150 



The Garden Magazine, April, 1920 



Make Your House 

 Plants Flourish 



The soil of potted plants 

 needs replenishment and 

 nourishment. Mix in a 

 little 



H SODUS f 

 UMUJ 



"The Essence of Fertility" 



and you will marvel at the improvement in your plants' growth. 



Sodus Humus gives new life and vigor to plants, shrubs, 

 lawns and gardens {flower and vegetable). 



i -peck size for Home Use. 2-bushel size for Garden Use. 

 Absolutely odorless. 



Carload lots for large users like Farms, Greenhouses, Nur- 

 series and Golf Links. Prices on request. 



Send for interesting literature 

 SODUS HUMUS COMPANY 



190 MAIN STREET BENTON HARBOR, MICH. 



Hidden Beauty 



The beauty of a blossom depends upon the plant food that is supplied to the blooming plant. Lustre 

 of foliage, wealth of bloom, depend on the nourishment of the plant. 



"Dr. Grozum" 



A scientifically prepared, properly balanced plant food of great value. It is 



Economical, Odorless, Easy to Apply, Compact and Clean. 



"Dr. Grozum" only charges you $i.oo for a visit. This will enable you to make one-hundred gallons 

 of plant food that is made from a scientific formula, and at the same time is Nature's own food. 



"Dr. Grozum" has none of the disagreeable features of the ordinary commercial fertilizer, and is 

 more effective. 



Let us tell you about this wonderful plant food. 



Send us $i.oo and the name of your dealer. We will send you enough "Dr. Grozum' to make one- 

 hundred gallons of plant food. 



LEVERING & LEVERING Specialists in Fertilization Keyser Bldg., Baltimore, Md. 



(Continued from part J./S) 



is likely to bo used for each post. In dipping, 

 the creosote goes much farther and the cost of 

 oil is correspondingly reduced. Brush treatment 

 costs run between five and ten cents a post. 



SALVAGE FROM WEEDS 



WE HAVE to expend labor to remove weeds 

 and any return from utilizing them is 

 clear gain. In but few cases is the value of anv 

 weed great enough to justify gathering it solely 

 for utilization. The most pertinacious of all 

 weeds, all garden weeds, at least, is Purslane, 

 "pusley." "Meaner than pusley" is an ancient 

 comparison. A few people eat Purslane as a 

 "green," but is appears rather late and so many 

 of the very best vegetables have become reads 

 to eat that not many will care to eat what is at 

 best only a mediocre green. But it is the best 

 of all plants to supply green food for hens. It 

 will not wilt for days. The grass, the clover 

 you throw to hens, wilts in a short time, usuallv 

 before they have eaten much of it. Hens do 

 not eat green stuff rapidly, as they do grain. 

 Before they have consumed it in their leisurelv 

 pecking, most of it has wilted and become unap- 

 petizing. But Purslane stays fresh until they 

 have eaten every bit, even the stalk. 



Lamb's-quarter, or pig-weed (one of the two 

 weeds called Pig-weed), is a far nicer green than 

 most cultivated greens. It is little inferior to 

 green Peas. However, its value for human 

 consumption is lessened by the fact that the 

 period when it can be eaten is short, as it is early 

 attacked by a fungous affection that causes its 

 leaves to be shot with blue. But even so, hens 

 eat it as eagerly as they do clover, and pigs delight 

 in it. "Fattens pigs just as well as grain," say 

 old farmers. Recently scientists have cor- 

 roborated this belief by telling us of a fat they 

 have discovered in green things, an hitherto 

 unknown fat and we learn that certain sorts of 

 "garden sass" which we supposed we ate for 

 pleasure and their beneficial effect upon the diges- 

 tive apparatus and gave no actual nourishment, 

 do possess nourishment. 



Young Milk-weed is certainly worth much more 

 than the mere labor of gathering it. The earliest 

 of greens except the Dandelion, it makes a fine 

 dish and if any cultivated green came so early 

 and were so good, the seed catalogues would star 

 it. Elecampane, prominent in the pharmacopeia 

 of all herb doctors, is a troublesome weed in 

 many places and makes a rather characterless 

 green that does well enough if you can get nothing 

 better and if you cook your greens with salt pork, 

 bacon, or other things which give flavor, then it 

 is very successful, for it is tender, smooth, bland, 

 an excellent neutral base in dishes whose charac- 

 ter comes from some ingredient of marked flavor. 



Some people eat Sorrel and others Mustard. 

 The cultivated varieties of these may be good, 

 but the wild varieties have so small a foliage that 

 you can't afford the time to prepare them for 

 cooking. Brakes and Ferns, only occasionally 

 weeds, but among the most stubborn of weeds 

 when they get into the cultivated land, or rather 

 when your plow invades the long uncultivated 

 sod where they hold sway, are every little wnile 

 declared by somebody to be just as good as aspar- 

 agus when eaten as young shoots. They are 

 passable, perhaps worth a short trip to the pas- 

 ture, but it is not likely that they will be con- 

 sumed in a noticeable degree by other than the 

 one form of insect, bird, or animal life which now 

 eats them, small boys. The Docks, too, are 

 occasionally warmly recommended as greens, 

 but after trying the bitter things, most of us will 

 decide that only an unusual taste is welcomed. 



