April 4, 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



69 



Trial Beds. 



'T'HIS is the season of catalogues. Every year they become 

 -'■ more sumptuous and alluring- with their long lists of 

 novelties. Some are already illustrated horticultural magazines, 

 and if the evolution continues we shall eventually have moroc- 

 co-bound annuals distributed through the mails. The catalogue 

 of to-day is a tribute to the growing taste for horticulture. The 

 shrewd, experienced money-maker from the soil knows how 

 to discount these large and much-embroidered promises of a 

 renewed Garden of Eden. He turns straightway to the old 

 standard, established sorts, and invests in these alone. His 

 calculating eye is fi.xed on a crop that will pay beyond the sha- 

 dow of a doubt. He is right, and so may you and I be right if 

 we take a different course. That crop pays best which yields 

 what we value most. There is a solid satisfaction in a fair re- 

 turn in dollars and cents from our land, and it is well to aim at 

 this. The farming which makes milk cost as much as cham- 

 pagne, the vegetable garden which suggests to the natives only 

 the color of the bank-notes expended, tend to confirm in many 

 minds the idea that the methods of their grandfathers were the 

 safest and wisest. But lavish, ignorant expenditure is a very 

 different thing from a continuous course of experiments which 

 need cost but comparatively little. For our own sakes, and 

 especially for the sake of our children, we would seek to banish 

 the hum-drum element from rural life. In no other pursuit 

 have we such opportunity to do this as in horticulture. Let 

 me give at once practical illustrations of what I mean. Here 

 is a plot of ground. You can put it all in a crop which an ignor- 

 ant laborer can take care of. You can also put the soil in fine 

 order this spring, select from a catalogue a dozen or more of 

 the most promising varieties of peas, say; plant them all at the 

 same time and under the same conditions, the dwarf kinds by 

 themselves, close together, those requiring the support of brush 

 farther and farther apart, until you come to the unrivaled old 

 Champion of England. Now you have a play-ground as well 

 as a pea-patch for yourself and all the family. You will soon 

 need a little recording note-book with a page allotted to every 

 carefully labeled kind. The children will be glad to go with 

 you often to see which sort first pushes through the soil and 

 then to watch the race on through blossoming to maturity and 

 the table. The entire family will discuss the comparative if avor 

 and merits of the varieties, all kept on the q7ii vive over that 

 pea-patch for several weeks. Bright-eyed boys will I>e almost 

 as willing to work in it as to go fishing. The carefu record kept 

 from first to last will reveal which kinds are earliest, which the 

 most productive and profitable to raise, and which the best 

 flavored. May not such a crop be worth far more than one 

 stolidly raised and stolidly solder eaten ? The outlay need be 

 small indeed, but the return is tliat which makes life — zest and 

 enjoyment. 



Take another inexpensive yet more extended method of 

 amusement and experiment. Select a strip of ground as long 

 as you please and about fourteen feet wide. Enrich it well with 

 manure from the cow-stable, if possible, but any fertilizer will 

 answer, so that it be not too fresh and liable to ferment. Mix 

 the fertilizer evenly to the depth of eighteen inches, and then 

 set out as many varieties of strawberry plants as you can afford 

 space for. Let the rows be two feet apart across the bed, and 

 the plants one foot apart in the rows. By this course you will 

 have a dozen plants of a kind in every short row. Label care- 

 fully, and begin your written record. Now you have a trial bed 

 that will last three years at least. In May, the April-set plants 

 will begin to blossom. Pick off the blows as fast as they ap- 

 pear. The small amount of fruit produced the first season is 

 of no value, but a great injury to the young plants. Letting 

 them bear is like working a colt. In June the young plants 

 will begin to throw out runners and the tendency will increase 

 till fall. Nature's law of propagation is working; but it is fruit, 

 not plants, that yovi wish. Therefore cut off every runner as it 

 appears — an easy task for children. Force every plant you set 

 out to grow as large as it will on its original root. If plants die, 

 merely permit sufficient runners to grow to fill their places. 

 Since the plants are allowed neither to blossom, bear nor pro- 

 duce runners, there is only one thing they can do, and that is, 

 to grow into great bushy stools and develop fruit buds for the 

 ensuing year. By fall you inay find that a peck measure will 

 scarcely cover a plant. Of course the hoe should be kept busy 

 throughout the season. But little hand-weeding will be i-e- 

 quired, because the plants have not been allowed to run and 

 mat together. Clean, frequent culture is absolutely essential to 

 the best results. As soon as the ground begins to freeze in the 

 autumn cover the plants well, but not deeply, with light stable 

 manure, leaves, litter of any kind not full of noxious seeds. 

