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I made a new trench—never plant sweet 
peas twice in the same place—about fifty 
feet long. The balls of earth were carefully 
knocked out of the pots and set in the trench, 
one foot apart. 
The weather during March and April was 
very favorable to the vines, which grew well, 
so that I was able to pick my first flowers on 
May 17th, and within a week a good-sized 
bunch. From that time until I left my house 
for the summer (about August 1st) I had all 
the flowers one could want (everybody wants 
plenty of sweet peas). The crop throughout 
my town was more or less of a failure, be- 
cause of a very severe drought in the spring. 
I attribute my success to the fact that the 
plants were able to get deeply rooted before 
the dry weather set in. 
Epsom Salts for Azaleas 
J. C. HocGenson, Utah 
Seow can grow azaleas and other lime- 
hating plants on any sort of soil if 
you dose them with Epsom salts. Naturally, 
these plants inhabit a peaty, acid, or sour 
soil, which conditions cannot exist where 
lime is present. The usual method of grow- 
ing azaleas, etc., in a limestone region is by 
making huge excavations and filling in with a 
specially made compost, and if you give a 
sufficient depth (several feet) of the proper 
soil, though it is underlaid by lime, the plants 
will flourish abundantly. The common 
Epsom salts (sulphate of magnesia), which 
can be bought for ten cents a pound, will 
counteract the lime. 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
DECEMBER, 1906 
Do your azaleas resemble this? Then possibly 
you have Jime in your soil. Compare with the plant 
in the next column. 
I took two plants as near alike as pos- 
sible, and potted them up separately in a 
good compost, to which nearly a half ounce of 
lime was added to every five pounds of soil 
or five and a half ounees to every cubic foot 
of soil. One of the plants was grown in this 
soil, without any other addition. The other 
one received a good quarter of an ounce of 
Epsom salts to every five pounds of soil (or 
three and a quarter ounces to every cubic 
foot and a little over three tons to an acre) 
It was interesting to watch the develop- 
ments. Both plants started out well, but the 
one soon began to show weakness and the 
These two rhododendrons were grown in the same lime-laden soil, except that Epsom salts was also added 
to the pot on the left (1-4 ounce to every 5 lbs. of soil) 
This result was brought about by adding Epsom 
salts (sulphate of magnesia) to the lime-laden soil that 
stunted the plant on the left 
edges of the leaves curled inward; the 
flower buds became limp, and finally turned 
brown and dried up, without opening at all. 
But what a difference in the other plant, 
which had been dosed with Epsom salts; it 
maintained good growth, bore an abundance 
of flowers, and carried them for nearly a 
month. The same thing happened with 
rhododendrons. 
The amateur gardener who suspects lime 
is causing any difficulty in the growing of 
azaleas and rhododendrons, should proceed 
thus: Dig a hole two feet square, and loosen 
the soil to a depth of two feet, mixing into it 
twenty-eight ounces Epsom salts. As the 
salt dissolves almost immediately on con- 
tact with the soil, there is no need to make a — 
solution, and it would seem from my ex- 
periments that the one dose is sufficient for 
the season’s growth. By this method I 
do not see why members of the heath family 
or any other lime-haters, cannot be grown 
on any sort of soil. 
A 6 by 8-foot Garden 
MaBeEL Daumont, N. J. 
WV EN a year ago last October I looked 
on the small yard, which was simply 
an ash and rubbish heap, at the back of the 
house, I said, ‘“‘I will make a flower garden,” 
speaking with the assurance of utter inex- 
perience as to garden making outside of a 
few invalid potted plants. I began, and 
having begun kept at it notwithstanding the 
unthought-of difficulties and labor. 
I would read of people with limited in- 
comes planting bulbs by the thousand and 
other things in proportionate quantities. 
That is not the kind of limited income with 
which I am acquainted. 
In the usual books and magazines on 
gardening, rules and instructions are on a 
large scale; quite too troublesome to reduce 
in ratio. 
In despair I turned from ‘‘acres, bushels, 
gallons, and loads.’’ Nothing seemed to fit 
my few feet of earth, so I evolved a garden 
out of my hopes, desires, instincts, and com- 
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