244 
THE GARDE N M A G A Z I N E 
] 
Box of 30 first-size 
Gladiolus Bulbs 
$1.00 
10 America — soft flesh- 
pink. 
10 Mrs. FrancesKing— 
light crimson-scarlet, 
1 0 Augusta — white with 
purple throat. 
Postpaid in U. S. A. east 
of Mississippi River. 
Points west 25c extra. 
The three varieties 
offered above are 
among the best and 
most popular. 
They may be 
planted in succes- 
sion a few weeks 
apart from April 1st 
> to June 1st. Select 
a sunny spot, plant 
4 inches deep, 6 to 
6 inches apart and 
you will be rewarded 
with a wealth of 
bloom during July, 
August and Sep- 
tember. 
Arthur T. 
Boddington Co., 
Dept. G 4 
128 CHAMBERS ST.. NEW YORK 
Simplex Weatherproof Plant Labels 
Permanent. Easy to use. Always legible. For all outdoor mark- 
ing. Use on roses, shrubs, trees, and seed rows and you will 
not forget the names. The writing may be erased when desired. 
PRICES. Postpaid. Including Copper Wires 
No. 1, size 3 X § inches, 25 cents doz. $2.00 per 100 
No. 2, size 4 x f inches, 50 cents doz. $4.00 per 100 
At you7 dealers or from 
STEWART & CO.. 171 Broadway. New York 
I Want to Send You 
My New 1917 
Seed Book FREE 
l y^3rs I have fur- 
/ nishedse«ls of highest quality. 
W W/ Thousands of customers at- 
I test to this fact. They know my 
' seeds— their growing and yielding qual- 
ities. They know of my honest methods. My seeds must 
make good or I will. 30th annual catalogue now ready. 
Lists All Kinds Farm, 
Garden, and Flower Seeds 
The best arranged, most comprehensive and 
easiest catalogue to order from ever issued. 
Offers the best. 
Potatoes, Oats, Corn, Barley, Wheat, 
Clover, Alfalfa, Vegetables, Flowers, 
Send for it To-day, Get FREE 
Packet Flower Seeds, 
If you mention this magazine, will in- 
clude a packet of choice Flower Seeds. 
L. L. OLDS SEED COMPANY 
Drawer D Madison, Wis. 
A Homemade Peony Support 
P EOXIES must have supports, but the trouble 
with most of those offered or suggested is 
that they are either ineffective or unsightly, or 
both. 
There is one on the market consisting of an 
iron ring tvith three iron stakes strung upon it. 
n is not unsightly, and it does the work; though 
it is somewhat wearing on the nerves to get all 
three stakes headed into the ground correctly at 
the same time, and ev'en then a stone under the 
surface may deflect one of them just as you have it 
going nicely. Besides, it lacks the supreme \drtue 
of such devices — it cannot be concealed. 
This virtue, as well as all the other virtues to be 
desired, is possessed bj' a home-made deedee which 
has been used for many years in Duluth. So far 
as I know it is in use nowhere else. 
For each peony clump, take a ihree-foot section 
of small gaspipe, half or three-quarters of an inch 
in diameter. Sink this into the ground behind 
the clump, far enough to stand firmly with its top 
about where the support should come. 
.\dd to this a piece of soft wire, firm but easily 
bent, long enough to surround the clump with a 
foot to spare. Loop the wire, bringing it together 
si.x inches from each end. Bend the ends down at 
right angles to the loop thus formed. Draw the 
loop around the clump, and drop its two ends into 
the interior of the upright gaspipe. 
This holds the plant in any position you wish. 
The leaves cover the wire, and the plant covers 
the gaspipe, which stands in the rear out of sight. 
It is a perfect support, and invisible. Moreover, 
it is ine.xpensive. 
^Minnesota. Stillm.\n H. Bixgh.\m. 
How to Irrigate a Garden 
I F YOU would have a green and luxurious look- 
ing garden when those around you are beginning 
to turn prematurely sere under scorching sun and a 
rain-cloudless sky, it is necessary for you to look 
into the question of irrigation. Most people do not 
realize how much a garden suffers from drought 
even in fairly good seasons.' In fact, it is only 
when the moisture in the soil has become com- 
pletely exhausted — when, in other words, the 
drought disease has reached an acute stage and the 
crops are threatened with complete annihilation — 
that people begin to worry. 
Besides the hose, there are four other methods of 
supplying water: the ditch, the sprinkler, and the 
nozzle line systems; the fourth is sub-irrigation, but 
this is impossible to use in the great majority of 
cases, as it has been in my own. In the ditch 
sys'em a shallow trench is made along the row, 
either near the plants or in the middle of the furrow, 
and water is turned into this either from a head 
ditch along one end of the patch, or by simply turn- 
ing the hose into it and letting it run. But the 
water will not be evenly distributed, as it naturally 
soaks in more at the ends of the trenches; and then, 
unless the ground is naturally almost as level as a 
table, it will have to be graded. Then, too, the 
soil where the water is turned on is left in a packed, 
soggy condition and will have to be cultivated or 
hoed over. 
