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THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



October, 1917 



New Chinese Bush Cherry (Prunus tomentosa) having pink 

 flowers in April. Grows six feet high 



and white cherry blossoms, as pink as a For- 

 sy thia is yellow, and in bloom at the same time. 

 No pink flowering shrub at this season of the 

 year is as showy, except the Spring Cherry 

 (Prunus subhirtella) whose fruit is not of 

 value. In early July the cherries are ripe, 

 red, tart, and twice the size of peas, thickly 

 on every twig. The skin is finely hairy, an 

 unusual character for a cherry. The flavor is 

 very like the Sour Cherry, yet as a market 

 crop these little fruits will find little favor, but 

 for home use they are excellent, fresh or cooked. 

 They ripen early, and the bushy habit 

 fits the plants to small gardens where the 

 usual fruiting trees are too large. As to hardi- 

 ness — the plant is native to Manchuria, and 

 already is planted for its fruits in the Dakotas. 

 Mulberries are considered a choice fruit by 

 children, and in the old days were frequently 

 cooked. As a child my objection to them was 

 that they made trees too big to climb safely, 

 that the birds got about all the fruit, and only 

 what fell from the tree to the dirt were mine to 

 eat. A new Mulberry from Western China, 

 Morus acidosa, is decidedly a bush, a strag- 

 gling shrub some six feet high, with lobed 

 leaves, large and small, as all mulberries have. 

 The berries are not large, black, very numer- 

 ous, and very tasty on a hot day in early July. 

 If the children like mulberries beg the nursery- 

 man to put this plant on the market. It was 

 collected for the Arnold Arboretum in North 

 China by Mr. E. H. Wilson in 1908.— S. F. H. 



A New Method of Wintering Celery. — 

 There is a method which greatly simplifies the 

 storage of celery. It has been tested through 

 many years' experience and has proven itself 

 entirely effective. The most extraordinary 

 feature about it is that it is practically un- 

 known. 



Select several water-tight kegs. Those 

 which are used to hold salt fish answer very 

 well. Of course, they should be thoroughly 

 cleansed before being put to their second use. 

 These kegs should have close-fitting tops. The 

 best that the writer has used were tops of 

 cheese boxes. Before the ground freezes the 

 celery is lifted from the rows and packed very 

 carefully in a standing position in the kegs. 

 All this part of the work may be done in the 

 garden. The soil is shaken from the roots of 



the plant and the plants themselves packed 

 very close together in the kegs with their roots 

 resting on the bottom. After the plants have 

 been thus taken from the ground and packed, 

 the kegs should be removed to a cool part of 

 the cellar where they are to remain through 

 the winter. Before covering the kegs, it is 

 necessary to put about two or three inches of 

 water in the bottom of each. This must be 

 done with great care, for the celery must not 

 be wetted. Use a tube to introduce the water. 

 It will be found necessary to renew the water 

 about every three weeks. 



Celery thus stored will be perfectly whit- 

 ened by the process. It will retain all its fine 

 nutty flavor and is indeed as desirable a winter 

 vegetable as can be wished. It is possible to 

 store about a hundred plants in an ordinary 

 keg. — Archibald Rutledge, Penna. 



Beans on Strings — Having found it hard 

 to get poles for my lima beans, I tried the bush- 

 limas, but, although much improved, their 

 yield to the square foot of ground is con- 

 siderably lesst han that of the pole limas. I 

 therefore worked out a plan to grow them on 

 strings, which I have done now for three years 

 with good results, perfecting the details a little 

 each year. The photograph shows my 

 "beanery" just as the beans were reaching the 

 end of their string, in the first part of July. It 

 indicates plainly how the framework is put to- 

 gether. After the ground is dug and before the 

 beans are planted, two strong posts, eight feet 

 above the ground (and about two feet below), 

 are put in thirty feet apart. A wire is run 

 from top to top, and down to pegs at both ends, 

 so as to make it very taut. Next, short stakes 

 are driven in, ten feet apart, in two lines, two 

 feet each side of the line of the tall poles, and 

 wires are run along them about six inches above 

 the ground. The intermediate stakes are 

 necessary to keep the wires taut. 



