116 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



March, 1914 



THE NAME 



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Dahlias and How to 

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OVETT^ J* T - LOVETT, Box 125, Little Silver, N. J. 



in a point, and leaving a shoulder where the handle 

 begins. For the best work, the soil should be 

 slightly moist. The holes are then more stable and 

 prominent. 



Remove the seedlings from the seed bed; place 

 the roots of each seedling in one of these punched 

 holes in the soil; press the soil firmly about the roots; 

 keep all of them even as to depth and outside height. 

 Transplant another plant in a similar manner until 

 all the holes are filled. 



With the point of the dibber or another sharp 

 stick, make shallow furrows between each row of 

 transplanted seedlings, first across the box, then the 

 other way, or vice versa. This marking will make 

 the surface soil somewhat level and loose. 



The finished product will show the plants in 

 rows at least four ways. This board may be used 

 to mark holes for planting seed, especially where 

 but one seed in a hole is desired or where plants 

 are not to be transplanted early from seed planting, 

 and still space is desired for good development. 

 Proper depth of planting the seeds should in this 

 case be considered. 



New York. Albert E. Wilkinson. 



Sterilizing the Soil 



THERE are poisonous excrementary compounds 

 thrown off by growing plants which, after a 

 few years, become so abundant in the soil that 

 plants, from which these compounds have been 

 excreted, will not thrive. These poisons are over 

 come to a certain extent by crop rotation, but soil 

 sterilization is sure death. 



My experience during the past season with the 

 furnace system of soil sterilization, has been very 

 profitable. The furnace had been used for a few 

 years in preparing tobacco beds only but now it will 

 be used for the entire garden plot. The system of 

 heating the soil with the furnace is the simplest 

 and the most satisfactory one that I have tried. 



The beds are plowed in strips about nine feet in 

 width, and are worked up fine and smooth with a 

 disk harrow and a sharp toothed drag harrow. The 

 soil is worked to a depth of five or six inches, to 

 which depth it is sterilized. The furnace is nine 

 feet long, two feet wide and two and one half tall. 

 There are three pans in which the soil is heated, one 



Heating the soil to 200 degrees in order to rid it of 

 poisonous substances 



on top and one on each side. The earth is shoveled 

 from the beds into these pans and heated to a tem- 

 perature of about 200 degrees F., then shoveled into 

 piles beside the furnace, and left so, until the entire 

 space, so far as can be conveniently shoveled, has been 

 heated. The furnace is then moved about twelve or 

 fourteen feet along the bed, and the shoveling in and 

 out is repeated until the entire space is worked. 



As soon as the soil has become free of these poi- 

 sons, it is almost as the virgin soil of the forests, 

 but of course, without the usual supply of humus or 

 decaying vegetable matter. 



The advantage of using a furnace in sterilizing 

 soils is that we do not destroy any of the humus in 

 the soil, as we do when burning piles of brush or 

 logs. Steam is used by some people but it has its 

 disadvantages, and I have found the process far 

 from satisfactory. 



Kentucky. J. W. Griffin. 



The Readers' Service is prepared to advise parents in regard to schools 



