184 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



January, 1918 



the clock forward saved 300,000 tons of coal 

 in England last summer; France saved 

 $10,000,000 in coal and light. We need day- 

 light saving! Send a letter to-day to your 

 Congressmen and Senators urging favorable 

 and immediate action. We must save coal 

 and relieve freight congestion. 



What Will Happen when an irresistible 

 force contacts an unmovable body?" Until 

 this month I have never had a satisfactory 

 answer; now I have! Quack grass taught me: 

 The irresistible force will go through the un- 

 movable body just as dozens of quack grass 

 rhizomes went through potato tubers. — 

 M. G. K. 



Topworked Apples. — The Iowa Experi- 

 ment Station is interested in investigations 

 concerning the topworking of desirable apples 

 upon hardy stocks, and wishes to secure 

 information from any one having facts respect- 

 ing observations and experiences of the matter. 

 Any published reports of observations, ex- 

 periences or experiments bearing on this 

 question in bulletins or in popular or technical 

 horticultural literature will gladly be re- 

 ceived by S. A. Beach, Chief Dpt. of Horti- 

 culture, Ames, Iowa. 



Home - Made Potted Plant Fumigator. — 

 In most homes one of the greatest deter- 

 rents to the having of some potted plants 

 is the difficulty in keeping them free 

 from lice or scale, while if these pests are not 

 kept in check the plants are greatly injured, 

 if not entirely ruined. Even though fumigat- 

 ing with tobacco is an effective way of keeping 

 down the pest, in most homes there is no 

 suitable arrangement whereby such fumigating 

 can be done without at the same time sub- 

 jugating the family also to the fumigating. 

 A few years ago, while visiting in Montreal, 

 I chanced upon a French woman using an 

 ingenious but simple device in fumigating 

 her potted plants. 



To construct it, first secure an oblong box at 

 least six inches deep — an old soap box serves 



Practical fumigator for house plants 



very nicely — and bore several rows (the 

 Slumber depending on size of box) of one-inch 

 ho.cc in the top of it. These holes should be 

 about six inches apart each way. Then in 

 one end of the box cut an oblong opening 

 large enough to admit your hand and a 

 saucer. Next, take several (again depending 

 on size of box) old stiff paper flour sacks, 

 unfasten along the side and bottom folds and 

 paste together into a strip that will just go 

 around the box and lap well, thus giving you 

 one large bag of a size to just slip snugly over 

 the top of the box. In fitting together the 

 bags allow a liberal width overlap at all seams 



Sand Lily (Leucocrinum montanum) a white Crocus- 

 like flower of the Rockies blooming in spring 



so that they will be air-and-smoke tight. 

