14 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



February, 1919 



flowers thus, out of season, it is obvious that they 

 cannot perform the trick of producing the normal 

 crop at the normal spring time. 



Shrubs that flower on the old wood will thus 

 suffer in their immediate flower; although it is 

 not at all likely that the vigor of the plant itself 

 will in any way be affected. In the case of the 

 blackberry, and in other plants which are usually 

 pruned in the spring, and which produce their 

 bloom on new wood no harm can accrue. The 

 tender growth produced out of season by undue 

 w T armth and then subjected to a spell of decidedly 

 cold weather will be lost. And in the case of 

 hardwood trees and shrubs a drain on the reserve 

 food supply of the entire plant may be apparent 

 later on — in the summer. 



After all the life of a plant is a series of debits 

 and credits. If the winter strain draws unduly 

 on reserve supplies, there will be a period of 

 lessened activity while the bank account is being 

 replenished. Gardeners are not always inclined 

 to give adequate attention to this reserve account. 

 When we grow food plants for immediate con- 

 sumption we pay very little attention to the stor- 

 ing up of a reserve; but the permanent establish- 

 ment of a tree or shrub is a different matter. 



Of course, there is nothing unusual in 

 deciduous plants which normally are dormant 

 during winter bursting out into leaf and flower. 

 It is simply that the plant has been fooled. It 

 excites wonder, perhaps, being there; and yet, 

 in itself is not remarkable — it is only "off the 

 average." 



V\7"E SPEAK glibly about average perform- 

 * * ances; but the fact remains that, in the 

 garden, the average is a thing that we very 

 rarely see, and indeed, do not. want to. We are 

 always trying to push our plants to the extreme of 

 possibility. We accomplish this in the vegetable 

 garden by high stimulation, intensive feeding, 

 and thorough cultivation. We bring -it about 

 in the fruit garden by controlling growth through 

 pruning, and removal of vegetative growth in 

 order to develop fruit buds and spurs. 



We follow the same principles among the 

 flowers — we disbud in order to force a greater 

 size at the sacrifice of quantity — and in every 

 way we try to work the superlative by using 

 just those factors in nature's own methods that 

 seem to correspond with our own ideals; and 

 very often interfere with what may be the plant's 

 own natural habit. Thus in winter pruning 

 we remove entire branches and very often by 

 this defeat the very thing we have in mind; as 

 when pruning is done on shrubs and trees that 

 bloom on the growth they made last year. 



Lack of discrimination in this respect is one 

 of the great causes of dissatisfaction in the subur- 

 ban garden, where the occasional hired man is an 

 artist in the mechanical use of the shears, using 

 the tool faithfully and persistently, but disas- 

 trously. Far better, indeed, not to prune at all 

 than to prune improperly. It should be re- 

 membered that pruning is an artificial means 

 to a certain end; and is not a necessity to a plant's 

 well being from its own point of view. The 

 average man-with-the-shears traveling around 

 the suburban districts simply does not know. 



The man who does know, the skilled gardener, 

 is usually not accorded the standing that his 

 training, skill, and knowledge ought to justify. 

 This is perhaps less noticeable on the small place 

 than it is on the large one, running into many 

 acres where the gardener or superintendent is 

 the responsible agent in the operation of a large 

 machine, representing, frequently, a very con- 

 siderable investment in money. He is paid 

 generally, not for what he knows, but for what 

 the man who does not know is content to work 

 for, and because the employer does not dis- 

 criminate. It is so easy for a man to call himself 

 a gardener when he is nothing but a laborer in 

 a garden, or a garden helper, and is no more 

 capable of operating the garden in proper rela- 



tion to the home than the oiler on a locomotive 

 is capable of operating the machine on which he 

 works in relation to its possible effectiveness. 

 Just as the laborer is worthy of his hire, so also 

 is the trained gardener whose knowledge roams 

 over many fields of applied science. Of course 

 there are grades in the ranks of the professional 

 gardener and a capable skilled man in his "pro- 

 fession" cannot be had for the wages of a stable 

 and furnace attendant. When the responsibility 

 to the investment of a country place is considered a 

 wage of $150 to $200 a month indeed is not equal to 

 what the same employer will pay to a position of 

 similar investment in his business. Why? 



The Philosophy of Planting 



PERHAPS a timely thought, and one 

 that is not nearly as self-explanatory 

 as it sounds, is Why plan to plant, 

 anyway? Perhaps this argument sug- 

 gests itself: The world, just released from the 

 trials of a great war is all unsettled; this country 

 is similarly in a state of transition, in mid-channel 

 between the eras of things as they were and as 

 they are going to be: why not wait until every- 

 thing settles down into a normal routine before 

 making any more plans, even as to the develop- 

 ment of our little garden and grounds? 



Well, suppose everyone took that stand; sup- 

 pose bankers and business men, farmers and finan- 

 ciers, statesmen and soldiers all decided not to 

 do anything definite until things had "settled 

 down." How long would it take the country 

 to get somewhere under such conditions, if indeed 

 we can conceive of its getting anywhere at all? 

 No, the need of to-day in America is ( for every 

 single person to keep busy, to get busy, to ac- 

 complish something no matter how small, to 

 plan something no matter how restricted its 

 sphere of influence. Only out of such activity, 

 confused though it may be for a time can there 

 evolve the big forward movement that is to carry 

 the nation to its destiny. 



