

 way he will find as much satisfaction and advantage in grow- 

 ing a bed of Onions as he can desire from the production of 

 any other vegetable, and abed of well-grown Prizetaker Onions 

 is an exhibit of which any gardener may well be proud. In 

 the market the Prizetaker has not yet attained the position of a 

 successful rival of the Spanish Onion, but the home-grower 



