15)1 



THE GARDEN AND FIELD. 



September, 1913 



as good, or perhaps a littie better 

 than any we have tried, and it is 

 top quality. Goliath and Giant 

 of Arnstadt are also heavv 

 weights. Stockwood, Long Oreen, 

 Prickly, Cardiff Castle, are not so 

 large but productive and of good 

 flavour. Japanese is a climber 

 and makes a handsomtj sdreen. One 

 of the white varieties may be a 

 novelty, but the colour somehow 

 gives rather a shock when one 

 sees the first fruit amongst the 

 green leaves, kind of looks as if 

 it hadn't got its clothes on, but it 

 tastes all right. The apple or 

 lemon cucumbers are small fruited 

 sorts. Thev have no particular re- 

 commendation as far as we know, 

 but no disadvantages for the home 

 garden where they certainl}^ add a 

 little variety. Pickled cucumbers 

 belong to another part of the 

 paper, but as Mrs. Beeton, of im- 

 mortal memory, said about the 

 hare, you have to grow your 

 cucumber before vou can pickle it. 

 The gherkin is very prolific and 

 easily grown. We forgot to men- 

 tion that the apple cucumber 

 comes into fruit , earlv and so does 

 Jewel of Koppitz. There is no 

 best cucumber but no omei could 

 reasonably object to meeting any 

 of the. above at table, cither with 

 oil and vinegar, salt, aunatural or in 

 a salad, unless of course they hap- 

 pened to be bitter, which is a dis- 

 l>ensation of P'rovidence or Nature, 

 which is as mysterious as it is 

 impleasant. The trouble comes to 

 the old and the voung, the green 

 and the white, the long and the 

 .short, the smooth and the rough, 

 the well grown and the iU grown 

 with quite distressing impartiality 

 and unfortunate frecpvency. 



— Stable and Artificial Manure. — 



Stable manure or artificial man- 

 ure the better ? is a question often 

 asked by the subuirban vegetable 

 grower. I/ike many other ques- 

 tions it cannot be answered in any 

 definite fashion, a great deal de- 

 pends on conditions. If it were 

 only a question of convenience and 

 the supplying of a certain c^aianti- 

 ty of plant food, the answer 

 would be simple, but it is not. 

 Plant food in artificial manure is 

 as cheap or cheaper than in most 

 natural manures. The manure it- 

 self is easier to buy, easier to 

 cart, easier to store, easier to ap- 

 pl}-, sometimes quicker ini action 

 and free from the objection which 

 ^stable ' manure has, unless very 

 carefully stored, that of fotming a 

 breeding ground for flies innumer- 

 able. The question is, are these 

 advantages outweighed by the fact 

 that in almost all cases natural 

 manure improves the mechanical 

 composition or texture of soil 

 whereas artificial manure is either 

 without effect or may occasionally 

 be harmful. A fair general answer 

 would be, in heavy, sticky , loams 

 and clays, use stable mianure. In 

 medium free working average gar- 

 den soil use both. In sioils which 

 havq been heavily manured in the 

 past and are losing body and 

 mellowness use artificial only. In 

 naturally light sandy ground, use 

 sheep, cow, <or pig manure in pre- 

 ference to ordinary stable manure 

 and supplement this with artifi- 

 cial. All natural manure contains 

 phosphoric acid, potash, and nit'ro- 

 gen. In artificial manures, bone- 

 dust contains phosphoric acid and 

 some nitrogen ; it is a very safe 



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but rather slow manure. Mineral 

 super is safe with any ordinary 

 care, and is quicker in getting to 

 work. For potash one must look 

 to sulphate or muriate of pota.sh 

 and for nitrogen to nitrate of soda 

 or sulphate of amm.onia, both of 

 which act at once on plant growth. 

 One mistake often made wiih. arti- 

 ficials is to use too much. It is 

 well to remember that a bucketful 

 of artificial manure contains more 

 food than a load of stable stuff 

 and that a dusting which makes 

 no particular showing on a bed 

 is equal to some cwts. per acre. 

 Nearly all artificials are injurious 

 to the leafag'e of plants and re- 

 quire to be carefully appHe'd, either 

 dry or in s'olution. 



— Manure for Root Crops. — 



Do not use much stable manure 

 when growing beetroot or any 

 other root vegetable for that mat- 

 ter, as it invariably causes the 

 plant to put out a lot of fibrous 

 roots which are not wanted. L/et 

 what stable manure used i by the 

 oldest you have and never sow or 

 plant in freshly manured ground. 

 The beet is one of thie potash 

 hungry crops. It is said to want 

 three times as much potash as it 

 does nitrogen and nearly three 

 times as much phosphoric acid. 



— Clubbing in Cabbages. — 



The symptoms of clubbing are 

 easily noticed. The leaves of the 

 plan£ Hag, turn yellow, and drop 

 off, and when the plants aTe piuUed 

 up it is always found that the 

 roots are knotted or warty, and 

 curiously deformed. This disease 

 is most troublesome on spent, 

 sour, and sticky soils. The at- 

 tacks are attrilnited by some to 

 the work of an insect, but though 

 maggots of several kinds are very 

 often present in the diseased roots, 

 thiey are notj the cause of the la'rge 

 knots on the roots. 



Though Cabbages like good soil, 

 the disease is worst in over-rich 

 soil. Wliere cal)bages have bee^ 

 planted out on land that previous- 

 ly yielded a crop of onions, it is 

 said that clubbing is not nearly so 

 prevalent. A dressing of lime is 

 a good preventive. Those who 

 use night soil or other sewage 

 should not use these too frequent- 

 ly on ground where cabbages or 

 other plants of the Brassica tribe 

 are to be planted, as their fre- 

 quent use tends to clubbing. Cab- 

 bages should never be planted on 

 the sanve ground twice in succes- 

 sion. The following mixture has 

 been found to be very eflicacious in 



