10 AROUND THE YEAR IN THE GARDEN 



By all means get a wheel hoe with a seed-drill combina- 

 tion. Life is too short, garden space is too valuable, the 

 work of thinning plants and cultivating uneven rows is too 

 costly, to justify anyone's planting a garden by hand. When 

 you can mark the row, open the furrow, drop the seed, cover 

 it, roll it, and get it straight, in one operation, as fast as 

 you can walk, the laborious task of hand-sowing seeds 

 like onions, carrots, beets or turnips is out of the question. 

 In addition to doing the job better and infinitely faster, 

 covering all the seeds with fresh earth and dropping them 

 at a imiform depth, the seed drill leaves the row neatly 

 rolled on top, so that you can see where to cultivate before 

 the plants are up. 



No tool has yet been invented that does away with the 

 worst gardening job of all — hand weeding. For tie careless 

 or inexperienced gardener this task is likely to seem unend- 

 ing and nearly hopeless. Having tools with which you can 

 work close to the row, and using them before the weeds 

 start, will enable you to get through it with the fewest 

 possible hours of backache and sore knees. Hand weeding 

 used to mean sore fingers, too, but now there are a number 

 of hand weeders of different types that lessen the disagree- 

 able features of the task. 



No gardener can be sure of harvesting his crop, no matter 

 how rich his soil nor how good his seed, unless he is pre- 

 pared to fight effectually the various insects and blights. 

 Some sort of sprajdng machine is a real necessity. For the 

 very small garden a good bucket pump will answer the 

 purpose. But pumping from a bucket is not a convenient, 

 effective or safe way of applying poisons or insecticides. On 

 every small place a sprayer, either of the knapsack or of 

 the compressed-air type, will be needed sooner or later, 

 and a great deal of annoyance and loss may be averted by 

 getting it sooner. A first-class machine will cost from five 

 to ten dollars. Whatever type of sprayer you get, be 

 sure to get a brass one; many of the compounds that 

 will be used in it will quickly eat through even galvanized 

 iron. 



