March, 1909 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 1x 
plants grow, having set them four feet apart 
each way. You will never get too many to- 
matoes for family use—especially if you know 
how to make them into soups, as every house- 
holder should. The plum tomatoes, yellow and 
red, are exceedingly valuable for preserves. 
This preserve can be made very rich, and then 
canned as tightly as possible for winter use. 
Turnips I could easily omit, only that they 
are so useful as a second crop. Say what we 
will of the improvement in this vegetable, it 
is not often that we get them sweet and rich 
for the table. The White Milan, the Golden 
Ball, and the Munich have a good reputation, 
but they must grow quick and conditions be 
about right in the way of rains, or the quality 
is deteriorated. If you have a cow you can 
make use of those that are not acceptable on 
the table. I have at last left out of my garden 
planting the parsnip, because with most people 
it is indigestible, and then it needs a lot of 
weeding. It has the advantage, however, of 
staying in the ground till wanted, and if neces- 
sary all winter. Salsify, or vegetable oyster, is 
another plant of considerable value, especially 
for soups, but it has made me too much work 
as compared with the results. It should be 
sown early in the spring, in light rich soil, and 
should be carefully cultivated. The roots are 
used in October, or they are left in the ground 
to be dug at any time when wanted. This 
root really deserves to be called the vegetable 
oyster, although the cook has something to do 
with that. Cook in a few pinches of codfish, 
and you get the oyster flavor. 
A few good things for the garden, that are 
seldom grown, are Swiss Chard—a plant in 
the beet family, that gives stalks almost as 
large as the pie plant, but no edible roots. 
These plants will grow and give you cuttings 
for two or three years. In the Southern States 
collards are called for greatly, and they really 
constitute a fine food from the cabbage family. 
Watercress should be grown if you have a 
running stream anywhere. The cauliflower is 
co delicious that I would grow a few, if will- 
ing to stand the extra labor. The best sort 
that I have tried is the Burpee’s Dry Weather. 
It is grown almost in the same way as the 
cabbage, but it must have good rich soil, and 
cool moist weather, with thorough cultivation. 
For my own use I want some of the im- 
proved carrots and beets every time, and all 
summer. I hate weeding, and I know that 
everybody else does. I will not set a boy at 
it, beyond the demands of a “just enough car- 
rots and beets for table use.” Neither of these 
vegetables are of much use when thoroughly 
ripened for winter; but a growing carrot, if 
nicely cooked, is about as good as an Early 
Rose potato or a State of Maine. What is 
more, it is one of the most wholesome of 
vegetables. Everybody knows what young 
beets can be, and I am afraid that many know 
how poor such things can be. Both of these 
vegetables must grow rapidly, in loose soil. 
Select the Danvers or the Chantenay for car- 
rots, and for beets you will do well enough 
with Eclipse and Egyptian. 
Now for a side issue be sure to have a good 
sized asparagus bed, and a bed of pieplant; 
both of them near enough to the barn to take 
the drainage, if possible; if not, make sure the 
soil is very rich and deep and clean. Never 
put on any seedy manure; for that matter, 
never put it onto your garden anywhere. “The 
best asparagus, by all means, is the Improved 
Argenteuil. This is sometimes called the 
Early Giant. I have grown this sort two or 
three times as large and fine as any other that 
I have experimented with. It is time now to 
throw out the older sorts entirely. Rightly 
grown asparagus will give you shoots six or 
eight inches long, and every bit of them tender. 
In fact, I do not know how the tough stems 
(Continued on page x2) 
Implement 
of take 
ECRETARY of War Stanton sat in his office 
in Washington. 
“If I ring that bell,” he said, ‘‘ any man, 7” ¢he 
most distant State, is a prisoner of war!” 
The telephone bell has succeeded the messenger 
bell. 
Business has succeeded war. 
If ay man in the Union rings the bell of his Bell 
Telephone at his desk, any other man a¢ ¢he most 
distant point is at his instant command. 
That is the Bell Companies’ ideal—that you may 
talce the receiver off the hook and get into communi- 
cation with ay man, even in the most distant State. 
That is the really wxzversal telephone that the 
Bell Companies set as their goal at the beginning. 
tis so far realized that already 20,000,000 voices 
are at the other end of the line, all reached by the 
one Bell system. ; 
The zxcreased efficiency of the individual, of the 
lawyer or bank president or corporation official ; 
the increased efficiency of the zation as a whole, 
because of the development of the Bell system, can 
hardly be estimated. 
It certainly cannot be overestimated. 
The president of a corporation to-day could not 
be the president of such a corporation without it. 
The modern corporation z¢seZf could not exist 
without telephone service of national scope. 
Corporation officials could not have transacted 
business quickly enough by old methods to reach 
the totals which alone are accountable for our 
remarkable commercial development as a nation. 
Eiateay 
The wheels of commerce have been kept at the 
necessary speed to provide this swift development 
by the universal telephone. 
The mere item of ¢2me actually saved by those 
who use the telephone means an zmmense increase 
in the production of the nation’s wealth every 
working day in the year. : 
Without counting the convenience, without 
counting this wonderful increased efficiency, but 
just counting z¢he dime alone, over $3,000,000 a day 
is saved by the users of the telephone ! : 
Which means adding $3,000,000 a day to the 
nation’s wealth ! 
The exchange connections of the associated Bel] 
Companies are about 18,000,000 a day—the toll 
connections half a million more. Half of the connec- 
tions are on business matters that must have prompt 
action—either a messenger or a personal visit. 
Figured on the most conservative basis, the 
money value of the ¢7me saved is not less than ten 
cents on every exchange connection and three dol- 
lars on every toll, or long distance connection—fig- 
ures that experience has shown to be extremely low. 
The saving 72 ¢ime only is thus $1,800,000 daily 
on exchange messages and $1,500,000 on long dis- 
tance messages—this much added to the nation’s 
productiveness by the Implement of the Nation 
the Bell Telephone. , 
American Telephone & Telegraph Company 
eae 
KOLL’S PATENT 
LOCK-JOINT COLUMNS 
The Best for Pergolas, Porches or Interior Use are made exclusively by 
HARTMANN-SANDERS 
COMPANY 
Elston and Webster Avenues 
CHICAGO, ILL. 
Eastern Office, 1123 Broadway 
NEW YORK 
Send for Catalogue A-19 of Columns, or A-29 of Sun-dials, Pedestals, etc. (See also "Sweet's Index.") 
