A P RI L, 19 17 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
163 
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Combination 1 — including onion, radish, 
lettuce, beets, beans, parsnips, and late cab- 
bage — produced 2.8 cents per square foot or 
$1,219.68 per acre. 
Combination 2 — including peas, beans, 
cabbage, cauliflower, and peppers — pro- 
duced 1.4 cents per square foot or $619.84 
per acre. 
Combination 3 — including egg plant, 
sweet com, cucumbers, and tomatoes — pro- 
duced 1.8 cents per square foot, or $784.08 
per acre 
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Combination 7 — including potatoes, and 
late endive — produced 1.75 cents per square 
foot or $762.30 per acre 
Combination 4 — including celery, musk- 
melon, spinach, mustard and summer 
squash — produced 3.5 cents per square foot 
or $1, 024.60 per acre 
Combination 5 — including radishes, 
beans, beets, turnips, cabbage, and toma- 
toes — produced 3.7 cents per square foot or 
$1,611.72 per acre. 
Combination 6 — including beans, let- 
tuce, radishes, beets, and tomatoes— pro- 
duced 3.8 cents per square foot or $1,655.28 
per acre 
for each combination of triplicate trials. 
Isn’t this matter worth our serious considera- 
tion ? 
WHAT VEGETABLE COMBINATIONS TO GROW 
I anticipate a few of the questions that will 
come to your mind; What shall I plant; 
What companion cropping shall I follow; how 
shall I plan my backyard? 
The combinations of vegetables which can 
be worked out are almost unlimited. These 
combinations must be based on two conditions; 
first, the amount of ground available, and 
second, the taste of the individual. The profit 
cannot wholly determine the selection because 
it would be pure folly to grow the most profit- 
able combinations, when a large percentage of 
the vegetables were distasteful to the grower. 
The accompanying suggested groupings give 
some idea as to how to plant, and these caabe 
modified to suit individual cases. 
These groupings are concrete facts from 
tests carried on in triplicate, the produce 
weighed, and sold at market prices, and all for 
small areas ranging from io feet square to ioo 
feet square. The crops cultivated by hand; 
planted close together, and intensive methods 
employed. 
VOCATION VERSUS AVOCATION 
Success in life is often determined by a man’s 
avocation. 1 hat is, a large share of his pleas- 
ure comes in doing what he really likes to do 
and from which he gets his greatest enjoy- 
ment. Gardening on the home plot or on a 
vacant lot is truly an avocation. Truck farm- 
ing is a vocation requiring all of one’s time, and 
is the profession by which the grower makes 
his living while home gardening is a profitable 
recreatityi. In other words the products of 
the home garden represent the labor income 
of otherwise lost time. The gardens can be 
made and cared for during mornings and 
evenings. They furnish healthful exercise 
and produce profitable incomes. There can 
be no shortage of labor because every owner is 
his own laborer, and every owner is the con- 
sumer. Isn’t it a pleasure (to say nothing of 
the profit) when you can harvest three bushels 
of fine, first class potatoes from a small garden 
15 by 20 feet? Think of what this would mean 
at the present price of the tubers! Can any of 
us afford to let this opportunity pass? Can 
the whole people afford not to turn all door- 
yards into gardens this spring? Become a pro- 
ducer and boost home consumption. You owe 
it to yourself, your neighbor, your country. 
THE MONTH’S REMINDER 
THE BUSIEST PLANTING SEASON— THE YEAR’S SUCCESS HANGS ON THIS MONTH’S ACTIVITIES 
D ON’T keep putting off April work 
because March weather continues to 
hang on after the first of the month. 
Many things on the April programme 
can be attended to even in bad weather, and 
the worse the weather is, the more important 
it is to get these things done, because the 
bigger the rush will be when finally it does 
“break.” 
THE OPENING OF THE SPRING DRIVE 
' I 'HE first big job is to get the ground plowed 
-*■ or spaded. Work up all your ground 
just as fast as you can get it done. As soon 
as the soil on your earliest patch of ground has 
begun to dry up on the surface, indicating 
that the frost is out, or nearly out of it, test 
with a crowbar, or a sharp stick. Each 
day’s delay after the soil will crumble is a 
dead loss of valuable time. Light and well- 
drained soils will be ready to work as soon 
as the last inch or two of frost is “rotten” 
enough to break through easily. Each day’s 
delay is taking a chance on a much longer 
delay, for the first few good days may be 
followed by a week or so of cold, rainy wea- 
ther. A day’s delay at the “psychological 
moment” may mean a week, or ten days’ delay 
if you don’t take advantage of it. 
WHEN IS IT SAFE TO PLANT? 
* I 'HE extra hardy things, such as beets, 
swiss chard, carrots, kale, kohl-rabi, 
onions, smooth peas, radishes, salsify, 
spinach, and turnips, from seed; and cabbage 
plants may be sown or set out just as soon as 
the soil is dry enough to be worked. They 
will “come through ” all right in spite of snow, 
and frosts severe enough to “crust” the sur- 
face of the soil, after they are planted. In 
making these extra early plantings however, 
be careful to have all plants thoroughly hard- 
ened off, and to plant seeds quite shallow and 
extra thick, as the percentage of germination 
will not be as high as it would be a couple of 
weeks later. Sweet peas, hardy perennials 
(from the nursery or transplanted) dormant 
Roses, small fruits, also can be put out as soon 
as possible. 
These extra early things may be followed 
in a week or ten days with lettuce, beets, and 
cauliflower plants, lettuce, wrinkled peas, and 
early potatoes — the weather conditions being 
the determining factor. 
BE PREPARED FOR YOUR NURSERY STOCK 
f I 'WO important factors in achieving success 
-*■ with new plantings of fruit trees, shrubs, 
ornamentals, small fruits, and other “nursery 
stock” are (1) getting them planted as soon 
as they are received and (2) putting them into 
thoroughly prepared soil. Shrubs or small 
fruits that are to go into a border or bed 
should have the ground prepared by plowing 
or forking up all of it. For single specimens or 
isolated -trees fork up and prepare a generous 
sized hole at least two feet in diameter, and 
better, four or five. The roots from a spring 
planted shrub or tree will spread through and 
fill up such a space by fall of the first year. 
A little well-rotted manure or compost, if 
available, will be good for working into the 
soil. But even if this is used, bone, preferably 
a mixture of both fine and very coarse, should 
be used in addition. Several handfuls dis- 
tributed well through the soil will be none too 
much for each plant. Where the subsoil is 
hard, or water “stands” within two or three 
feet of the surface, the soil below that in 
which the plants will be set should be per- 
forated or broken up in some way. If the 
subsoil is gravelly or sandy, it need not be 
touched. 
WORK FOR UNPLEASANT DAYS 
TXT’HILE sowing and transplanting can de- 
’’V c idedly be done to the best advantage 
when one is comfortable — there are other out- 
