Fourth Annual “Round-up” of Gardening Stories 
A CHRISTMAS JOLLIFICATION BY READERS OF THE GARDEN MAGAZINE WHO TELL HOW 
THEY SOLVED THEIR PECULIAR PROBLEMS IN SOME NEW, CHEAPER OR BETTER WAY 
Best Way to Start Seeds Indoors 
Mrs. W. P. SeIBeRT, Pennsylvania 
ISHING to start some seeds indoors 
in flats last spring and finding we 
could use more flats than we had room for, 
my husband constructed a rack or stand 
that has served the purpose well. It holds 
seven flats but only occupies the space 
usually given to one. 
This rack stands on the floor, is five feet 
high, and holds seven flats 15 x 184 x 3} 
in., which we made by sawing soap boxes 
into three sections. After boring a few 
holes in the bottom, we put a layer of 
A rack that holds seven flats in the space ordi- 
narily alloted to one 
coarse material for drainage, and then in 
some of the flats we made square paper 
pots (formed over a wooden block which 
is also original with us), as is shown in 
the photograph. 
The slides on which the flats rest slope 
two inches to the front, so as to get the 
most light and sunshine. 
Keeping Tomatoes until New 
Year’s 
I. M. A., New York 
ee common way to treat tomatoes at 
the approach of frost is to use the 
green ones for pickling and bring the nearly 
ripe ones indoors, where they may be 
ripened in a window. But by the first of 
November fresh tomatoes from the garden 
are usually gone. 
There is a simple method by which you 
can have fresh tomatoes until New Year’s. 
Pull the vines whole, trim off superfluous 
foliage, remove small and imperfect fruits, 
and hang the vines on nails in the cellar. 
If you have no cellar space available, a 
warm part of the barn will do. 
A Home-made Fumigating Box 
for House Plants 
C. L. MELLER, Wisconsin 
VERY home ought to have house 
plants and everyone who has house 
plants ought to have a fumigating box, 
because that furnishes the easiest and best 
way to exterminate the commonest enemy 
of indoor flowers, viz. plant lice. It will 
also control mildew. 
A photograph on this page shows a 
fumigating box that I made without cost. 
You can make one out of a large dry- 
goods box. It must be air-tight to pre- 
vent the fumes from escaping into the 
living rooms. 
The box must be large enough to hold 
your largest plant, but not necessarily all 
your plants at one time, as you can readily 
fumigate them one after another. 
In order to utilize all the available space 
to the utmost it is well to have a shelf in one- 
half so that tall plants can find room on 
one side and lower ones be placed both on 
the floor and shelf of the other side. 
Moreover, you must have a place for the 
pan of tobacco stems which must in no 
case come into direct contact with the pots. 
So a good place for the pan is under the 
shelf. 
The smoke need never be a nuisance, 
for, generally, the fumes can be allowed to 
escape through the basement window after 
they have served their purpose. If, how- 
ever, this is not practicable, you can let 
the fumes go straight into the chimney or 
The best way to control plant lice on house plants 
is to make a fumigating box 
218 
through the furnace pipe by using an ordi- 
nary stove pipe for a vent. However, it is 
better to have the vent somewhat smaller in 
diameter. And a damper is a positive 
necessity to prevent the smoke or fumes 
from going up the chimney when they are 
needed in the box. 
The reason why no damper appears in 
the picture is that it was more convenient 
for me to close this small vent pipe by 
means of a piece of sheet-iron, so arranged 
that it slides right over the opening at 
that end of the pipe which is inside of 
the box and consequently not visible in 
the picture. 
One side of the box might be hinged on 
to act as a door, though some heavy cloth 
The vines in this cellar produced ripe toma- 
toes from October 6th to January 6th 
or a piece of carpet hung over the open side 
in such a manner,as to be readily removed 
will be quite as effective and will make the 
interior more accessible. 
It is best to start fumigating in the morn- 
ing, the plants being subjected to the smoke 
from one to six hours, depending upon the 
hardiness of the individual plants and the 
extent to which they are infested with 
the lice or other insect pests. They will 
need to be inspected occasionally to avoid 
possible injury from smoke. A soft-wooded 
plant is injured more quickly than a hard- 
wooded one. To obtain this smoke the 
tobacco stems are ignited, a handful being 
more than enough for a box measuring five 
feet every way. The plants should be 
so arranged that the burning tobacco will not 
come into direct contact with any flower pot. 
The stems should never burn with a flame, 
but smolder. To faciliate this, moisten the 
stems if necessary. This will provide an 
abundance of smoke. 
a 
