40 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 





September, 1918 



bulb culture the industry in France is decidedly 

 localized with the centre at Ollioules, where there 

 are some 4,000 acres devoted to the cultivation 

 of the various Dutch and Cape bulbs. The 

 present prospect would seem to indicate that 

 whatever stock is offered this year should be 

 taken care of and preserved as far as possible, 

 for although this year's supply seems reasonably 

 certain, no one can tell what will happen by 

 another twelve months. Readers placing orders 

 for bulbs for fall planting are advised to specify 

 that delivery should be bv express, because the 

 sooner they are in the ground the better, and the 

 uncertainty of delivery by freight is surely not 

 worth risking. 



Fertilizer for Window boxes. — One of the 

 most satisfactory window boxes that I have 

 ever seen was due to the use of a fertilizer com- 



Because of the small quantity of soil in a window box it is well 

 to use a good fertilizer 



posed of manure and the parings from hoofs 

 which had accumulated in the cellar of a black- 

 smith's shop having been swept there after the 

 daily floor cleaning. The dressing was not 

 taken because of any feeling of its great worth, 

 but in desperation. It was put into the boxes 

 with a small proportion of loam and its beneficial 

 effect on the plants was noticeable almost im- 

 mediately. The Geraniums in particular showed 

 an increase in the number and size of the flowers 

 but it was really the depth of color of the blos- 

 soms that attracted attention. The streamers 

 too, Vincas, sent up shoots from the roots and 

 the leaves were dark green and yellow and in 

 great abundance. The remarkable part was 

 that the plants in the boxes flourished right 

 through the season without showing the usual 

 slacking up in the late summer and when 

 the frost came they were looking their best. 

 The one difficulty about this fertilizer is the 

 difficulty of getting any great supply of it. The 

 auto has driven the Village Blacksmith from 

 the forge to the gasolene can and so it will be 

 necessary to search out a forgotten supply of 

 fertilizer that is hidden in some abandoned 

 blacksmith shop. Look for it this fall.— 

 L. J . Doogue, Mass. 



Trees as War Monuments. — It may be that 

 after this war is over, every little town will have 

 its granite monument to commemorate the men 

 who have fought, just as they now have monu- 

 ments for those who fought in the Civil War. 

 There is, however, something about a tree 

 monument that takes hold of one more than does 

 a stone monument. I rees can be more enjoyed 

 by a community than can a stone fountain. 

 They give shade, they cast an environment over 

 the community, and they grow and thrive and 

 become more attractive as the years go by. 

 If the right varieties are chosen they should live 

 one hundred or one hundred and twenty-five 

 years and that is about as long as most of us 

 are interested in at the present. I his idea of 

 Service I rees is one which communities generally 

 can adopt, and I think originated with the City 

 of Newburgh, New York. — /. Edward Moon. 



A Practical Weeder-hoe. — I am sending you a 

 picture, not to call attention to the face or the 

 flower garden it shows, though both are mine, 

 but in order to emphasize what I am going to 

 say about the hoe portrayed. I was long ago 

 convinced that the ordinary solid-plate hoe 

 was a poor tool for fighting weeds and when I 

 found this skeleton hoe I was doubly sure of it. 

 The regular hoe is too kind to the weeds. It 

 takes the dirt along with them and often leaves 

 them still planted in it, but my skeleton cuts 

 through the soil and severs all weeds, which kills 

 them at once if they have no great amount of 

 root development and it easily cuts them up if 

 they have made much growth. The hoe is 

 light, weighing only 2 pounds; it is rigid and has 

 a cutting width of 6 inches. All I have to do 

 is to draw it through the rows of my vegetable 

 garden and the work is done. I use the toothed 

 part only when the soil is hard, or to cover up 

 my tracks if I have not walked backward in 

 doing the work. I can tend a properly planted 

 garden with half the work that would be re- 

 quired with an ordinary hoe. And here comes 

 in my objection to the use of a rake or any sort 

 of toothed hoe after a garden is once planted. 