 To use, place the pots of plants that are to 

 be fumigated on the perforated top of the 

 box, arranging them so as to cover but few 

 (or none) of the holes. Next place on an ordi- 

 nary earthenware saucer a couple of table- 

 spoonfuls of ground tobacco and upon this 

 drop one or two live coals. Place the saucer 

 inside the box, draw the air-tight flour-sack 

 hood over the box and tie tightly at the 

 bottom. The amount of tobacco will vary 

 with the surface size of the box and air space 

 within the hood. But it is well to remember 

 that in fumigating, a relatively light treat- 

 ment performed twice, a day or two apart, is 

 as effective in destroying the lice as is one 

 heavy fumigating which may be so heavy as 

 to injure the plants, temporarily, especially 

 when one is not experienced in gauging the 

 amount. The kind of tobacco to use is that 

 known as ground tobacco and which can be 

 secured for a few cents an ounce at all horti- 

 cultural supply stores. — L. G. B., Schenectady, 

 N. Y. 



The Long and the Short. — I was taught 

 that a vegetable garden should be planted in 

 long rows for convenience in working. This 

 may be all right for horse cultivation, but I 

 have found that the small, hand-worked 

 garden is better in several ways if the rows 

 run crosswise. More or less walking through 

 the garden is necessary in planting, working, 

 weeding and spraying. In long rows, this 

 traveling is done between the rows, and the 

 surface soon gets tramped down to the 

 detriment of the vegetable growth. If the 

 garden is not very wide, the rows may extend 

 across its width, but sometimes it is best to 

 have a narrow pathway through the centre, 

 and work each way. Thus much of the work 

 may be done from the path and the outer 

 margins, without trampling the soil. In 

 sowing small stuff after digging the ground 

 over, I use a long, wide board, using the edge 

 to mark the rows, and walking on the board 

 to do the work of fertilizing and sowing. In 

 this way, the work is finished without a foot- 

 fall on the loose earth. Weeding, fertilizing 

 and spraying can be done with much less 

 trampling of the soil. Vegetables like rad- 

 ishes, lettuce and beets, which require thinning 

 and frequent gathering, can be secured much 

 more readily. Corn, and possibly other 

 plants, will be better pollinated if in several 

 short rows side by side rather than in one long 



one. If necessary to spray certain vegetables, 

 it is more readily done when all are in a block 

 together than in a long row. From about 

 every point of view, the crosswise short rows 

 are preferable to the longer rows. — F. H. 

 Valentine, Ridgewood, N. J. 



The Sand Lily. — Among half a dozen 

 of the earliest and really lovable spring 

 flowers which are characteristic of the moun- 

 tains, is the Sand Lily, Leucocrinum monta- 

 num; literally, a White Lily-of-the-Mountain. 

 In method of growth it is not unlike the 

 Crocus. It has narrow, grass-like foliage 

 from a cluster of fleshy roots instead of a bulb 

 or corm, and the miniature white Lilies are 

 borne on the slender flower-tubes in generous 

 profusion. The clumps increase in size quite 

 rapidly so that a large plant will produce in a 

 season one hundred or more crystal-white, 

 fragrant blossoms within a period of a few 

 weeks. Curiously, the fruiting portion of the 

 flower is never elevated above the ground- 

 level, so that the seeds are ripened below the 

 surface and probably are scattered by birds 

 and mice who seek them for food. The 

 Sand Lily grows naturally in soils vary- 

 ing from clay to a light loam, preferring a 

 medium loam, a sunny position and good 

 drainage. In the East it may be grown 

 appropriately as a rock-plant or in any 

 sunny spot not excessively wet. It has 

 demonstrated its ability to thrive and increase 

 year by year in cultivation far from its 

 native habitat, and it promises well as a 

 garden flower. — D. M. Andrews, Colo. 



An Experiment with the Potato. — Last 

 year a great many people made a study 

 of "the kindly fruits of the earth." I have 

 been one of them and I am going to tell you 

 what I discovered by experience. The most 

 important thing seemed to be the potato. 

 The question was how to get the best and 

 fullest results at the minimum expense. I 

 found it was quite possible to eat your cake 

 and have it. We had the potatoes peeled in 

 the ordinary way, cooked and ate them, and 

 then planted the peelings, making sure that 

 there were at least a couple of eyes to a hill. 

 The result was a fine crop of potatoes and as 

 many in a hill and as large in size as though 

 we had planted the quarterings. With 

 potatoes as high as they were last spring this 

 was a great economy. When it came to 

 digging them up we changed our usual 

 methods. We had always pulled the vine up 

 and cleaned the hill out. Not so last year 

 There are always quite a number of very 

 small potatoes clinging to the vine. They are 

 too small for use and are usually thrown 

 away. Last year we dug all around the hill, 

 getting out all the large potatoes and left the 

 vine with the little potatoes in the ground. 

 By fall the small potatoes were big ones and 

 consequently there was a second crop out of 

 the wastings. That ended my experimenting 

 with the no longer humble spud. I felt I had 

 learned quite a good deal. — Emily Halson 

 Rowland, Conn. 



Pepper Vine. — Bernard H. Lane, of 

 Washington, D. C, writing of the Pepper 

 Vine in the February (1917) Garden Maga- 

 zine, expressed the wish that some venture- 

 some gardener north of the Mason and 

 Dixon's Line would try it and report. So I 

 wrote that I was venturesome enough to try 

 it on the bleak northwest side of a New 

 Jersey hill, and in the spring he sent me 



