The Garden Ma 
Detroit Dark Red is the best beet we 
have ever grown. It may be that it would 
not be as good if we had allowed it to grow all 
summer and use it in fall and winter, when 
other beets we have grown are woody, tasteless, 
and require long boiling to make them even 
edible. The way we handled it the last two 
years was to pull and can the beets when 
not larger than z\ inches in diameter. They 
are then tender, stringless, full flavored and 
easy to cook and can. Our whole year’s 
supply was canned in August. We did not 
have a single beet root to store in the cellar. 
The points we like best about this beet are 
its excellent flavor, its deep rich, dark color, 
and its freedom from woodiness — as we have 
handled it. Our soil is a heavy limestone 
clay which bakes very badly in midsummer 
because deficient in vegetable matter. Our 
garden has not been irrigated. — M. Grenville, 
New York. 
Blue and Gold. — Back of an old gray 
boulder in my garden, which in summer is so 
overgrown with Honeysuckle that we have 
continually to trim in the vine to keep its sun 
dial clear is in blossom to-day (April 22d), a 
beautiful bed of the rich, blue Chionodoxa 
sarnensis. Back of the bed are two clumps of 
white Snowdrops still in blossom, and this 
morning the little Narcissus cyclamineus hung 
out its dainty yellow bell with the reflexed 
perianth. The combination of blue and gold 
is so especially charming that I made a note of 
it that others may try it. The two flowers 
also combine well in size as Narcissus cycla- 
mineus is not only earlier, but smaller than 
the other daffodils. — M. R. Case , Hillcrest 
Farm, fVeston, Massachusetts. 
[We are glad to know of someone who is 
sucessfully growing this delightful little alpine 
bulb. — Ed.\ 
The “ Best ” Radishes. — Mr. Kruhm’s 
notes on radishes and F. T. R.’s letter of 
difference concerning Crimson Giant Globe 
and Icicle are interesting, particularly as F. T. 
R.’s remarks about the keeping qualities of 
these two varieties contradict my experience 
and observation for a number of seasons in 
many localities and under different conditions. 
A large quantity of seed sold as Crimson 
Giant is of very inferior quality and has noth- 
ing in common with the true Crimson Giant. 
When F. T. R. says the first roots were “big 
enough to eat” at the same time I believe he 
must have had a strain differing widely from 
the original Crimson Giant, which was intro- 
duced some time ago under the name Wurz- 
burg Giant Forcing and was renamed Crimson 
Giant. My experience with the true stock of 
Crimson Giant is that it is decidedly earlier 
than Icicle, but the roots do not form all 
within a short time. The contrary is the case 
Who Cultivates 
A Garden Helps 
* 1 1 HE problem of food supply for the 
nations can be largely solved by 
increased individual production of 
garden crops for home consumption. 
Everything that is thus raised and 
used helps the general situation by 
leaving in the market an equivalent 
amount of material. In the aggregate 
such production is prodigious — a slice 
of bread a day (= % /i oz. flour) saved in 
the twenty million households of the 
country would liberate the yield of 
470,000 acres of wheat, to say 
nothing of all the related labor of 
transportation, handling and storage. 
The present issue of The Garden 
Magazine was largely re-cast at the 
last moment in order to better meet 
the present urgent needs of the coun- 
try. Elsewhere the reader will find 
material dealing specifically with the 
activities of the current month, as 
regards (1) present planting of new 
ground, (2) planting for succession, 
(3) application of efficiency methods 
in handling, cultivating, fertilizing, 
etc., and (4) the need of preserving 
from waste all surplus of the garden. 
Current needs have attention this 
month. In the “Patriotic Garden” of 
subsequent numbers the then current 
details will be given timely attention. 
with Icicle — that is to say it is later but the 
majority of roots reach edible size within a G. 
short time. 
Both varieties sown side by side at the same 
time and given the same cultivation show that 
Crimson Giant is earlier, not only with its 
first edible roots but also with the main crop. 
Icicle comes in later with the first marketable 
roots and also with the main crop. When it 
comes to keeping qualities. Icicle surely has it 
on Crimson Giant Globe, the flesh of the former 
being somewhat firmer making it a better 
keeper. The fact that a few late forming 
Crimson Giant outlast the main crop of 
Icicle cannot be considered. I have seen 
both varieties overgrown and both were 
pithy, but sowings made at the same time 
will show that Icicle is still fine while Crimson 
Giant is unfit to eat. — Seedsman. 
The “One Best Bet” for the Woman — 
Throughout this country-wide agitation of 
“What to Plant” as a step to preparedness 
for the woman amateur gardener who feels 
willing and eager to her finger tips, but inex- 
perienced except where flowers are concerned, 
three requirements seemed to stand out viv- 
idly in my mind — the thing undertaken must 
be easy to grow, easy to dry, easy to store. 
And the answer is either Navy beans or 
Black Eyed peas, both for our own consump- 
tion and as our contribution to the soldiers’ 
families who may need help next winter 
We all want to have something to give and 
if we heed the words of wisdom from eminent, 
long headed agriculturists and economists 
it is more than apparent that there is small 
assistance in buying in order to give — we must 
produce, to render real assistance Other- 
wise, the shortage is merely pushed on round 
a circle. Corn, grain, potatoes, as ar. extra 
crop, seem to a woman so vast an undertaking 
that she is submerged by the bare contem- 
plation. With the aid of a young gardener, 
whose hands are already so full he is half dis- 
tracted, she feels she cannot “tackle” it. 
But a row of trim peas or beans presents no 
such terrifying picture either in the planting, 
tending, gathering, or storing. This bean 
and pea idea had been in my brain, bobbing 
up at every mention of the food question for a 
month, and I had come to the point of won- 
dering why the sense of it was not more readily 
seen and generally accepted, when I went to 
Washington to the Woman’s National Farm 
and Garden Conference and could barely 
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