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THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



We noticed in an agricultural store in Boston a very simple and efficient implement, that we 

 think would probably meet the views of our correspondent. We will endeavor to represent 

 it in the following drawing. It may be called 



A GRUBBING HOOK. 



Three bars of iron, two inches wide and a half inch thick, about two feet long, are welded 

 together at one end, where they terminate in a ring through which a chain may pass. The 

 other ends, which are hooked or bent as represented in the engraving, are separated, the two 

 outer ones diverging three inches, each, from the centre bar. A hole is dug on one side of 

 the bush or shrub to be eradicated, and the prongs of the hook are inserted under the roots". 

 The team (oxen are best) is then hitched to the chain passing through the ring, and with one 

 crack of the whip the work is done. 



For mere shrubs, a much smaller and lighter hook than the one described would be more 

 handy and equally efficient. 



GARDEN VEGETABLES. 



Early Cucumbers. — The following has been 

 found by the writer, an easy and successful way 

 to raise them. Place small pieces of dead turf, 

 as large as one's hand, just below the soil in a 

 hot bed, and plant the cucumber seeds upon 

 them. When the stems are two or three inches 

 long, the pieces of turf are removed, plants, 

 roots, and all, to rich garden soil, and they will 

 advance rapidly in growth and produce fruit two 

 or three weeks earlier than those planted in open 

 ground. Suitable turf is easily obtained where 

 grass has been inverted the previous summer or 

 autumn. The young plants should be set out 

 as soon as they will probably escape frost. 



Early Tomatoes. — Where there is no hot 

 bed, these have been succesfully started in pots 

 kept in a warm room, and the fruit ripened a 

 week or two in advance of those otherwise treated. 



While the fruit is yet green, I have much ac- 

 celerated the ripening, by removing the larger 

 leaves from dense bunches of the fruit, and plac- 

 ing white boards behind them, so as to reflect 

 the sun's rays strongly upon them. They soon 



became red, while the rest remained unchanged 

 in color. Would not planting them, as well as 

 many other of the smaller garden fruits, against 

 a white washed fence or wall, prove of great 

 advantage? It is estimated in England, that a 

 good wall for fruit is equal to an advance of six 

 degrees towards the equator ; why then is this 

 powerful means of producing early fruit, so gen- 

 erally overlooked in this country ? 



Early Potatoes. — It is well known that 

 the eye end of a potato will yield a crop earlier 

 by some days, than the root end. This appears 

 to be owing simply to the earlier growth of the 

 sprouts from the eye end. Earliness will be 

 greatly increased by placing the seed potatoes 

 in a box of moist sand, early in spring, in a 

 warm place in the house ; and then planting 

 them when the shoots are about two inches 

 long, taking care not to break them off. 



Lime. — Its tendency to diminish the growth 

 of leaves and stem, and increase that of seed 

 and fruit, is well known. It had been applied 

 two years before to the strawberry bed, at the 

 rate of about half a bushel to a square rod. A 