 The teeth merely allow the tool to go around the 

 weeds and they are not injured. Yet all writers on 

 gardening advocate such a tool and they cling 

 to the old solid hoe. I am sure that after any 

 one had handled my skeleton a few minutes he 

 would stick to it. For it will do practically all 

 the weeding, even if the weeds have been allowed 

 to get started near the plants. The sharp cor- 

 ners of it will work right up to the plant without 

 disturbing it and cut out all the weeds. 



Now as to the plan of the garden. I have a 

 very small one which is producing a large amount 

 of vegetables, I plant without skips everything 

 in rows only 15 inches apart, even tall stuff, like 

 corn and spreading stuff, like tomatoes. For 

 I never put in but a single row of the same sort, 

 so that the one row of corn does not shade itself 

 or anything else and the spreading sorts need 

 not be alongside each other. All rows are run 

 north and south. The moment any sort begins 

 to come to maturity I plant in something that 

 will still make a season and I cut out the " passe" 

 stems and throw them on the compost heap. 



gathered head lettuce that weighed half a pound. 

 The Golden Bantam corn row would hardly let a 

 small chicken through it, but it showed silks 

 by July 10th. A short, partial row of beans turns 

 out a wealth of spotless pods. Cabbage began to 

 head early in July. The Wakefield will be gone 

 before the late cabbage is in need of the room. 

 Beets, onions, lettuce, and turnips have yielded 

 heavily. I am still (July 20th) sowing beans and 

 turnips and transplanting lettuce. Adding to 

 this that the soil was not garden soil to begin 

 with, but all sorts of made land, as most city 

 plots are, I think our "warhelper" is making good. 

 The hoe cost 35 cents, now 50. — John W.Cham- 

 berlin, New York. 



[The new Gilson weeder goes this hoe one 

 better in that the tool is loosely hung. It is 

 the most efficient tool of its type we have ever 

 tried — Ed.} 



Food Value of Tomatoes.— It may be of interest 

 and perhaps some service to call attention to the 

 real value of the tomato as a food as well as a 



This type of hoe which cuts but does not drag, is sure death to 

 weeds 



In this way the entire garden works till the end 

 of the season. A garden Worked on these lines is 

 a pleasure and a beautiful sight at the same time. 

 1 he work is light, the returns are heavy. I have 



mere flavoring. In its present popularity there is 

 perhaps very little thought given to the fact 

 that the tomato contains relatively a high per- 

 centage of sugar and on this basis alone it is 

 worth considering. The accompanying diagram 

 is reproduced from a Bulletin of the Minnesota 

 Experimental Station. The sugar in the tomato 

 appears to be changed considerably in cooking 

 and this would seem to suggest that canning by 

 the cold pack method is much the better way of 

 handling the fruit. All the juice should be re- 

 tained in canning. 



German Potash Not Needed — It is inter- 

 esting to learn that analysis of virgin soils of 

 central and western New York shows that potash 

 is not deficient, and the same thing is unquestion- 

 ably true also of the soils of other states. State- 

 ments that agriculture is bound to suffer for lack 

 of German potash can only be considered as 

 another form of German propaganda. Those 

 who spread these stories are not worried about 

 agriculture, but about keeping up a demand for 

 German potash. Eight samples of typical 

 western New York soils contained from 32,000 

 to 45,000 pounds of potash per acre to the depth 

 of eight inches. "Decaying humus, stable 

 manure or stable sweepings, with lime and phos- 

 phoric acid, form the elements most needed," 

 says the report. 



Some of My Pet Peonies.— The Peony season 

 closed in Tarrytown, June 25th and was one of 

 strange freaks. The early varieties began 

 blooming about a week earlier than normal and 

 the very hot spell hurried forward the mid- 

 season varieties to bloom with the early ones, 

 making a most gorgeous display in masses of 

 Festiva Maxima, Mme. de Verneville, Germaine 

 Bigot, Gen. Bertrand, Jeanne d'Arc, Duchesse 

 de Memours, Lemon Queen, Venus, Mme. 

 Lemonier, Mons. Jules Elie, Reine Hortense, 

 Marguerite Gerard, Aurora, Asa Gray, Modeste 