Now, so as to get the fullest return from each 

 yard of land, I set out two rows of lettuce 

 plants on the bed between the wires, and wait 

 for warm weather to come. Usually in the 

 third week of May I put in my beans in a row 

 under each of the lower wires. After the 

 plants are up they are, -if necessary, thinned 

 to stand about five inches apart; and while 

 my lettuce is developing nicely, I get my step- 

 ladder out and tie cotton strings from one 

 lower wire across the upper wire and down 

 to the other lower one about 15 inches apart, 

 which gives me three plants to each string. 

 The beans rapidly run up the strings, and the 

 shade they give is beneficial to the lettuce, 

 which is now nearing maturity. In the pic- 

 ture, the lettuce has already been cropped off" 

 in one row — a head of Romaine is visible just 

 to the right of the little gardener. 



Lettuce is the right crop to use here, because 

 being a leaf producing plant, it takes an excess 

 of nitrogen from the soil, while beans (a 

 leguminous) require less nitrogen than other 

 plants. 



After the beans reach the top, I have to 

 tighten the strings, as they will stretch, no 

 matter how tight they were at first. In view 

 of this, I just throw them across the upper wire 

 without tying when first putting them on and 

 then put a loop in them and around the wire 

 when tightening them afterward. If this is 

 not done, the string will sag, and finally al- 

 most touch, and although the swinging on a 

 breezy day does not seem to do the beans any 

 harm, it makes it hard for a person to get in- 

 side the "beanery" to cultivate the ground. 



I have grown lots of lima and other beans 



this way, and the only expense is a ten cent 

 ball of heavy cotton string each year, whereas 

 the two posts and the wire can be used again 

 from one year to another almost indefinitely, 

 especially if they are taken up and stored away 

 in the fall. The string is best burnt up with 

 the beanstraw. — H. E. VanGelder, Westfield, 

 N.J. 



Fall Sown Sweet Peas. — I am pretty busy 

 but I must take time to tell it. The receipt of 

 the September issue of the magazine calls it to 

 mind. Last November, within two or three 

 days of Thanksgiving, I planted two rows of 

 Sweet Peas. I followed in the most careful 

 manner the instructions given in your paper by 

 the President of the Sweet Pea Society, using 

 seed obtained from one of the most reliable 

 houses in the country. The first pea is yet to 

 put in an appearance. I am no novice, having 

 been brought up on a farm and have 

 grown vegetables and flowers the greater part 

 of my life. Have grown Sweet Peas, but not 

 from fall planting. Therefore, the cause of 

 failure cannot be lack of knowledge of the 

 principles of planting. Should I try again? — 

 /. W . Ginder, Washington. 



— With a few exceptions, there is always a 

 degree of uncertainty accompanying fall 

 sowing of any seed in the open, success or 

 failure depending almost entirely on the 

 weather. During the past ten years we have 

 been in the habit of making extensive fall 

 sowings of Sweet Peas, sowing about the 

 middle of November. Such sowings have as a 

 rule been most successful until last year, when 

 the early winter was so mild that the seed 

 rotted in the soil, and we had to resow in the 

 early spring. What I aim at is to sow so late 

 in the fall that the seed may either just germi- 

 nate previous to freezing weather, or lie dor- 

 mant in the soil until early spring. When we 

 are favored with a good old-fashioned winter, 

 the ground frozen hard from Christmas until 

 March, our fall sown Sweet Peas are safe, and 

 give results immeasurably superior to those 

 from spring sowing. However, the ideal meth- 

 od whereby all risk of failure is avoided, 

 is to sow during October, using the special 



Here's a practical bean support made from string 