And so, switching our train of thought from 

 world considerations to the matter of our twenty 

 by fifty foot gardens, our part in the reconstruc- 

 tion play is to till and develop, to beautify and 

 make fruitful the little pieces of ground over 

 which we have been given stewardship. If we 

 have room and. the needed sunlight for an apple 

 tree between the house and the drive, let's plant 

 it this spring without fail. If there was a four 

 foot strip along the fence that grew nothing but 

 weeds last summer, let us see to it that 1919 finds 

 it supporting berry bushes or grape vines or 

 Hollyhocks. If the lot next door is littered with 

 tin cans or clumps of burdock or piles of plaster 

 and building refuse, because "nobody owns it 

 or is interested," let's create an interest a little 

 broader than our own frontage and clean the 

 place up. Perhaps it could be made into a 

 school garden; perhaps it could be cooperatively 

 induced to produce a year's supply of potatoes 

 for three or four families; at the very least it 

 could be sown to grass and decked with a few 

 shrubs and saplings so that when the boys from 

 our town come back from over there they will 

 not be able to find any where in their native vil- 

 lage conditions that will bring back to their 

 minds pictures of blighted France and Belgium. 

 That is one argument for more planting this 

 spring than ever before: namely, the need of con- 

 tributing to the reconstruction campaign, not 

 only the reconstruction of devastated territory, 

 but also the further development of our own un- 

 threatened acres in like degree. Another is the 

 fact that the creation of more beauty in our en- 

 vironment in the form of more flowers and shrubs 

 and vines and trees and lawns is in itself a justi- 

 fiable accomplishment — 



"If eyes were made for seeing, 

 Then Beauty is its own excuse for being." 



as Emerson puts it. 



And of course there are the material arguments 

 — the need and value of food crops raised in our 

 dooryard, whose abundance, freshness, quality 

 and cheapness are all rewards for physical effort 

 that is in itself a boon that the city flat dweller 

 would give a good deal to enjoy. Going a step 

 farther in the direction of materialism, we can 

 recall that should it ever be necessary to consider 

 selling a property, a well thought out, carefully 

 executed planting scheme adds considerably 

 to its real estate value. 



But after all, one of the richest rewards of all, 

 is the inspiration, the stimulus, the encourage- 

 ment that comes from contact with growing 

 things, from the knowledge that we are helping 

 to create something, helping to make it grow, and 

 blossom, and bear fruit. Any one who has 

 watched a child of the tenements foster and 

 cherish a poor spindly geranium in an old to- 

 mato can; or who has seen the glow of righteous 

 pride flood the face of the boy or girl champion of 

 a garden club as he or she receives well-deserved 

 recognition; knows what this can mean. And if 

 one sad little plant or a tiny patch of school 

 garden can bring such joy into the heart of a 

 child, how much more can we receive and be 

 thankful for in the productive, systematic tilling 

 of a whole garden! Indeed, the puzzle is, not 

 why plant so much, but rather how can we help 

 planting more, and more, and more? 



When Northern gardeners bemoan the dull 

 cold days and the colder nights of winter that 

 hold their gardens frost bound and idle, they 

 should recall with gratitude that where plants 

 are still growing, so also are their enemies. As 

 late as the middle of December the extensive 

 trucking sections of Virginia reported serious 

 injury to young cabbage plants by lice. Farther 

 south, in Georgia and South Carolina, the acreage 

 in early cabbage is considerably reduced on ac- 

 count of a scarcity of seed and young plants. 



Douglas Spruce for France. — The United States 

 has recently made a present to the French 

 Republic of all the. Douglas Fir tree seed that 

 could be obtained anywhere in the country. 

 This gift, which it is hoped will play an important 

 part in the reforesting of the devastated sections 

 of France, amounted to something less than a 

 bushel of seed, which, however, represents many 

 thousands of trees. It is being conveyed overseas 

 by P. S. Ridsdale, Secretary of the American 

 Forestry Association. Experiments will be con- 

 ducted to ascertain in just what parts of France 

 this valuable timber tree will thrive best. 



A manure pit doesn't cost money; it saves 

 money. The value of the manure saved when 

 stored in pits will equal at least 5 per cent, on the 

 pit investment. Where manute is stored in 

 loose, flat piles, the loss by leaching and decay 

 in six months amounts to from 30 to 60 per cent. 

 say the soil fertility workers at the New York 

 state college of agriculture. 



Water tight pits of concrete are the best means 

 of preserving manure. They should hold the 

 liquid, and keep the solid material nearly, if not 

 quite, saturated. It is not necessary that such 

 a pit have a roof. A roof is necessary only where 

 there is no pit to hold the leachings. Saturation 

 prevents heating, which is a potent source of loss. 

 The normal rainfall on the manure will offset 

 evaporation and insure better saturation. 



Milch cows and horses will together produce a 

 little less than a ton of manure a month to a 

 thousand pounds of live weight. It will weigh 

 from 50 to 70 pounds a cubic foot depending upon 

 the packing and the degree of saturation; a ton 

 will require about 33 cubic feet of storage space. 



With 10-inch walls and a 3-inch bottom, at 

 65 cents a cubic foot, excavation, reinforcements, 

 and other costs will be about #25 to #30 an 

 animal — or #4.50 a ton storage capacity. 



