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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



September, 1905 



roots grown from them. The balance of the land is laid out 

 in small plots, where extra early peas, English bush lima and 

 French stringless beans and celery are grown in succession. 

 Always two crops are harvested the same season on open 

 land. Extra early peas and beans are plowed under in June; 

 after gathering is over the land is quickly prepared, manured 

 and replanted. Bush limas, stringless beans and celery follow 

 peas ; millet and corn fodder, string beans. The nitrogen 

 made available by this process is especially beneficial to the 

 young celery plants, and only phosphoric acid and potash 

 containing fertilizers are necessary to give the second crop 

 the balanced plant food. 



All products are guaranteed, and if anything, through 

 oversight, is found to be not in accordance with the standard 

 obtained, credit is given and charged to profit and loss ac- 

 count. Only new, attractive packages, properly labeled, are 

 used. Nothing but " left-overs " are shipped to commission 

 dealers. The prevailing produce market quotations have 

 absolutely no influence on quotations given. Therefore, only 

 buyers who desire something superior than can be obtained 

 in the open market are sought. 



As in every successful business, expenses are reduced to a 

 minimum and nothing is wasted. Two horses are kept; a 



Jersey supplies milk and butter. Surplus of the latter is sold 

 locally in enough quantities to pay for her feed. Thorough- 

 bred fowls supply eggs and meat, with enough to sell to make 

 them self-supporting. 



In help only two men are kept the year round. Additional 

 labor is employed in busy season. The hothouse is largely 

 extended, and asparagus is forced in winter by the French 

 method. Hotbeds supply romaine lettuce and radish in 

 quantities during the cold months. 



The place has yielded fifteen per cent, on the investment, 

 with a surety for still better returns if fully developed. As 

 high as $400 per acre, under most favorable conditions, 

 have been grown. The actual operating expenses, which in- 

 clude improvement, help, seeds, materials, feed and sundries, 

 are carefully watched, and rent, vegetables, fruits, butter, 

 milk and eggs for family use are credited on the right side of 

 the ledger. 



And last, but not least, the property, as a revenue-bearing 

 investment, has naturally largely increased as to its intrinsic 

 value, which is the happiest feature of the experiment, as 

 there is a great satisfaction in seeing one's earnest efforts 

 crowned with success. On the whole, the record is a remark- 

 able one and the results most interesting. 



Autumn Work in the Garden 



By Ida D. Bennett 



llTH the coming of the first frost the glory 

 of the garden begins to wane, unless one 

 has a convenient water system and can, by 

 turning the hose on the plants visited by the 

 frost, preserve, for a few days or weeks 

 longer, the beauty of bloom and leafage. 

 These warm, mellow days that come after frost are very 

 lovely and very useful, too, in ripening the wood of hardy 

 shrubs and the bulbs of plants like the cannas and caladium. 

 Lilies, too, which have passed through a genial Indian sum- 

 mer are apt to stand the rigors of the winter better than if 

 subjected to the soaking of chill rain and sleet before the sea- 

 son for their long winter sleep arrives. But when at last the 

 frosty nights of October usher in thoughts of winter, a sea- 

 son of activity, only second to that of spring, begins in the 

 garden. 



All cannas, dahlias, gladioluses and other bulbs that need 

 protection of the house or cellar must be dug and given the 

 necessary drying, or curing, in the warm sunshine before 

 packing away in dry sand for the winter. This done, atten- 

 tion should be turned to the annual beds, and all plants pulled 

 or dug up and consigned to the compost heap, after which the 

 beds should be raked clean and level and the paths cleared of 

 all weeds and dead leaves. 



At this time, too, a close watch should be kept for cut- 

 worms, cocoons of various caterpillars, and all that are 

 found destroyed. Much may be done in this way to reduce 

 the number of worms the coming season. 



Under the sides of boarding of the house and buildings 

 will be found the chrysalids of the cabbage butterfly, and 

 under steps and similar places will be found the cocoons of 

 the hickory tussock moth and that of the arctea acrea. Along 

 the borders of the beds, between the curbing and the sod, 

 you may look for the cut-worm and destroy him, or he may 

 be baited by mixing a little meal and sweetened water to 

 which has been added a little Paris green and placing it on 

 the freshly raked beds at night, as it is then this worm feeds, 

 remaining dormant during the day. As far as is possible all 

 weeds should be eradicated, root and branch, and the lawn 

 and back yard raked clean, removing all litter to a safe 

 distance and burning all noxious matter, as such material left 



to decay and soak around the house in the winter is a prin- 

 cipal source of diphtheria and typhoid fever; and I have 

 known a case of diphtheria traced directly to a field of decay- 

 ing cabbages near a house, and decayed vegetable matter in 

 a cellar and door yards is responsible for most cases of 

 typhoid fever, and should no more be allowed to remain than 

 poison in a cup from which one is about to drink. 



This late fall cleaning will also greatly facilitate the spring 

 work in the garden, which is a distinct advantage, as there is 

 always a maximum of work and a minimum of time for every 

 moment of the first spring days. 



Many plants may be transplanted in the hardy border at 

 this time to advantage. Plants may be divided and reset and 

 every effort made to further the spring gardening. Along 

 this line will be the securing of fresh soil from the woods and 

 marshes and putting it in a convenient pile for the frost to 

 mellow. In the spring it will be difficult to attend to this, as 

 the marshes are usually too wet at this time to get on with a 

 team and the farmers are too busy to attend to it, providing 

 one must depend on their help. It will be well, too, to look 

 out for a supply of well rotted manure, if one's supply is 

 limited. Later in the winter, when the farmers begin to haul 

 manure from the town stables, it may not be easily obtained. 



See that all beds containing perennials, especially paeonies, 

 roses, lilies and the like, are elevated sufficiently to shed 

 water, as water standing around the roots of perennials is 

 almost always fatal, and certainly will interfere with per- 

 fection of blooming. If the beds are not high enough add 

 earth from some other bed until it is, and see that there is 

 not a hollow left between the sod and bed for the water to 

 settle in and work back into the bed again. 



All cold frames should have the surface of the earth above 

 that of the earth outside, and a drain provided in one corner 

 by digging a hole a foot and a half or two feet deep and 

 filling it with stones and broken pottery to carry off the water. 

 This is quite important, as a sudden surface thaw when the 

 earth is frozen may fill the frames with water, which it will 

 be difficult to remove. This happened to my own cold frames 

 a few years ago, when, through confidence in the natural 

 drainage of the land, the precaution had been neglected, and 

 I arose one morning, after a sudden thaw, to find nearly a 



