220 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



December, 1909 



The Most Corn in the Least Space 



Ralph Mason, New York 



THERE is a better way to get a large 

 yield of corn from a small piece of 

 ground, than crowding the rows close 

 together when sowing the early seeds. 

 Instead of trying to squeeze the rows into 

 a space two and one-half feet apart, the . 

 same result can be accomplished by sowing 

 the earliest sorts five or six feet apart, using 

 the space between for radishes, lettuce to 

 be transplanted, or any crop that may be 

 removed in time for the later corn. Sow 

 the later rows midway between the others. 

 The plants will be small until the first 

 sowings are cleared off, after which they 

 will have room to spread. The first way 

 makes a dense thicket, which neither sun- 

 shine nor picker can penetrate easily; the 

 second way gives space for cultivation 

 and picking, for at no time are the rows 



In shaded places German ivy will give wreaths of 

 foliage sixteen feet long 



crowded. If the early rows are sowed 

 May i st, the later ones may be put in as 

 late as July ist and still give a good return 

 before frost, unless the season should be 

 unusual. 



The same principle may be applied to 

 many other vegetables that are usually 

 sowed so close that weeding and cultivating 

 are a trial instead of a pleasure. 



Not all vegetables are suited to this method 

 of alternating late and early plantings, but 

 the plan is very satisfactory applied to bush 

 beans, beets, carrots, kohlrabi, lettuce and 

 others with similar characteristics, the 

 smaller ones, of course, being set much 

 closer than the corn. If planted so that 

 the earlier ones are pulled out while the 

 later ones are very small, the gardener will 

 be getting a large yield from the ground 

 given without at any time losing the space 

 necessary for his pathway between the 

 vegetables. 



Plant corn between rows of earlier maturing vege- 

 tables to save space. It is better than crowding 



A Cactus Sixty Feet High 



A. B., New York 



THERE are very few cacti that attain the 

 proportions of a tree. The tallest 

 and best known is the one known in Arizona 

 as the suwarro, which often attains a height 

 of twenty-five feet and has been known to 

 grow sixty feet high. Botanists have long 

 known this by the name of Cereus giganteus. 

 But Dr. N. L. Britton, director of the 

 New York Botanical Garden, has long 

 believed that this cactus is not a cereus at 

 all. It differs so much from other cerei that 

 he believes it ought to be considered a new 

 genus. He has therefore named it Carnegia 

 in honor of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who is 

 one of the directors of the Garden. Those 

 who are interested in the characters of the 

 new genus will find them in a recent 



issue of the Journal of the New York 

 Botanical Garden. 



The Meanest Cuss in the Vegetable 

 Kingdom 



R. E. Fels, Florida 



' I "ALK about your porcupines ! Will you 

 -■- be so good as to give one swift glance 

 at the prickly customer on this page, and tell 

 me if this brute doesn't take the record as 

 the meanest palm on earth ? How would 

 you like to handle a creature with a stem 

 like this? His horrid name is Acanthoriza 

 aculeata. He runs wild in Mexico, but this 

 specimen was captured and put in a green- 

 house at the New York Botanical Garden. 



A Delicious Monster 



Charles W. Peacock, Ohio 



j" NEVER supposed there was a botanist 

 *■ with a sense of humor, but the man who 

 named the plant here pictured Monstera 

 deliciosa must have had "almost human 



Surely this is the worst of spiny plants - 

 that is native in Mexico 



■ a palm 



The giant cactus of Arizona, growing sixty feet 

 high, has been named Carnegia 



intelligence." It is the only plant I have 

 ever seen with perforated leaves, and they 

 are so whopping big (often two feet long) 

 that this feature alone is enough to give the 

 plant an uncanny appearance. But the 

 aerial roots which are sent out at intervals 

 from the snaky, crawling stem are suggestive 

 of the bandersnatch. Young specimens, of 

 course, are quite tame, but big, old fellows 

 are strong in their demoniac suggestion. 



"Monster" is easy to understand but 

 where does "delicious" come in? The fruit 

 answers that description. In the tropics it is 

 known as the ceriman. It looks like a pine 

 cone. The accompanying photograph is the 

 only one I have ever seen of the flower. Of 

 course, it is an aroid as you can see by the 

 spathe or hood which shows its relation to 

 the calla and the jack-in- the-pulpit. 



