The Carden Ma 
Sweet Corn in October! — Perhaps some of 
the “ Neighbors ” do not realize that they may 
enjoy two of the garden’s choicest vegetables as 
late as the second week in October. Last year 
my family feasted for two weeks on Golden 
Bantam Corn planted July thirteenth; and 
October 12th our man picked a peck of peas 
(First-of-All) from seed planted August 17th. 
Of course, the peas were a gamble, still we have 
succeeded both times with peas planted in the 
middle of August and one feast of them repays 
fully the small labor of planting. It is neces- 
sary to use an early variety. Words fail to 
describe the corn. We have always con- 
sidered Golden Bantam the best corn grown, 
though it seems rather dry at times, but this 
last late planting is juicy and delicious. — G. G. 
Bell, New Rochelle, N. Y. 
A Phonograph Advertises this Flower Shop. 
— In advertising my Roadside Garden last 
summer I found a loud-toned phonograph 
to be an invaluable aid. The machine was 
placed upon a small table under the maples 
separating the garden from the road. My 
little sister (another important auxilliary to 
the flower shop) found great sport in operating 
it. The music, mostly loud band selections, 
attracted the attention of autoists as well as 
other travelers. They would come into the 
shade of the trees and stop to hear the Music, 
after which they generally became interested 
in the flowers. Not infrequently did people 
who otherwise would never have stopped 
take away large purchases of flowers, as a 
result of the talking machine’s use. — Buford 
Reid, Arkansas. 
and I do not recall what number it was, but I 
intend to try the remedy. — Mrs. H. Bruce 
Rouzer, Minneapolis. 
■ — Miss Sarah E. Brody (December issue) “has 
it” on all of us Dahlia fanciers in this part 
of the world as the plants here were almost 
a total failure, I having about 75 plants 
and not a dozen blooms! Even our Gladi- 
olus failed; Nasturtiums too; Pansies and 
Sweet Peas just dried up because of no 
rain from June 20th to August 1st — forty 
days. My young Rose garden, having 
about seventy -five bushes, was a treat, 
as it bloomed all summer and fall. I 
have coldframes full of perennials such as 
Gaillardias, Pinks, Pansies, Hollyhocks, Car- 
nations, Snapdragons, Asters, Foxgloves, 
Make More Home Gardens! 
“ I salute our splendid army of 
home gardeners. They are fighting 
Kaiserism along with our troops in 
France. But we must not sit back 
and congratulate ourselves. We 
must begin now to lay our plans to 
quadruple, or at least triple, that 
army next year. The battalions of 
home gardeners will need reserves 
or fresh recruits, for if in wartime 
the home garden is a national neces- 
sity, in time of peace it will be a 
valuable national asset.” 
Carl Vrooman 
Assistant Secretary of Agriculture 
Columbine, Coreopsis and Canterbury Bells. 
I have no greenhouse, but I have a hotbed 3 
feet by 16 feet which I start in February. I 
read the Garden Magazine from one end to 
the other, except about shrubs as outside of 
Roses I do not care for shrubs. I do not forget 
you when I buy a seed or plant — I say: “ Gar- 
den Magazine.” — R. Houdek, Illinois. 
School of Plant Material.— Very wel- 
come is the announcement that the rich col- 
lections of growing plants in the Arnold 
Arboretum will be made use of during July 
and August in a course in “plant materials” 
offered in the Summer School of Harvard 
University. The rich amount of material thus 
available is not generally realized and it is indeed 
309 
a worthy object to make the greatest possible 
use of the Arboretum as a working laboratory 
for this demonstration which will be under the 
direction of Mr. Stephen F. Hamblin. 
A Simple Way to Plant Potatoes.— The 
other day I was told about a simple, practical 
little device in planting potatoes which would 
suit the man who had only a small area to 
plant. After the furrow had been plowed, the 
man came carrying a sack with seed potatoes 
and had in his hand a water spout wide enough 
to allow the seed potato to go through. He 
used this spout as a staff and set it down in the 
place where he wanted the potato to lodge, and 
dropped the potato through the spout to this 
spot. In this simple way he kept the potatoes 
from running around and without the tiresome 
effort of every time bending his back got it to 
lodge in the right place. — T. Woods Beckman, 
Altoona, Pa. 
“ Blow - Torch ” as a Garden Weapon. — 
After several seasons of having my squash 
vines ruined by the big “stink” (gray-black) 
bugs, during which time I tried in every way 
to overcome them, I accidentally hit upon a 
practice that was successful from the start. 
“Stink” bugs always appear in colonies, 
I noted that each colony, at first, confined it- 
self to but part of a hill — even part of one vine 
— and also that in the early morning each 
colony would be found clustered on a few 
leaves, the idea came to me of using fire to 
destroy them wholesale. I first tried a 
kerosone-soaked rag on stick torch and it 
worked very well, except that the flame was too 
uncontrolled. I then bought a gasolene blow- 
torch (such as electricians use) and found it 
worked perfectly. The flame from this torch 
is concentrated and so hot that a blast or two 
from it will kill instantly an entire colony and 
also bake the unhatched eggs with no greater 
injury to the squash vines than the scorching 
of a few leaves, which seems in no way to 
check the growth of the vines. 
Next year I used the blow-torch on the 
striped squash bug, also, but in a little more 
painstaking way, for the striped fellows usually 
come early and in swarms when they first re- 
turn from winter quarters, and do their great- 
est damage while the squash plants are still 
small. 1 o protect the young plants from any 
loss of leaves through scorching by the blow- 
torch flame, I would drop an old pan over the 
Dahlias Don’t Flower? — Some of the 
Garden Neighbor’s in various sections have 
referred to the failure of their Dahlias in 1916: 
and I do not know any one here who succeeded 
with them last year. I had a dozen or more 
blooms, but most of the buds rotted. In my 
garden and other gardens that I had an op- 
portunity to observe closely the cause was a 
pale green creature called, in an old number of 
The Garden Magazine, the frog hopper or 
spittle bug. 1 his insect lives on the under 
sides of the leaves and sucks the life out of the 
plant. The magazine recommended spraying 
with whale oil soap or kerosene emulsion, be- 
ginning early in the season. I found this in- 
formation during the winter while looking over 
some old numbers of The Garden Magazine 