 Uncover after the alternate freezing and thawing of spring is 



over, rake off the litter as soon as the ground is dry enough to 

 work, then fork tlie soil lightly between the plants and return 

 the litter asa mulch, adding enough more to cover the ground 

 evenly. When I say, fork the ground lightly as soon as it 

 is dry enough to work in early spring, I mean just what 

 I say. I do not say, let a stupid or careless workman half dig 

 the plants out when loosening the soil, nor do I suggest that 

 this work can be done just as well late in spring after the plants 

 begin to blossom. Many authorities declare the ground about 

 bearing plants should not be disturbed in spring till after the 

 crop has been produced. I have always found cultivation ad- 

 vantageous if performed when and in the way I have indicated, 

 but not otherwise. If space permitted, I think I could support 

 my opinion with good reasons. After this very early cultiva- 

 tion the plants are ready to bear. The mulcli around them 

 should be sufficient to keep the ground moist and the fruit 

 clean. 



Soon comes the exciting period, when the berries change from 

 green to white and then begin to blush in the June sunshine. 

 Careful notes should have been made all along as to the com- 

 parative vigor of varieties, hardiness, time of blossoming, 

 character of blossoms, etc. Now the record should Ijc full 

 indeed as to size, productiveness, firmness of the berries, and, 

 above all, as to flavor. 



The dilTerences in fully matured and ripened strawlierries 

 would astonish those who have always purchased their supplies 

 m the market. 



A strawberry bed, treated as I have described, is "a tiling of 

 beauty" and would be "a joy forever," if it could last. It 

 does last three times as Ion"- as the ordinary matted bed of two 

 or three varieties, and the fruit averages three times the size. 

 We have had Crystal City strawberries in May, and Memphis 

 Late and Triomphe de Gand berries after the 4th of July. 



What a deliglit to visit the trial bed every day — see each va- 

 riety developing after its own organic law ! The entire family 

 becomes a tasting committee, and the children learn from deli- 

 cious experience the infinite opportunities afforded by horticul- 

 ture to gratify higher tastes than those of the palate. The 

 beautiful fruit, large and perfectly developed by high culture, 

 pleases the eye as well ; the variety in form and flavor, the dif- 

 ferent aspects of plants and foliage, suggest that similar tests 

 may be applied to other fruits, to the whole range of flowers, 

 vegetables and ornamental shrulibery. In brief, the reason 

 becomes apparent why man was first put in a garden, for 

 therein are found the varie<l interests which continue to our 

 latest age as fresh and undying as Nature herself. In our large 

 cities are multitudes of pallid, dissipated youth who might 

 have been kept in breezy country homes if the stolid, plodding 

 element had been eliminated. Those crops often pay best 

 which nourish mind as well as body. 



Cornwall-uii-Hudsun. Ed%vard P. Roe. 



Foliage With Cut Flowers. 



A careful study of the place and manner of growth and 

 -^^ of the tone and character of the foliage of any plant will 

 suggest the most effective arrangement for the cut flowers of 

 that plant. To illustrate, the Gladiolus is always an aggressive 

 and striking flower no matter how delicate it may be in shade. 

 Its function seems to be to enliven by its bold display of color. 

 Its foliage is a dull but strong green and is linear in form. Fol- 

 lowing this suggestion, we fincl it appears to best advantage 

 when its spikes are arranged in a tall vase with a liberal use of 

 the long leaves and stems of the various giant Grasses or Sor- 

 ghums or even of Indian Corn. The forage plant called 

 " Tiosinte" is particularly good for this purpose. 



The common white garden Lily throws its cluster of dazzling 

 white flowers well into the air, supported by an almost leafless 

 stem, and we never have been able to arrange effectively any 

 foliage with this flower. The white is so intense and yet so 

 delicate that it needs no aid and is injured rather than helped 

 by any other color. The only flower we have ever seen ef- 

 ■ fectively arrayed with this is the Agapanthus. Its flowers are in 

 their way as delicately beautiful as those of the Lily and blend 

 well with them. 



Nothing will bring out the beauty of blue Larkspurs like 

 well m:itured Carrot leaves, and acomparison will show that in 

 color and expression they are much like the natiu'al foliage of 

 the plant. In the same way clusters of wild or seedling Pear 

 leaves form the most effective setting for the brighter colored 

 Roses. 



To extend these illustrations a little further, arrange a basket 

 of Concord Grapes with Delaware foliage and one of Delaware 

 with Concord foliage, and then another plate of each with its 

 own leaves, and observe the more pleasing effect of the latter. 



