160 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



January, 1919 



out is the forced turning to domestic plant ma- 

 terial. It is hardly possible to say too much in 

 praise of some of the splendid native plants of 

 North America that are not common articles 

 of nursery trade, either because the foreign 

 material (which was not always ideally adapted 

 to our climate) could be obtained so cheaply, 

 or because the nurseryman lacked imagination 

 enough to introduce them in quantity. 



Although the importation of certain florist 

 and nursery novelties and certain other stock is 

 permitted because the entry of these classes of 

 plants for purposes of propagation is represented 

 by experts to be essential to the floriculture and 

 horticulture of this country under existing condi- 

 tions the barrier is partly up, and importations 

 will only be made through the Department of 

 Agriculture for those who have special facilities 

 for that kind of business. Of course, in the long 

 run we may all be better off". Perhaps. Whoknows? 



Plan With a View to Convenience 



tJERE is a 1918 incident that has taught an 

 ■*■ ■■■ experienced amateur gardener an important 

 lesson. It should be valuable to others who will 

 be guided thereby: 



In his patriotic desire to grow enough vegeta- 

 bles to supply his family for a year, and to have 

 a surplus for the neighbors, Mr. Blank rented a 

 couple of lots adjacent to his home and planted 

 nearly half to late potatoes, other vegetables 

 occupying the balance. In conversation with 

 the editor late in November he said: "I'm per- 

 manently cured of growing this crop unless I can 

 do so on cheaper land and on a large enough scale 

 to utilize horse or tractor drawn machinery. 

 My objections are that late potatoes occupy the 

 land during the whole growing season so there can 

 be no succession crop; they require the whole 

 area so a companion crop is out of the question; 

 they demand far too much hand labor for plant- 

 ing, cultivating, spraying and harvesting; the 

 cash or equivalent returns are too small to pay 

 for this labor at ordinary laborers' wages; they 

 therefore mean a greater loss if the work is 

 charged for, as it should be, at the rate my time 

 is worth. But while these points, especially the 

 one last mentioned, are important, the next one 

 is, to me, most important of all! the slow hand 

 work of harvesting must be done at a season of 

 the year when time is most valuable to me — to 

 do it I muct either hire a man or lose money. 

 Even if my plot had yielded maximum returns 

 (which it didn't) it would not have paid. In fact, 

 I would have been money in pocket if I had either 

 not planted potatoes at all, or had not dug the 

 crop but had bought my winter supply at the 

 local store at late November prices — #2.25 a 

 bushel! So, as I have said, I am cured of wanting 

 to grow potatoes by hand methods! Well 

 chosen crops of other kinds not only gave me a 

 quicker turn over but I used most of them either 

 as companion crops; so with far less effort I se- 

 cured maximum returns from the balance of the 

 area — a fact which will render me immune to late 

 potatoes as a crop for the rest of my born days!" 



Herein lies the important lesson: Plan to 

 suit your convenience. Make your gardening 

 subsidiary to your work, — your "recreation." 

 If you are likely to be busy or to go on a fishing 

 or hunting trip during a certain period of the 

 season plan now to arrange your plantings so no 

 crops will need cultivation, spraying, or harvest- 

 ing during that time. By so doing you will not 

 have the garden " on your mind " when you should 

 devote all your time and energy to your regular 

 business or to the enjoyment of an outing— some- 

 thing for the time being more important. Thus 

 you may keep yourself from being included 

 among those people who drop gardening because 

 it interferes with their work or their other pleas- 

 ures. Don't attempt more than you can carry 

 through, and so automatically gravitate into the 

 ranks of the apparently slipshod gardener. 



■«#- 



WeOPEM COLUMM' 



A New Garden Borer Pest. — What threatens 

 to be one of the worst foreign pests ever intro- 

 duced into this country is the European Corn 

 Stalk Borer, which has spread through many 

 Massachusetts towns in the last two years. 

