■2os 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



Mat, 191 



did not owe a dollar, and had food enough to keep 

 stock till spring. 



It will be noted that no cash was received for 

 strawberries, and herein is involved a fact import- 

 u to be known and acted on by the growers of 

 this fruit. Most men. when planting them, say 

 in March or April, are impatient for a crop in June. 

 But this should never be allowed; as soon as the 

 blossoms appear, they should be removed. The 

 newly transplanted vine has work enough thrown 

 upon its roots in repairing the damage it has suffered 

 in being removed from one location to another, 

 without being compelled, in addition, to mature a 

 :rop of fruit. I have known large fields of newly 

 pl anted vines perish in a dry season from this 

 cause alone. 



Winter is proverbially the farmer's holiday. But 

 it was no idle time with me; as it came on slowly 

 through a gorgeous Indian summer. I set myself 

 to cleaning up the litter round the premises, and put 

 the garden into the best condition for the coming 

 season. Plants that needed housing were carefully 

 potted. and taken under cover. The walks were 

 cleared of leaves by transferring them to the bam- 

 y-ard. Bushes, trees, and vines were trimmed. 

 Even.- remnant of decay was removed. The aspara- 

 gus "vas covered deeply with its favorite manure 

 and heavily salted, and tender roses were banked 

 jp with barnyard scrapings. 



'To be continued) 



Keeping Up With Samuel 



SAMUEL is our incarnation of the Help Problem. 

 We don't call him Samuel, but Mr. Henderson. 

 What he calls us I can only conjecture. For this 

 is a brief account of how we don't manage a college- 

 bred farm manager a hundred odd mOes from our 

 base of supplies. 



Last year, when we first began long-distance 

 -A rmin g- we didn't manage the farm at all; it 

 managed itself. The greatest activity on the 

 place was exhibited by the codling moths and 

 potato bugs. The neighbor \-outh. Henry, worked 

 fitfully and to some purpose, so that, though the 

 frost got our com. the market at last got our 

 humble crop of potatoes at eighty cents a bushel. 

 But we got several acres broken in for apple trees, 

 and it didn't cost much. 



This year our experience has been quite different 

 — and more plentiful. Since February ist we 

 have been cutting down expenses at home and 

 signing checks, while Mr. Henderson works the 

 farm. He has accomplished four times as much 

 as Henry, and has cost fourteen times as much. 

 We bought him the best horse in the country — 

 the best and the hungriest. We gave him a bath- 

 room and a furnace, for he is an educated farmer 

 and must be treated like a gentleman. 



If Mr. Henderson wasn't so honest and con- 

 scientious, and withal so efficient, we would be 

 grumbling. As it is, we are congratulated on all 

 sides, and swagger about, boasting of our phenom- 

 enal man and trying to forget our flat wallets. He 

 is really a wonder. He works early and late, 

 teaches us and the neighbors 

 more about agriculture and hor- 

 ticulture than we ever knew 

 before, and brings us as much 

 fame as if we owned a gallery of 

 original Corots. 



But to-day I am confessing. 

 I am not going to tell about 

 our crops — I've bragged about 

 those all summer — nor lay bare 

 the lopsided skeleton of our bal- 

 ance sheet. I am merely going 

 to confess to my own weakness 

 of character and my wife's utter 

 failure to make a man of me. 



For our college-bred farm- 

 manager is a manager from stem 

 to keelson. He manages the 

 farm; he manages the help that 

 he engages and we pay for; he 

 manages us. He is leading a life 

 of vigorous progress. He is filled 

 with the fire and energy of youth. 

 He is running at full speed on 

 a career which will make a model 

 fruit farm of our pretty acres 



almost as soon as it lands us in the poorhouse 

 — which means incredible rapidity. And we 

 are hanging on to the tail-board, lifting our weary 

 feet from the dust as best we may, trying to keep 

 up with Samuel. 



And we don't dare to whisper "Whoa." For 

 Mr. Henderson is sensitive. The few times we 

 have been emboldened by the distance between 

 us to ask humbly for a fit tie information as to the 

 progress of certain plans or the meaning of certain 

 invoices, he has promptly resented our intrusion 

 as a criticism of his industry or hones ty. 



We bought a cow. because we needed manure 

 and Mr. Henderson drinks milk. The cow be- 

 came a bother to him and he reported briefly that 

 he had sold her. Wife asked me if I were going 

 to stand for that. I wrote most truculently and 

 asked if Mr. Henderson would be kind enough to 

 inform me why he had sold our cow. He replied 

 that we could rest assured that he would not have 

 done it if in his judgment it had not seemed best. 



He hired August, and so notified us. I asked 

 him what August would cost. He replied, after 

 a repetition of the question, that August had come 

 as a great personal favor to him at the low figure 

 of $1.75 a day. I timidly asked to be informed as 

 to what August was doing — what we were hiring 

 him for. He assured us that it wasn't a question 

 of what he could find for August to do, but how 

 he could possibly get through the season with so 

 little help. We paid his first August expense item 

 of $28 and the incident was closed. 