The sprinkler system, which consists of a num- 
ber of modified lawn sprinklers, connected by a 
small iron pipe so that several of them can be oper- 
ated together, is a great advantage over the ditch 
system, especially for garden use. The expense of 
getting and of jiutting up the apparatus, however, 
is large, and even then the water is not applied 
with uniformity, because the area covered by 
each sprinkler is of course a circle, and where 
the circumferences meet the ground gets a double 
dose, while in other spots it receives hardly any 
at all. 
The over-head nozzle line system, of which I 
now have two acres in use, is ver>' economical in 
cost and operation and is highly satisfactorj’. The 
water is applied with mathematical precision and 
evenness, over almost any area desired, in a gentle, 
automatic rainfall. You must hav'e a water pres- 
sure of from 20 to 45 pounds, and if you are not 
supplied with city water this pressure can be furn- 
ished by a small double action pump, or by water 
having a “head,” or drop, from a tank of forty to 
eighty feet. If the garden you want to irrigate is a 
.1 X u .\ R V , 1917 
hundred feet long, a |-inch pipe will be large enough 
to run out to it for a main supply line; if it is two 
hundred feet long, an inch pipe wiU be better. 
A small pipe, called the “nozzle-line,” is suppor- 
ted on posts from two to six feet above the ground. 
In case it runs at right angles with the rows of vege- 
tables, the latter height will be most convenient, 
as it allows head room under it when cultivating 
and hoeing. .\t every four feet in this pipe are 
inserted small brass nozzles with ver>' small open- 
ings, through which the water, under pressure, is 
forced in tiny, solid streams, to a distance of twenty 
to twenty-five feet. Before these streams fall to 
the ground they are so broken up by the resistance 
of the air that they descend in the form of a fine 
spray, almost a heavy mist. The nozzles are all 
inserted in a perfectly straight line, so that they will 
all throw water in the same direction and to the 
same distance. 
The nozzle-line is so attached at the end that it 
can be revolved for its whole length, thus turning 
the nozzles at any angle desired from one side to 
the other, and making it possible to cover a strip of 
ground approximately fifty feet wide (twenty-five 
feet on each side of the pipe) and as long as the 
nozzle-line is. This is made possible by a patent 
turning imion, in which a short pipe handle is in- 
serted, and which, furthermore, contains a strainer 
to prevent dirt from getting into the nozzle-line, 
and which may be cleaned out by simply unscrew- 
ing a cap from the end of the hande. For a nozzle- 
line 100 feet long use f-inch pipe; for one from 100 
to 200 feet long, use about half i-inch pipe, and 
half f-inch. 
You can see by this that for a garden 50 by 220 
feet — which is considerably larger than the aver- 
age home garden — you would require: 
100 ft. of i" galvanized pipe, at $ cents . . $ 5. 
100 ” 1" ” ” ” 4 cents . . 4. 
50 brass nozzles " 5 cents . . 2.50 
I patent union, with handle 1.80 
I controlling valve (not needed if there is a 
faucet in the pipe.) 1.50 
? 14.80 
The cost of installing is very little. Wooden or 
iron pipe post supports should be placed everj^ 
fifteen feet for f-inch pipe, and every twenty feet 
for i-inch pipe. The nozzle-line is simply laid on 
top of these, held in place by nails or wire, so that 
it may be revolved easily. (Rollers may be bought, 
but they are not necessary for a small outfit.) 
W’here the system is installed over several acres, a 
device is used which enables the operator to turn 
all the nozzle-lines, which are placed about fifty 
feet apart, from one point and all together. 
With a pressure of forty pounds or so it will take 
about five hours and approximately 1,700 gallons 
of water to give your 200 x 50 ft. garden a soaking 
that would amount to a half-inch rainfall, which is 
the equivalent of a good soaking rain. Where 
you have city water the cost will of course be deter- 
mined by what you are charged for that per 
thousand gallons. The smallest sized engine and 
pump will under ordinarily favorable conditions 
furnish sufficient water for irrigating an acre, direct 
from the pump. It should, however, be a double 
action pump, so that the stream of water will be 
steady, and not intermittent. 
Turn on the water only on cloudy days or rather 
late in the afternoon, so that it will soak down into 
the ground before being evaporated by the sunshine. 
After irrigating go over the ground lightly and stir 
up the surface so that the soil mulch may be kept in 
good condition. 
It may seem paradoxical that the best thing so 
far discovered to protect growing plants from frost 
is a coating of tee, but this is the case, nevertheless. 
It is a well known fact that plants which have 
been lightly frozen, but which can be thoroughly 
watered before the direct sunshine strikes them, are 
generally saved from damage, because the water 
“draws the frost” from the plants gradually and 
without rupturing the microscopic cells of which 
they are built up, as is the case when they are 
thawed out suddenly by the rays of the sun. There- 
fore, even a sudden and unexpected frost may be 
counteracted to a large e.xtent the following morn- 
ing by turning the water on the garden before the 
sun is up high enough to shine directly upon it. 
Connecticut. F. F. Rockwell. 
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