July, 1918 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



263 



some time to use so I suggest that if you are 

 to can or dry a large quantity of cherries 

 you get a cherry pitting machine. This is 

 worked by simply feeding the cherries in and 

 turning a handle. For large quantities of 

 apples it is better to use the combination 

 apple parer, corer and sheer. Other handy 

 vegetable tools are a beet sheer, and various 

 cutters for cutting vegetables in fancy shapes. 

 Of spoons there are many, from the new ones 

 made to use once and throw away to those 

 hooked to the preserving kettle so they won't 

 get lost. Jar lifters adjusted for holding the 

 different sizes of jars are really indispensable 

 and save one from many a scalded hand. 

 Wire baskets in which to place your vegetables 

 or fruits for blanching and cold dipping are to 

 be had in small and large sizes. Some people 

 prefer to use these in place of cheese-cloth. 



For putting up jams and jellies the prettiest 

 paper jars are made — they are paraffin coated 

 and prettily decorated. Some I saw were 

 only 35 cents a dozen. Glass or tin is not 

 necessary for jelly or jams because the amount 

 of sugar they contain helps to preserve them. 

 A jelly bag with a wooden holder that slides 

 down and presses the juice out of the fruit is 

 a good discovery. It saves you from getting 



The things that are really necessary. A. Measuring cup. 

 B. Tablespoon. C. Fork. D. Paring knife. E. Teaspoon. 

 F. Cloth for blanching and cold dipping 



your hands stained with fruit juice. Another 

 jelly bag has a wire frame that clamps on to 

 the bowl with the bag suspended well above 

 the bowl. While still another fits the back 

 of any kitchen chair, suspending the bag 

 above the pans. There are also metal and 

 wood presses for pressing the juice from fruit 

 for grape juice and other drinks and jellies. 



Your Useful Rubber Rings 



O UBBER rings are not useful if they are old 

 *^ and springless. They should spring back 

 into shape again after being folded in half or 

 stretched. Nearly all the "spoilage" in jars 

 of food has been caused by defective rubber 

 rings having been reused. Buy new rubber 

 rings every time at a few cents cost and save 

 many jars of food at many dollars cost. The 

 rings are sold in packets of a dozen, wrapped 

 in waxed paper to keep them from the air. 



Save What Strength You Have 



"\17"OMEN are not very strong physically — 

 * » so they say. "Yet a women can put a lid 

 on a fruit jar so tightly that it would take a 

 Hercules to get off again." 



That's a pretty true saying and I would sug- 

 gest that instead of trying to out do Hercules 

 you buy one of the new jar-openers that are 

 being offered at the stores now. There are 

 several makes so that you can get one that 

 will suit both your jars and your pocket too. 

 Ready prepared and named labels are sold by 

 the dozen ready to fasten on your jars and con- 

 tainers. Everything has been planned to make 

 the work easily and quickly done and all ad- 

 vantage should be taken of these labor savers. 



Experiences in Midsummer Transplanting 



ALL gardeners, both of commercial 

 /\ and of "for pleasure" ends, have 

 J % the seedlings of some plants to 

 reset — transplant — during the two 

 hottest summer months (July and August), 

 and the drouth inclinations of these two 

 months make it impractical to hold up the 

 transplanting until a rainy day, as can gen- 

 erally be done in the spring. The rainy days 

 are of most uncertain arrival in mid-summer 

 and the transplanting must needs usually, 

 be done on dry days of high temperature, too, 

 resulting in a high percentage of plant loss. 

 This has led many of the home gardeners to 

 make many and various experiments in 

 transplanting ways during this period. One 

 of' these "home-acre" gardeners, whose 

 operations have been under my observation 

 for several seasons, finally seems to have dis- 

 covered a successful method of overcoming 

 this high per cent of plant loss in mid-summer 

 transplanting — a scheme that is very simple 

 in practice and thoroughly practical on a 

 home-acre-garden scale. His method is not 

 new in any fundamentals, only in the method 

 of their application. It may properly be 

 termed a "moisture reservoir" method of 

 transplanting, if one must have a name for it. 

