The Garden Magazine 



Vol. XIII— No. 



Published Monthly 



FEBRUARY, 1911 



[ One Dollar Fifty Cents a Year 

 ' Fifteen Cents a Copy 



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[For the purpose of reckoning dates, New York is 

 generally taken as a standard. Allow six days' difference 

 for every hundred miles of latitude.] 



Send for the Catalogues 



ALL the new season's catalogues are 

 now available. If you have not 

 completed your orders, send for the new 

 lists to-day and get your seed order 

 out of hand while winter is still with 

 you. Moreover there are sure to be lim- 

 ited supplies of certain things, and unless 

 you order early you may suffer disap- 

 pointment. 



Study the lists of the leading houses 

 and look for the specialties of each. 



Buy novelties. By all means try out 

 a few of the season's novelties, but unless 

 you are a gambler and particularly in- 

 terested in results, you had better stick 

 to the well-tried standbys for main crops. 

 Every gardener should try some novelties 

 each year, and once in a while you will 

 find a new variety that surpasses every- 

 thing you have had before. All the stand- 

 ard varieties of to-day were once novelties 

 themselves. 



Won't you readers band yourselves into 

 a great testing club? Make a resolution 

 to get the novelties offered this year and 

 give them thoroughly practical trials 

 side by side with, and under the same 

 conditions as, the kinds that you know to 

 be reliable. Then, at the end of the season, 

 tell us about any of them that were really 

 better than those you had before. We 

 will pay for any note of real experience 

 that will help amateur gardeners generally. 

 We want to know more about our readers' 

 actual experiences with novelties. 



Indoor Activities 



TN ABOUT eight weeks' time, spring 

 ■*■ will be upon you. Are you ready 

 with all the little extras — labels, stakes, 

 brush for peas, strings, even poisons for 



spraying? Look through the sundries list 

 of your seed catalogue and lay in a stock . 

 of all these little requisites. 



Buy a garden basket; you will find it 

 useful for holding cut flowers as you 

 gather them. 



Coldframes and hotbeds will be wanted 

 very soon. No garden is too small for a 

 coldframe — in fact, the smaller the gar- 

 den the greater the necessity. Lettuce, 

 radishes, parsley, beets, carrots, beans 

 can all be helped along as early crops by 

 being grown in a coldframe. 



Make hotbeds during February. Use 

 good stable manure, breaking it up finely 

 and treading it down firmly. For great 

 heat use the manure without litter; for 

 a moderate but a more lasting heat, add 

 litter or leaves used as bedding. 



Vegetables to be Sown 



TN GREENHOUSES or hotbeds, for 

 -*■ transplanting later: Plant French 

 artichoke, broccoli, all kinds of cabbage, 

 cardoon, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, leek, 

 lettuce, onion, pepper — all these are 

 for planting out later as soon as the weather 

 permits. 



To be matured in greenhouse or hotbed: 

 Bush beans, carrots, cucumber, egg plant 

 kohlrabi, melon, parsley, tomato. 



For succession, every week in greenhouse 

 or frame: Rutabaga, mustard, cress. 



Mushroom beds may still be made in 

 cellars, under the bench of the greenhouse, 

 or in any other waste space. It will not 

 be worth while starting mushrooms after 

 the beginning of this month. 



Flower Seeds to be Sown 



TNDOORS or in the hotbed you can 

 •*■ make first sowings of all hardy annuals 

 and half-hardy sorts, such as China aster, 

 gaillardia, castor bean, cobea, dahlia 

 and pansy. 



You can have much enjoyment by sow- 

 ing canna and dahlia seeds now and watch- 

 ing for the different colors that they will 

 develop. You cannot foretell the color 

 in either of these plants, and in a dozen 

 or two there may grow some of es- 

 pecially appealing beauty. Old pansy 

 plants that are outdoors can be lifted dur- 

 ing a period of thaw, or dug out from under 

 the snow, and brought into a cool green- 

 house or into the window of the dining- 

 room. Keep moderately cool, with plenty 

 of air and light. 



Orchard and Grounds 



PiURLNG this month prune all outdoor 

 *-" fruits and finish up all thinning 

 out and heading back of ornamental trees 

 and shrubs. All transplanted stock that 

 was moved last fall should be headed back 

 one-third before growth begins. Flower- 

 ing shrubs which bloom on the new wood 

 can be pruned back hard now to make an 

 abundance of bloom in the spring. 



Did you ever try forcing rhubarb and 

 asparagus? Lift up well established roots, 

 put them into boxes with soil or sand, 

 bring them into a warm place and keep 

 them thoroughly watered. By bringing in 

 clumps in succession the supply can be 

 extended over a long season. 



We Will Pay 



$500.00 for Your Garden 



If it is the most productive and the best managed half-acre plot during the season 

 of 1911. 



We want the actual records of a well-managed home garden — its plan, its opera- 

 tion, yield, successions, etc., because we believe that besides better living, there is 

 actual money to be made or saved in making the garden work for you. 



Our object is to prove the greatest productiveness of a half-acre. The above 

 sum will be given for the best account of a well managed half-acre garden in the 

 year 191 1. The competition is open to all. The only conditions are: — 



1. Notice of intention to compete to be given not later than May 20th, 191 1. 



2. A complete record of work to be submitted at the end of the season, with names of varieties grown, 



yields, etc., and an exact record, in detail, of all labor and expense, with bills andvouchers. 



3. All entries must be accompanied by a plan of tke garden and its succession plantings 



4. All contestants must submit their manuscripts not later than October T,\st, 191 1. 



5. The prize-winning manuscript, with photographs, etc., to become the property of THE GA RDEA r 



MAGAZINE. The right is reserved to purchase any other MSS. at our regular rales, or 

 not to award the prize at all, if the MSS. submitted are not sufficiently worthy. 



