The Garden Magazine 



Vol. XV— No. 1 



Published Mon i hi v 



FEBRUARY, 1912 



J One Dollar Fifty Cents a Year 

 I Fifteen Cents a Copy 



[For the purpose of reckoning dates, New York is 

 generally taken as a standard. Allow six days' difference 

 for every hundred miles of latitude.] 



How You Should not Make a 

 Garden 



HPHERE are two ways to go about hav- 

 -*- ing a garden. The first way involves 

 a decision at the last minute — say in May, 

 when you watch your neighbor set out his 

 lettuce and cabbage seedlings and sow his 

 peas and potatoes, and think that perhaps 

 you better have a little garden truck of 

 your ok n, after all. You hastily and super- 

 ficially dig up a little ground, level it off 

 a bit with a rake, run down to the grocery 

 store and buy some seeds probably of the 

 vintage of 1906, put up by a seed firm that 

 no one ever heard of, being particular to 

 order those kinds "that are cheap and that 

 will come up quickly and not need much 

 care." These you distribute in a half 

 pulverized layer of nondescript soil and 

 leave them to their own devices — giving 

 your attention to "more important things" 

 until the crop is ready to harvest. The 

 chances are that the Millenium will come 

 just about as soon as good returns from 

 such a "garden." I imagine that is the 

 way the Foolish Virgins would have gone 

 about the task of making a garden, or 

 the infinitely senseless family in the old 

 German fairy tale, but it is a way of 

 which any of us ought to be decidedly 

 ashamed. 



And How You Should 



"^JOW for the second way to make a 

 -L ^ garden — the true garden lover's 

 way. It begins at once, if it has not al- 

 ready done so, by your ordering manure 

 and spreading it on the ground whenever 

 a mild, open spell comes along. A favorite 

 question with garden makers is "How much 

 manure shall I use?" The answer is 

 simple and always holds good — use all 



you can get. On a plot 100 by 100 feet in 

 size, twenty two-horse loads are not a bit 

 too many. Of course the manure must be 

 well worked in in such a case, the deeper 

 the better. If it could have been spread 

 in the fall before the ground was plowed, it 

 should have been done, but don't waste 

 time regretting that it wasn't. Get busy 

 and work it into the soil as soon as you can. 

 Meanwhile you have planned the layout 

 of the garden, the succession crops, the 

 inter-cropping system, the most effective 

 use of the hotbed, the amount of seed you 

 will need and a host of similar details. If 

 you have had gardens in past years, let 

 every result be of assistance to you this 

 season, combining practical experience with 

 the tried and accepted rules, principles 

 and theories; if you have never had a 

 garden make the experiences of others, as 

 recorded in the back files of The Garden 

 Magazine, help you out. 



The seed question ought to be a familiar 

 one to you by now. The invariable pre- 

 cepts are: Buy standard varieties, from 

 well-known and reliable seedsmen. Don't 

 ask for the cheapest, but for the best. In 

 the end the terms are synonymous. 



Another point deserves mention. Of 

 course the best place for a garden is in the 

 back yard, just outside the door where you 

 can potter around and yet be near the house. 

 But what if you have no room between the 

 back door and the back fence? Then 

 borrow or rent a little space as close by as 

 you can, and grow your vegetables there. 

 If for any reason you doubt the economy 

 of a garden, even though you have to pay 

 for the land, read the article in the Septem- 

 ber 1 5th number of Country Life in America 

 on Economy in the Vegetable Garden. 

 Even the most conservative facts prove 

 that you can raise more good things to eat 

 than you can buy for the same amount of 

 money. 



The next most important question is 

 that of tools. You will find the following 

 very essential by March, so you had best 

 begin to get them together right now. 



Spade 



Hose and Watering Pot 



Spading Fork 



Row Marker 



Wheelbarrow 



Dibble 



Rake 



Measuring Stick 



Hoe 



Line 



Trowel 



Wheel hoe and Seeder 



Some will merely need cleaning up and 

 sharpening; others will have to be bought 

 new. And again, don't try to economize 

 by getting cheap materials. Ten to one 

 it will mean buying more before the season 

 is half over. 



Buy or make a lot of labels — one inch 

 by nine or ten is a good size — and spend a 

 9 



few spare evenings writing on them the 

 names of the varieties you are going to 

 plant. Not only will this save valuable 

 time later, but it will also serve to remind 

 you of all the crops you are going to sow, 

 and thus supplement your garden plan. 



Make some flats, too, for starting seed- 

 lings. They involve only the very simplest 

 carpentry work. But you are much less 

 likely to pound your fingers these days 

 than if you try to " knock some together " 

 when you are in a hurry to use them. 



You can buy ready made hotbeds if you 

 are willing to pay generously for them. But 

 there is no reason at all why you should 

 not make these also. If you enjoy working 

 with concrete make a permanent founda- 

 tion. Otherwise all you need is some two- 

 inch lumber and the ever-present shovel, 

 hammer, saw and nails. Detailed plans for 

 the construction of all these things can be 

 obtained from back numbers of The Gar- 

 den Magazine or direct from the Readers' 

 Service at any time. . 



Among the Permanent Garden 

 Crops 



T~"\ON'T lose sight of the necessity of 

 ■*— " spraying and pruning the fruit trees, 

 rosebushes, grapevines, blackberries, rasp- 

 berries and currants before the active work 

 begins to crowd. The pruning should come 

 first for two reasons : there will be less wood 

 left to cover w'ith spray after all the useless 

 parts have been removed; and it wall be 

 easier to get into the centre of the bushes 

 and trees and cover every inch of surface 

 after they have been thinned out. If you 

 have heard of San Jose scale in the neigh- 

 borhood, don't rest till you know whether 

 or not it has hit your plants. The fruits 

 are most liable to attack and of course can 

 be least spared; but roses are a favorite 

 haunt of the pest and any of the orna- 

 mentals may need attention. Note care- 

 fully the directions for winter spraying given 

 in the January, 19 10, Garden Magazine. ' 



Look for the scale first on the smooth 

 bark of the young shoots. It shows more 

 plainly there and anyway it finds a better 

 feeding ground on the more tender tissues. 

 A single scale looks like a dark gray fly- 

 speck in the centre of a small area of reddish 

 bark. A bad infestation makes the branch 

 appear as if it were covered with a heavy 

 coating of pepper and salt; and by rubbing 

 the bark with a finger nail or a knife blade 

 the dry flaky incrustation of scale shells 

 can be removed and proven to be the 

 genuine San Jose. The oyster shell scale 

 is several times larger, of about the same 

 color, and is so true to its name that it needs 

 no other description. 



