APRIL: FIRST WEEK 85 



care they will last a great many years, so that the cost is by 

 no means prohibitive. Two inexpensive and practical forc- 

 ing frames adapted to such tall plants as tomatoes may be 

 sawed from an ordinary cracker box, with glass about 

 thirteen by twenty-two inches fitted in one side. For 

 melons, etc., they may be made flat, as shown in the cut on 

 page II. 



Labels and Markers 



One of the little things commonly overlooked in the 

 garden is careful marking of both vegetables and flowers in 

 order that one may keep tabs on varieties, dates, yields, 

 colors, and so forth. How often one sees an empty seed 

 packet on a stick or held down by a stone as the only garden 

 record! It does not take long to learn that such a make- 

 shift tag will be blown away or obliterated by the mud and 

 rain. When a hundred eight-inch garden labels can be 

 bought for thirty-five cents there is no excuse for the 

 gardener who does not know when and where he has put 

 everything that grows in his garden. A more expensive but 

 more convenient form of label is a small card which is held 

 on a covered plate placed at a convenient angle on an up- 

 right iron stake; on this a record card can be kept plainly 

 visible but protected from the elements. 



If you have not made a planting plan in advance secure 

 a good-sized armful of stakes — pieces of shingle, or kindling 

 strips, or whips 

 of willow or birch 

 — before you be- 

 gin to sow seeds. ' 

 Stick them up 



along one edge, marking off with each the space for one 

 variety of seed. 



If you haven't a reel and a marking line, by all means get a 

 ball of stout twine and a couple of short sticks. For rows of 

 plants, or for such seeds as are not planted with the seed 

 drill, a one-row marker may be made by nailing or bolting a 

 strip of inch stuff to the wheelbarrow and attaching a short 