In the matter of the cow. by the way. I after- 

 ward learned that he had confided to a neighbor 

 that if Mr. Wylie ever tried that sort of thing on 

 him again, he would leave the plow in the furrow 

 and the horse in the traces, and throw up the job. 



But details are monotonous. We are going up 

 to the farm Friday. There autumn winds are 

 blowing, rosy apples, hand picked and without 

 blemish, fill our packing shed; our potato bins 

 are full; over on our hillside the maples flame scar- 

 let against the pines. The country calls us. but. 

 like the Maine farmer who said he was going down 

 to Bangor to get drunk — ""Gosh. I dread it!" 



D altox Wylie. 



A Rapid Transplanter 



E\~ERY season I transplant many thousand 

 small plants — celery and other vegetables — 

 and very often cannot wait for wet weather, but 

 must transplant in the very" driest rime. Our 

 method has been to draw a line across one side of 

 the field, then mark the rows with a wooden marker, 

 make the holes for the plants with a dibber, then 

 pour water into these holes, all by hand. 



This was exceedingly slow and laborious. It 

 occurred to me that instead of holding the dibber 

 in the hand to make holes, a number of them could 

 be placed around wheels, so that their weight would 

 drive them in the ground, and make two rows of 

 holes as the wheels turned, and that these wheels 

 could cam - a tank of water that would furnish the 



A home-made rransi 



weight necessary to drive the pegs or dibbers into 

 the ground; also that water could be conveyed from 

 this tank into the holes thus made. I obtained the 

 senices of a local carpenter and we made the 

 machine shown in the picture, which marks the 

 ground, makes holes for the plants, puts water 

 in them, and marks the next row as fast as it is 

 drawn along. The machine cost me but a few 

 dollars. A carpenter can make the machine in two 

 or three days: the machine will cost $10 or $12, 

 allowing five dollars for the materials. 



The wheels of the machine I made are two feet 

 in diameter and are of one-inch thick, hardwood 

 boards, sawed to a circle, in sections. Three 

 thicknesses of these are screwed together, making 

 the rim three inches wide and two inches thick. 

 One-inch wide iron bands are nailed around the 

 outer edge of the rim, leaving a one-inch uncovered 

 space in the centre, in which are bored the holes 

 for the pegs or dibbers. These pegs were made of 

 seasoned hickory, are sharpened a little, and are 

 six inches apart. They protrude from the outside 

 of the rim two inches for setting *ma11 celery plants, 

 but can be made longer for other plants. The 

 spokes of the wheels are two hardwood boards, 

 one inch thick, and five inches wide, mortised 

 together with an extra thickness of board screwed 

 on each side to make the hub. Through this hub 

 is bored a two-inch hole for the axle. The axle is 

 hardwood, three inches square, and so made that 

 the wheels are just two and one-half feet apart, 

 so that the rows of holes in which to set the plants 

 are made two and one half feet apart. The ends 

 of the axle are rounded to fit the holes in the hubs. 



The frame which supports the water tank is 

 bolted to the axle a little past the centre of the 

 frame, so that while most of the weight of the tank 

 is thrown on the large back wheels, a little weight 

 rests on two small wheels attached to the front end 

 of the frame. The frame is made of hardwood, two 

 inches square. Detachable handles are attached 

 to both back and front of the frame, with which to 

 draw and push the machine. 



The water tank is made of matched pine boards, 

 with tar in the joints. The sides are 24 x 20^ inches 

 and the height is 13 inches. Two pieces of hose 

 are screwed in the bottom of the tank on either side 

 and extend to tin cups which are attached to the 

 machine just back of the wheels. The bottoms 

 of these cups are perforated like sieves, so that the 

 water drops from the cups like rain, and does not 

 wash the soil back into the holes. Two wooden 

 rods, with handles on the tops for turning, extend 

 down through the tank like faucets, and in the 

 holes in the bottom in which the hose is screwed. 

 In this way the flow to the cups at the rear is regu- 

 lated by ttirning the handles on top of the tank. 



If the machine is drawn over the ground a few 

 minutes before the plants are set the water in the 

 holes will settle down so the soil will not be muddy. 

 Small plants can then be set very rapidly by just 

 dropping the roots in the holes and pressing the soil 

 around them. 



Two persons work better together than one. 

 A basket of plants is carried on 

 the machine, the machine is 

 drawn a litde way. the plants 

 are set, and when the end of the 

 row is reached the planters walk 

 back over it and press the soil 

 firmly around the plants with 

 their feet. 



There is a reversible marker 

 attached to the machine, similar 

 to those used on the garden 

 wheel seed drills. After using a 

 line for the first time, the ma- 

 chine is drawn across the field, 

 and by the use of this marker all 

 the other rows will be straight. 

 I can make different widths of 

 rows up to two and one half feet 

 by running the machine between 

 the first rows made. Of course, 

 one can make a wider machine 

 or one in which the width is 

 adjustable. The machine should 

 not be used when the soil is dry 

 enough to crumble in the hand. 

 New York. W. H. Jenkins. 



