62 
March, 1889. 
/orchard 
AND 
AAAAAAAAXK* 
GARDE N 
Garden Trellis— Tomatoes Tnder Glass. 
Private gardeners can now rejoice that 
there is no longer any necessi ty for confin- 
ing themselves to dwarf-growing peas, on 
account of the difficulty in getting and 
sticking the unsightly pea bush. Galvanized 
wire netting can now be had in any width 
from two to six feet, at three fourths of a 
cent per square foot, and makes the best of 
pea trellis, because it throws no shade and 
presents at every point a place to cling to. 
All that is needed is a few stakes to fasten 
it to, and if extra neatness is desired these 
stakes can be made of light iron rods or 
pieces of small gas pipe. Then if, as soon 
as the peas are otf, the trellis is rolled up 
and put away, it will last for many years, 
since the galvanizing prevents rusting. 
Then, too, the pea crop can be followed by 
some of the climbing beans which will give 
snap beans for boiling until frost. There are 
a host of uses to which this wire netting can 
Dwarf Champion Tomato. 
be adapted. The fashionable sweet peas 
will find it a congenial support and, placed 
in a circle, a handsome mound of them can 
be made in the flower garden. Then, again, 
in the vegetable garden it is the best of all 
supports for tomatoes, for when once tied 
up to it the shoots will interlace in the 
meshes and require only an occasional tie. 
It is very desirable in small gardens to have 
some support to keep tomatoes off the 
ground, and training to stakes is a trouble- 
some practice. But by using this netting 
the vines can be kept up and the crop much 
increased and the season prolonged. I am 
using it largely under glass and have now 
tomatoes trained on it over eight feet high 
and producing a fine crop. 
Ten years ago the writer was laughed at 
for predicting, in a series of articles upon 
growing vegetables under glass, that in a 
few years the forcing of tomatoes in winter 
would Vie a common and profitable pursuit. 
But the business has developed more rapidly 
than ever I anticipated. Three years ago 
when we sold our entire crop of forced to- 
matoes for 75c. per pound our neighbors 
opened their eyes. Now this practice has 
been materially aided by the introduction of 
better varieties for forcing purposes. The 
Dwarf Champion and the Lorillard toma- 
toes are both admirably dapted to this pur- 
pose. I am now using the Dwarf Champion, 
but those who have grown the Lorillard 
assert that it is the best tomato for this 
purpose. We will not give up the Champion 
entirely since it does so well for us, but 
propose to test the Lorillard too. People who 
Emerald Gem Melon. 
have never tested tomatoes grown under 
glass often wonder at the prices obtained for 
them at the same time that Bermuda toma- 
toes are selling much cheaper. But the fact 
is that a tomato ripened under glass is the 
very perfection of a tomato, while the Ber- 
muda article is so poor that I often wonder 
who eats them. As wealth increases, high 
class gardening for market w ill pay better 
and better. But it requires brains, skill and 
energy, and no one who has not had a 
thorough training in gardening under glass 
should attempt it. Skill is only obtained by 
long practice, and the novice in forcing 
must go exceedingly slow until he has at- 
tained it. At the proper season we will give 
hints in regard to forcing. I would add in 
regard to peas, for private gardens, that we 
now have varieties of fine flavor which are 
quite early, and there is no longer any ne- 
cessity for filling space in our home gardens 
with the little early peas of the Dan’l. 
O’Rourke class, which are flavorless at best 
Netted Savoy Cabbage. 
and which give their whole crop at a pick- 
ing or two. Private growers should use 
Alpha, Premium Gem, Stratagem, Blue Im- 
perial and the matchless Champion of Eng- 
land for latest. This first two are but little 
behind the worthless “ Extra Earlies” 
(which are all Dan’l. O’Rourke under fifty 
names), and the last three will give large 
crops of excellent peas later on, — W. F. M. 
Early Cabbages. 
Years ago market gardeners considered it 
essential to success with early cabbages that 
the seed should be sown in autumn and 
wintered over in cold frames at the north, or 
planted out on ridges from Baltimore south- 
ward. This practice is rapidly dying out. 
Wintering cabbage plants in frames is a 
troublesome and expensive job, and ex- 
perience has proved that it is not only a use- 
less expense but that the plants are actually 
inferior to those grown in spring in hot beds 
or green houses. Our own practice now is 
to grow these plants in shallow boxes, 12 in- 
ches wide, 25 inches long, and three inches 
deep, made with slatted bottoms so as to 
allow free drainage. We sow the seed 
thickly in these boxes early in February in 
a green house where a night temperature of 
about 40 degrees is maintained. As soon as 
the seedlings can be handled, even before 
the second set of leaves has been made, we 
prepare other boxes, like the first, by filling 
them half full of well rotted manure and 
topping off with ordinary potting soil. Into 
these the seedlings are pricked off (with the 
operator standing comfortably at a bench 
instead of stretching over a frame) about 
75 plants to a box. The boxes are then 
placed in a cold frame and well watered. 
The glass is kept close until they recover 
Japanese Pumpkin. 
from the shift, and then we give all the air 
we can, at all times when the weather will 
admit, covering the frames carefully at first 
at night so as to gradually harden them. 
By the time the soil can be worked we have 
plenty of short, stout, healthy plants, no 
bursted stems, and no danger that the crop 
will make seed instead of heads. We have 
not sown a cabbage seed in autumn for 
nearly ten years, and we always cut cab- 
bages as early or earlier than those who do 
and raise them at less cost. Those who have 
not the convenience of a cool green house 
can start the plants in a hot bed and harden 
them off in the same way. We find the box 
method a great convenience, for the boxes 
are just slipped into a wagon body and car- 
ried to a field, when a man takes an ordi- 
nary garden trowel and lifts the plants for 
the planters with a lump of soil and manure 
attached, and hardly a plant melts in the 
transplanting. We use the old stand-by, the 
Jersey Wakefield, for our earliest crop. But 
there is always a time in summer, after the 
Wakefields are marketed, that cabbage is 
scarce and commands a good price. At this 
time the demand is for a flat-headed cab- 
bage. Henderson’s Early Summer is good 
