148 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



April; 19 18 



A City's War Garden Activities 



13 E IT here set down on record that when 

 ■*-' the call came last year for the intensive 

 production of food by everyone, the Admin- 

 istration of the City of Boston, in the ancient 

 Commonwealth of Massachusetts, rose nobly 

 to the occasion and earned for their city the 

 distinction of being the first municipality 

 to realize the necessity of putting into prac- 

 tical effect the community effort of the gov- 

 erning authorities. 



In the demonstration tent competent gardeners were ever 

 ready to give practical demonstrations 



The Mayor's appeal, asking citizens to 

 seriously consider the cultivation of small 

 areas about their homes, came in February. 

 That was the beginning. Organized instruc- 

 tion followed. A trained horticulturist was 

 engaged to devote his whole time to a course 

 of instruction to be held at the City green- 

 houses. Working models of hotbeds, cold- 

 frames, propagating beds, were put into oper- 

 ation. A practical demonstration was made in 

 the art of taking cuttings, sowing seed, trans- 

 planting. Intensive instruction sounded re- 

 pellant to some citizens. " Intensive meth- 

 ods," "Efficiency schemes," and such like 

 were overworked phrases and seemed to con- 

 jure up forces of skilled technicians and 

 much paraphernalia. Yet a free translation 

 would mean nothing but the ability to get 

 out and hustle. As the movement expanded 

 the Public Safety Committee took over the 

 control of the larger areas and the public 

 planting place's, but the City kept its direct- 

 ing hand on the home garden and small plot. 

 The loan of arable land was asked for. Two 

 hundred acres in Franklin Park were plowed 

 up and divided into plots of 5,000 square feet, 

 which were allotted on application at cost of 

 preparation. There were two systems of 

 rental. One paid cash outright and assumed 

 possession of the entire product. The other 

 was to work on shares, surrendering two- 

 fifths of the crop. Free storage was given at 

 harvest time. 



An interested resident presented pedigreed 

 cattle for sale by public auction to raise funds, 

 and thus thousands of packages of seed were 

 distributed. 



A demonstration tent was erected on 

 Boston Common. Did the willing citizen 

 want to know just how? The demonstrator 

 in the tent would show, not merely tell. Hith- 

 erto the typical home backyard of Boston 

 differed not from that found elsewhere. It 

 was not an artistic success. It contributed 

 little to the beauty of the rear landscape, but 

 in one year much was changed. But appear- 

 ances aside, the big fact remains that hundreds 

 of people who never had grown anything before 

 last year grew hundreds of bushels of vege- 

 tables which helped feed their families. They 



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Conventional clothes do not always fit with work. One 

 woman's solution of the problem "how to dress" 



have learned the lesson of the earth's fertility; 

 and this City is but a representative of many. 



Don't throw garbage on your garden 

 unless it is well dried up or thoroughly de- 

 composed. Even then don't bury it under 

 without adding lots of lime. Garbage sours 

 the soil, frequently contains maggots and is 

 about the worst stuff to be put into the 



garden. 



* * * 



Do you know that a row of swiss chard, 

 forty feet long, will provide all the green 

 feed a flock of twenty hens can eat between 

 middle of June and Thanksgiving? Try it, 

 sowing the swiss chard very thinly, thinning 

 out the plants to stand a foot apart in the 

 row and permitting them to develop well 

 before starting to remove the outside leaves. 



A tractor plow tore up acres of park land for citizens' 

 gardens 



"Worm" Peach Trees Now 



TN PEACH growing as in many other things 

 ■*• "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." 

 But the peach is well worth it. I have always 

 found it advisable to try to get rid of the borers 

 in my peach trees during mid-autumn. At that 

 time the grubs are much smaller than they 

 will be in the spring and will, therefore, have 

 done less damage. They are also large 

 enough to be easily seen, at least the majority 

 are. To make sure that I get them all and to 



The little suburban grass plot in the front yard was devoted 

 to potatoes — every little bit helps 



Worm out the peach borer in spring as well as fall. Earth 

 hilled up in late spring forces the egg-laying higher up 



make "worming" as easy as possible I practise 

 the following plan: 



First, I examine the trunks and main 

 branches because occasionally a borer may be 

 found above ground. Then I critically ex- 

 amine the collar and carefully remove the 

 earth with a trowel to the depth of four to six 

 inches, all the while keeping a sharp lookout 

 for the gum and the sawdust-like castings 

 which indicate the presence of a borer. 

 When one is found I dig it out and kill it. 

 I do not then fill in the earth because of the 

 possibility of having missed some grubs that 

 may not have made visible castings. In ten 

 days or two weeks I go over the orchard a 

 second time to discover the borers that were 

 missed the first time. I have even found it a 

 good plan to go over the orchard a third time 

 shortly before winter sets in to make sure I 

 have killed every one of the grubs. Then I 

 fill in the earth around the trees and tramp 

 it down firmly. 



I have also found it a good plan to mound 

 up the earth around the trunks in late spring 

 before the adults, the moths, appear. While 

 this entails some work yet it compels the 

 moths to lay their eggs higher up on the 

 trunks, thus making it easier to get at the 

 grubs. The eggs are laid any time between 

 late spring and midsummer, usually in June 

 and July. So the mounding need not be done 

 much before the middle of May, at least in the 

 northern half of the United States. I have 

 never noticed any ill effects from the mound- 

 ing, even when the earth was allowed to stay 

 heaped around the trunk longer than was 

 actually necessary. No repellant, no poison, 

 no contact insecticide I have ever tried, has 

 proved as effective as this worming process 

 which is a positive remedy. I know of no 

 commercial peach grower who has been any 

 more successful than I have with these 

 methods. Every one practises the digging 

 out plan. It is costly, of course, but it is sure. 



M. G. K. 