 I have observed its use by this man for three 

 seasons and given it some particular attention 

 during the last two, both of which were very 

 dry in this section during July and August. 

 Last season it scored about ninety per cent 

 effective. It is this: 



As transplanting is to be done a hoe-width 

 deep trench is opened where the plants are 

 to be set out. In this trench is distributed 

 a good inch and a half of semi-leaf-mold and 

 partly decayed short grass, this having 

 been thoroughly soaked by wetting down in 

 a pail of water for a couple of hours. After 

 this wet leaf-mold is put in the trench, the 

 ground is leveled, two stakes at the ends 

 alone indicating where the trench was. 



Next, and immediately, the plants are set 

 out along the line of this filled trench, using 

 a dibble to make the hole, and otherwise 

 proceeding just the same as in spring trans- 

 planting. By this method I have seen trans- 

 planting done in the morning even, of hot days 

 during this period and noted that nearly all 

 the plants came through in fine shape. Of 

 course, the ordinary precautions against 

 maimed or dried-out plantlets from the seed 

 bed are taken, but no after-setting shading 

 was done. The saturated leaf-mold in the 

 trenches puts the moisture where the plants 

 want it — at their roots — while the soil about 

 them is not made into a cake or crust as 

 when water is poured into a trench or a hole. 

 The leaf-mold holds the moisture for about a 

 week, sponge like, while by capillary attrac- 

 tion the soil all about the plant becomes moist, 

 yet remains loose and a "hold" is easily ob- 

 tained by the plant roots. 



The mold this gardener uses he "manufac- 

 tures" himself, it consisting of the lawn tak- 

 ings and clippings of the previous fall and 

 spring that have been gathered into a pile 

 and rotted-down for this purpose, by fre- 

 quent wettings. 



All together the method has worked so 

 successfully so far and I believe is worthy of 

 more general trial in the home-acre garden. 



New York State. Lew Brown. 



Shrubs in Full Leaf 



WHERE one can move soil enough 

 with the roots, even Lilacs may be 

 transplanted almost any time of the 

 year. Even when the soil i« 

 shaken off the roots in hauling, danger of 

 losing the bushes is not very great. This 

 spring after the bushes were in leaf ana the 

 flower buds far enough along to be noticeable, 

 even from a distance, I moved about twenty- 

 five mature Lilac bushes. They were dug 



one day, allowed to remain in their old holes 

 over night, and planted the next. A few 

 had to wait until the day after. The new 

 hole (or rather trench) was of course pre- 

 pared beforehand. The bushes were not cut 

 back until after they had flowered and, more- 

 over, the transplanting did not interfere to 

 any great extent with the bloom which was as 

 abundant and the individual flower spikes 

 almost, if not quite, as well developed as they 

 would have been in their old location. After 

 blooming, the bushes were cut back about 

 one third and a good crop of new leaves 

 resulted. 



So also have I moved half-grown shrubs 

 three to five feet high after blooming while 

 they were in full leaf, always moving as much 

 soil with the roots as possible. After moving, 

 the leaves hang limp and seem badly wilted 

 but the application of water brings them 

 back to their normal selves again. Even 

 where the leaves have drooped for an entire 

 week a good wetting restores them. 



Rootsprouts thatweredug up out ofthe lawn 

 in June and cut back two thirds have, in the 

 past two years, developed in the nursery into 

 thrifty two to three foot plants. Out of more 

 than a hundred thus dug up, I did not lose 

 five and this without artificial watering and 

 but indifferent cultivation. 



During the latter half ot July I transplanted 

 two Matrimony Vines, shaking the soil 

 completely from their roots. In a few days 

 the leaves were completely dried up and it 

 appeared as if the vines were dead. About 

 three weeks later, in August, the upper ends 

 of the vines were foliated again and even some 

 of the flowers were opening. The canes were 

 four to five feet long when moved. This 

 year, three summers after this moving, the 

 vines are in every way as strong and well 

 foliated as any that were transplanted at a 

 more seasonable time and better watered. 



North Dakota. C. L. Meller. 