 It probably reached this country in bales of 

 hemp imported by a cordage concern near Boston 

 and had increased by thousands before it was 

 discovered and its identity determined. Now 

 the Federal Government has established a field 

 station at Arlington. A quarantine has been 

 placed on all of the towns where borers have been 

 located. Once established, however, this borer 

 is not easily gotten rid of for it lives over the 

 winter in the adult stage and multiplies with 

 exceeding rapidity. The problem would be 

 easier to solve if the pest confined itself to corn 

 stalks and stubble. Investigators are finding, 

 though, that it winters in the stems of many 

 different Weeds. Even celery and Dahlia stalks 



Done by the stalk borer which also is becoming a pest of 

 many plants in the flower garden 



have been used for its winter home. Early in 

 the fall the borers eat a roomy apartment well 

 up in the stalks of whatever plants they choose 

 to inhabit. Cutting the corn stalks and mowing 

 the weeds at that time is the most effective way 

 of getting rid of the pests, if the weeds and stalks 

 are carefully destroyed. Later in the season 

 the borers burrow downward until they get below 

 the ground in many cases and getting rid of 

 them becomes very difficult. In the spring 

 the borers emerge as moths and commence to 

 lay eggs. The caterpillars hatched from these 

 eggs will feed upon the early corn. The damage 

 done by this first generation is small compared 

 with the depredations of a second generation 

 which appears in August. These late hatched 

 borers feed on the late corn (both in the stalks 

 and in the ears) and the greatest amount of 

 damage is done by working on the tassels. The 

 stalks are weakened and the tassels fall over 

 before the pollen is ripe. That means that the 

 corn is not fertilized and that a meager crop is 

 produced. Oftentimes the ears which do grow 

 are rendered unsalable because of the tunnels 

 bored into them. It has been estimated that 

 every May moth lays seven hundred eggs, on the 

 average and two or three hundred more in the 

 fall. Nearly all the eggs are likely to hatch. 

 Some of the moths kept in cages at the Arlington 

 station have laid more than a thousand eggs. 

 To put the facts concretely, a single caterpillar 

 present in an old corn stalk early in the spring 

 can be expected to have a progeny of 315,000 

 borers at the end of the season. The that fact 

 the Corn Stalk Borei also attacks other plants in 

 the flower garden is important. — E. I. Farrington. 



— Specimens of an unknown borer in Dahlias 

 and other plants reached us last season and the 

 assumption is that it was this pest. The obvious 

 precaution is to burn all refuse where the borer's 

 work has been suspected. — Ed. 



In the Interest of Decoration. — A prettily 

 garnished dish upon the table always adds to 

 the interest of the meal and when bits of toast 

 were taboo and we had to think twice before we 

 cut a lemon, we have been more than ever before 

 dependent upon growing things from the garden 

 to use for this purpose. Last summer, thinking 

 it would be interesting to have a variety, I de- 

 voted a small patch of earth near the kitchen 

 door to the growing of green garnishes and I 

 think the experiment well worth repeating. It 

 was almost no trouble and both family and visitor 

 enjoyed its decorative results. Besides Moss- 

 curled and Fern-leaved parsley, I grew chervil, 

 which is almost as pretty as parsley and adds a 

 fine racy tang to salads and other dishes; chives, 

 mustard, garden cress, dill, whose seeds may later 

 be used in pickles and in green apple pies; beets, 

 sown thickly and the pretty red leaves used while 

 small; mint for the embellishment of cold tea 

 and rounds of water melon; curled endive, lettuce, 

 and celery. The last three were not treated in 

 the usual manner as they were required only to 

 produce leaves of a size to be decorative. They 

 were simply sown in drills and not thinned out. 

 There was but one row of each kind but they 

 gave a wide variety to choose from and next year 

 I shall add Nasturtiums and horse radish to 

 the collection. Chervil and lettuce were sown 

 several times during the season to keep them in 

 evidence and the mustard should have been as 

 it quickly becomes too coarse for use. Many 

 of these plants were good to use as seasonings 

 as well as garnishes and it was "commodious" 

 as the old books say, to have them all together 

 and so close at hand. A light covering of leaves 

 at the approach of cold weather keeps the bed 

 long in good condition. — Louise B. Wilder. 



Pink Snapdragons from Cuttings. — I am a 

 devoted reader of the Garden Magazine, and 

 in return for the many helps I have received from 

 it, would like to tell others how I managed to 

 have a quantity of a beautiful pink variety of 

 Snapdragon for very little cost. From a packet 

 of pink seed I had many shades of pink flowers. 

 I selected two plants of the same shade (a beau- 

 tiful rose pink), and in the fall put them in pots 

 cutting the entire top down to within three or 

 four inches of the root. I kept them with my 

 Geraniums, etc., in a light cool cellar. In Feb- 

 ruary the plants began growing. As soon as a 

 young shoot was long enough to make a cutting 

 I pinched it off, and planted it in the side of the 

 pot where it quickly rooted. When I pinched 

 off a shoot two grew in its place to be later pinched 

 off and rooted. When. my garden was ready 

 for them in the spring I had about five dozen 

 well rooted cuttings ready to transplant. They 

 bloomed much earlier than seedlings of the same 

 size and they were all exactly alike in color mak- 

 ing a beautiful show.— ^. E. Little, III. 



Marl Offers Lime Supply. — Gardeners who 

 are situated near natural deposits of marl have 

 in it a good source of lime; there is no question 

 about the value of marl where limestone is needed. 

 Marl is found usually in muck swamps. 

 Dry marl may contain as much lime as the best 

 grades of limestone. Deposits vary considerably 

 in purity, but where they are more than two or 

 three feet thick they usually contain more than 

 80 per cent, of lime carbonate, equivalent to 

 45 per cent, of actual lime. To use marl directly 

 from the pit, it must be taken out when the swamp 

 water is low. Usually the fall is the best time. 

 The wet marl may also be spread in as small 

 lumps as possible. When these have dried out, 

 they may be crushed and distributed. 



