80 
April, 1890. 
/ ORCHRRD 
GRRDE N 
Carter's Premium Gem pea the best for 
early market and the most productive. 
American Wonder is earlier but not so pro- 
ductive. Livingston's Perfection tomato is 
all that can be desired, being early, smooth, 
of good quality and prolific. I find these 
the best of all I have tested. Still, I would 
advise the trial of new varieties. There is 
much to be learned and a gieat deal of 
pleasure in growing novelties.— Thos. D. 
Baird. 
The Cullure of Kim barb. 
Kliubarb or Pie Plant should have in ev- 
ery garden, however small, a space allotted 
to its cultivation. It will grow in almost 
any soil and situation, and may sometimes 
be seen crowded in corners of the garden, 
or struggling for existence among weeds 
and other vegetation. If large cropsof rhu- 
barb are desired, and those 
of the finest quality, it 
should be grown in an open 
situation and in rich soil. 
The ground should be deep- 
ly dug and heavily dressed 
with manure as the rhu- 
barb delights in an abun- 
dance of nutriment. Rhu- 
barb may be raised from 
seed and that is perhaps 
the best method of obtain- 
ing plants in the South. 
It is generally increased 
by dividing the old stools. 
These are dug up and then 
divided with a knife or 
more generally a sharp 
spade into as many pieces 
as contain buds. The side 
buds may, with care, be 
removed without digging 
the plants, and these, if 
planted, will make healthy plants. The 
roots should be set out in rows about four 
feet apart in the row. The space between 
the rows may, the first year, be cropped 
it h cabbage, lettuce, or anything of a sim- 
ilar nature if desired. The ground should 
be mulched with manure a little in the 
spring, and during the summer copious sup- 
plies of liquid manure should be given if 
possible. Every means should be adopted 
to make the plants grow vigorously during 
summer, for the larger and healthier the 
leaves are one season the stronger will be 
the crowns and the greater the crop of the 
next. No stalks must be pulled during the 
first season, and but a limited number the 
second: a full crop may be gathered the 
third year. The whole of the stalks should 
not be pulled from a plant at one time, a 
few must always be left to aid the plant in 
bringing forward the maturing sticks and 
to assist it in laying up a store of nourish- 
ment for the following season. The stalk 
is at its greatest perfection at the time when 
the leaf has just completed its growth. A 
little experience is required to pull rhubarb 
properly. The stalk should be grasped low- 
down and the thumb inserted between the 
crown and the stalk, held so as to compel it 
to give way when pulled without bringing 
the heart out with it. When this happens 
several days will be occupied by the plant 
simply in repairing this loss. When growing 
rhubarb for exhibition, gathering should 
cease about two month before the date of 
the show, and during this time the plant 
should be well nourished with liquid ma- 
nure and a good mulching should also be 
applied to them. The largest and best 
shaped stalks, and those that have the finest 
color should be selected, and if at all dirty 
carefully wiped with a soft, damp cloth. 
Very old and tough stalks had better be dis- 
carded. Unless it should be deemed neces- 
sary to save seed the flowering stalks should 
be broken off as soon as they appear. The 
rhubarb plant generally perfects seed when 
it has attained its third year. The seed 
should be sown in the Spring in drills two j 
able acquisition to the list of extra early 
varieties. 
The originator, who is a successful farmer 
and stock raiser, says: 
“Potatoes have been my favorite crop 
ever since I was a boy (am now 52 years 
old), and I always took great pleasure in 
seeing what good crops and large yields I 
could get but neve*<!id I see a nicer potato 
than this. I have raised a great many kinds, 
sent for the earliest in the catalogue, and 
have raised them from seed, and got some 
very good ones, but none that came up to 
my ideal of a perfect potato until I originat- 
ed this. 1 have nov discarded all others, 
and raise this for early, a main crop, and a 
table potato. This year has fully convinced 
me that I have at last produced the best ear- 
ly potato in cultivation. I think it combines 
more good qualities than any other variety 
in the world. I have giv- 
en it a fair trial and it has 
proven itself superior to all 
other varieties. 
Grown on light clay soil_ 
and without manure or fer- 
tilizer, they yielded at the 
rate of 380 bushels per acre, 
which can be increased by 
potato manure. This has 
been a very unfavorable 
season for potato growers 
for it has been so wet that 
a great many have lost 
their crop by rot, but the 
Early Six V 7 eeks Market 
stood the ordeal well, with 
not a rotten potato. In 
part of the patch the wat- 
er stood on the ground for 
days at a time, and still no 
rot or disease.” 
The Early Six Weeks Market Potato. 
feet apart and be covered about half an inch 
deep. As soon as the young plants come up 
they should be thinned to eighteen inches 
in the rows. If it is intended to sow the 
seed where the plants are to remain 
the drills must be four feet apart and the 
plantsthinned to three feet in the rows. The 
best varieties are Myait's Linnaeus, Myatt’s 
Victoria, and Mammoth — H.W. Smith, La. 
Mew Parly Six Weeks .Market Potato. 
This Potato, which is being introduced 
this season by J. A. Everitt & Co., Seeds- 
men of Indianapolis, Ind., is claimed to be 
two weeks earlier than any other known 
variety. The potatoes begin to form when 
the vines are only 4 to 5 inches high, they 
increase rapidly and are of fine marketable 
size in nix weeks from planting, hence their 
name. In 72 days they mature their crop, 
and in 1888 yielded 420 bushels per acre, in 
1»89 380 bushels per acre. 
The quality of the potatoes ie excellent 
whether cooked before or after full matur- 
ity, shape oblong to round, very smooth, 
medium size, with very few unmerchant- 
able tubers, the best of keepers, and judg- 
ing from reports we have read of this new 
potato we believe it will prove a very valu- 
Conducted by A. B. Cordley, 
Agricultural College, Michigan. 
Plant Lice. 
There is scarcely a plant in the vegetable 
or flower garden; scarcely a bush, tree or 
shrub in orchard or forest; scarcely a weed 
or variety of grass but what at some time 
in its existence yields tribute to plant lice. 
Yet so small are they and so insiduously do 
they work, that few of us, unless we have 
had our attention directed to them, are aware 
of their countless numbers, or of their con- 
nection with many of the diseases of plants 
with which we are familiar. We see the 
curled or vithered leaf, the dwarfed plant, 
the pale, unhealthy foliage, or the unsightly 
gall; and on the same plant may see thous- 
ands of small, soft-bodied insects, and yet 
are apt to forget that they bear to each oth- 
er th - relations of cause and effect. But these 
insects, wi h their beaks inserted into the 
leaf or twig upon which they are situated, 
are constantly pumping the nourishment 
