The Garden Magazine 
WOit.' VINE INK, 2 
PUBLISHED MONTHLY 
[For the purpose of reckoning dates, New York is 
generally taken as a standard. Allow six days’ difference 
for every hundred miles of latitude.] 
Who Is the Best Seedsman ? 
Es. February we get about a bushel 
of letters asking “What seedsman do 
you recommend?” We shall be glad to 
answer this question when some savant will 
tell us which is the best apple for every 
climate, season and purpose.. In other 
words, the real question is, “ How can I get 
the best seeds ?”’ and here is some real help 
on that. 
“Last February,” writes a Western reader, 
“T tried an interesting experiment. I got a 
packet of postal cards and wrote to the ten 
seedsmen whose advertisements in THE 
GARDEN MAGAZINE interested me most, and 
when I got their catalogues I came to the 
conclusion that there are six seedsmen who 
are the best—for me. 
“One catalogue gives me the best cultural 
directions; a second the most convenient 
tabular matter for ready reference; a third 
the greatest number of high-grade half-tone 
illustrations; a fourth discriminates most 
carefully as to varieties for special purposes; 
a fifth has taken the lead in producing varie- 
ties of farm seeds adapted to my particular 
region (the northwest); a sixth offers all 
sorts of rare and curious vegetables, including 
the best Japanese kinds; and every one of 
them has certain exclusive specialties that I 
want. 
“The bulk of my seed order will always go 
to the same seedsman—at least for the next 
sixty years. But the best part of gardening 
is testing the new varieties that really repre- 
sent an important improvement and these 
you can pick out of the ruck every time. 
When a seedsman takes two pages (at $1,000 
a page) to explain why a new bean, or pea, or 
corn is better, that bean, or pea, or corn is 
really better, and I’ve got to have it; but it 
would be foolish to try the forty other new 
PRO AROY 1908 
beans that are adapted to market gardeners 
or to a different climate from mine. 
“Morever, I want the highest-priced seeds 
I can get, because the thing I value most is 
quality. For that I am willing to sacrifice 
everything else—productiveness, size, color, 
long season, ability to ship well, even hardi- 
ness. I know that successful market gar- 
deners pay $90 a pound for'cauliflower seed, 
while the unsuccessful onéS buy the $2.50 
kind. I know that. the” seedsmen them- 
selves have to pay $75 an ounce for 
the highest-bred petunia seed, while they 
will be glad to sell you low-bred petunias for 
fifty centsan ounce. Yet nobody can tell the 
difference by the seeds themselves. It’s 
all in the breeding and rogueing. That’s 
what costs. And that’s what I want to buy. 
“Of course, the amateur doesn’t have to 
stake his living on his seeds, as the market 
gardener does, but his interest in quality is 
just as acute. We don’t want the market 
gardener’s varieties; we want varieties that 
are adapted toamateurs. But we shall never 
have the very best flavored vegetables until 
we get out of the five-cent rut. The reason 
why Englishmen have better peas than 
Americans is that they don’t grumble about 
paying seventy-five cents a packet. Nobody 
could hire me to sow cauliflower seed costing 
less than twenty-five cents a packet. I 
wouldn’t take Government free seeds as a 
gift. The least expense in gardening is for 
the seeds. In no other business do you trust 
so much to the integrity of your dealer.” 
WHAT’S BEST FOR SPRAYING ? 
January and February are mighty impor- 
tant months for spraying. If you are an 
amateur, the chances are about ten to one 
that the San José scale is destroying some 
of your most valued fruits and ornamental 
shrubs. 
There is no one best outfit or material, 
Dei 
The cheapest type of sprayer is one of these 
dollar squirt guns—good enough for a little 
garden patch or for bushes, but very slow 
and tedious, and useless for trees. 
The best type oi sprayer for the amateur 
who has no tall trees to spray is either a 
bucket pump, costing about $5, or a com- 
pressed air sprayer, costing about $7.50. 
The best type of sprayer for the farmer or 
fruit grower is a barrel pump mounted on 
wheels or carried on a wagon. 
The best type of sprayer for tall trees is a 
power sprayer operated by gasolene and 
carried on a special wagon. 
Again, the wholesale way to destroy chew- 
ing insects is to spray with arsenical com- 
pounds, such as Paris green, London purple, 
arsenate of lead. 
ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY 
The wholesale way to destroy sucking in- 
sects is to spray with kerosene emulsion or 
soluble oils 
The wholesale way to prevent fungous 
diseases is to spray with Bordeaux mixture. 
But the methods that experiment station 
bulletins recommend are generally imprac- 
ticable for amateurs. Their methods require 
outfits that are too costly for the amateur or 
too much trouble. These patent bug cures 
which the experiment stations are always de- 
crying may be poor economy for the farmer, 
but they are often true economy for the 
amateur. 
For instance: One of these brands has 
been “exposed” in a hundred bulletins be- 
cause it contains hardly any arsenic and is 
practically nothing but ground oyster shells. 
But it does the work! Why? No one knows. 
Possibly it acts like ground glass in the 
stomach. Anyhow, it kills the cabbage 
worms and cutworms. For twenty years 
the same market gardeners and florists have 
been buying that same brand of bug poison 
and willingly paying a, good price for it. The 
chemical analysis doesn’t always tell the 
whole story. 
“A rum thing is Natur’,” said Squeers. 
Who knows why Bordeaux mixture sends 
flea beetles away from potato vines? No one; 
but the important fact is that it does repel 
them. Don’t be afraid to try brands of 
insecticides. Or if you are, write to the 
Readers’ Service Department. There is a 
new man now in that department who knows 
a lot about spraying. 
THE MOST IMPORTANT JOBS NOW 
Plan your garden. Draw it to scale. 
Send for catalogues of seeds, plants, tools, 
spraying outfits and fertilizers. 
Resolve to have more and earlier vegetables 
from the same ground by means of hotbeds 
and cold frames. 
The farther south you live the earlier in 
this month you should send your order. 
Who is the best seedsman in your section? 
What seedsman of national reputation gets 
the highest prices for his specialties that are 
adapted to your section ? 
February offers about the last chance for 
starting a crop of mushrooms. 
Bring twigs indoors now, and put them 
in a vase of water and see them bloom 
Palms, ferns and other foliage plants that 
are too big for their pots may be shifted now. 
Start cannas indoors for very early flowers; 
also gladioli. 
Bedding plants may now be propagated 
from the stock plants. 
Sow seeds of tomatoes, celery, cabbage, 
egg plant, endive, lettuce, onion, etc.—indoors 
of course, to be put out in May. 
