ODDS AND ENDS 
FROM EVERYWHERE 
Lice on Asters 
I NOTICED in your December, 1914, issue an 
article on asters blighting. Quite a number of 
my asters blighted last year. When I first noticed 
it, I thought the plants were quite delicate, or 
beyond maturity. They bloomed at different 
periods, and as they looked unpleasant, I simply 
tore them out and threw them away. But as more 
delicate plants appeared and I could find nothing 
wrong with the tops, I dug them up and examined 
the roots and found them packed with root lice. 
I dug up every plant that looked the least bit off 
and found all the roots affected. As I had no fire 
in the house I made a bonfire and burned them. 
I had no trouble with the remaining plants. They 
were all treated alike and while in different parts 
of the garden were in a similar location and had 
the same kind of soil. I always lime the soil. What 
can I do another time to prevent root lice and do 
root lice affect other plants? 
Hasbrouck Heights, N. J. Mrs. T. C. Stephens. 
[Editors Note: We are not aware of the aster 
blue root aphis being injurious elsewhere in the 
garden. Some growers advise using tobacco dust 
dug into the soil; others have reported excellent re- 
sults from wood ashes used liberally in a similar way.] 
The “New” Garden Magazine 
T HE January number of The Garden Maga- 
zine, which reached me a couple of days ago, 
is the first one I have seen for several months. To 
me it is an exceedingly interesting number. If you 
keep up this gait for the entire year, it ought to be 
one of the very best years in the history of the 
magazine, I believe. 
The reason it is of interest to me is that you have 
so many short items of timely interest. I glance 
over quite a good many of the farm papers, but 
the Rural New Yorker is the only one I read care- 
fully. It interests me because so many queries are 
answered, each one of them being on a live topic. 
The essentials of the subject are epitomized in a 
few well chosen words. And I believe if you con- 
tinue as you have in this issue with your “Odds and 
Ends from Everywhere” that it will make the 
magazine more interesting. It is out of the beaten 
path, and you are not hashing over old stories in 
new dresses. 
Harrisburg, Penna. P. T. Barnes. 
Lice on Lettuce 
O N PAGE 210, of the January, 1915, Garden 
Magazine, a reader’s query is answered re- 
garding plant lice on lettuce. When I was 
growing lettuce under glass, this pest was 
the bane of my life for one winter. I tried 
every remedy that anybody could suggest 
with the exception of fumigation with hydro- 
cyanic acid gas, and I could not get rid of it. 
The lettuce was so badly affected as to be 
really unsalable. I finally found that the 
only way of combating it was using preven- 
tivej measures — to start in the fall with a clean 
house. My custom after that first winter was to 
thoroughly fumigate the house with sulphur in the 
fall just before setting the first crop. Then light 
fumigations with a nicotine extract, once or twice 
throughout the winter, held this pest absolutely 
in check. 
Pennsylvania. Harold Clarke. 
Rhubarb in Winter 
W HEN three small stalks of rhubarb cost seven 
cents at the store, what is it worth to have all 
you want fresh and crisp from your own garden? 
This does not admit of a mathematical answer, but 
here is the way to do it. And I substantiate my 
claims with a photograph of the third crop. First, 
I wait until winter has well started and the ground 
is frozen three or four inches deep. Rhubarb can 
not be forced into growth until it has a good 
taste of cold weather. I went out with my mattock 
on the 26th of January, last season, and cut through 
the frozen ground, all round a big three-year old 
clump of rhubarb. Then, putting the flat blade 
of the mattock under one edge of the crust, I pried 
it up. From the soft moist earth beneath, some of 
the big roots pulled out; others broke off. In a few 
minutes a great lump of earth and roots rolled out 
on the frozen ground. I trimmed the top of the 
lump to fit a strong box about 18 x 24 x 10 inches, 
and dropped the block of earth and plants into the 
box. The box was not deep enough by three inches, 
but that did not matter. The box was then placed 
on a cellar stairway which opens out-of-doors. 
Here the mass thawed out in about a week. It was 
then moved to a cool and dimly lighted cellar and 
kept well watered. The first crop was gathered 
March first. From that time on we had rhubarb 
pie, or sauce, or both, once or twice a week until 
the outdoor crop was ready in the middle of April. 
It was the best gardening investment I ever made. 
Grinnell, Iowa. Henry S. Conard. 
What Ailed the Asters? 
A STERS last year blighted and turned yellow. 
The trouble was caused by a microscopic 
aphis that attacked the roots. A diseased plant is 
hopeless; pull it up and burn it and water the hole 
it left well with arsenate of lead. Then water 
thoroughly and often the healthy plants with the 
arsenate. As a precaution for next year make new 
beds. Do not put asters where they were last year. 
Put no manure on the beds in the spring. The 
trouble came from germs in the manure. Apply 
coal ashes and lime and some woodashes to the bed 
— and keep watch. 
Glencoe, 111 . Walter Greenleaf. 
Select Your Potato Seed 
J UST because gardeners buy seed potatoes by 
the pound or peck, instead of by scores of 
bushels is no reason at all why they should take less 
precautions to insure getting healthy seed. Farmers 
using Maine grown seed — which means specially 
those of the Atlantic and Southern States — are 
warned by the Department of Agriculture to buy 
only potatoes bearing the white label certifying that 
they have been examined by Federal inspectors 
Dig up rhubarb roots at once and bring into heat. 
The third crop of rhubarb stalks from roots growing 
in a dimly lighted cellar 
and found free from the powdery scab disease, 
that they were grown on farms free from the disease 
and that they have not been exposed to it. 
Such potatoes, moreover, are likely to be of better 
quality and more uniform than the table stock 
that the backyard gardener often uses. It is es- 
pecially desirable to keep this and similar diseases 
out of the home garden, for the limited space us- 
ually renders impossible the rotation and change of 
location which occasionally enables the farmer to 
get rid of them. Therefore, insist on “white seal” 
potatoes from your seedsman. 
New York. E. L. D. S. 
Gardening on the Seashore 
T HE most discouraging feature of maintaining 
a garden on a sandy shore is the sinking away, 
wasting, and covering up, with sand, of the rich 
soil which has often been procured at considerable 
trouble and expense. The following instructions, 
if followed faithfully, will enable one to keep the 
garden year after year, with an occasional top 
dressing added in the fall of the year, and left until 
spring or early summer before turning under. 
Dig out the sand to a depth of about two and a 
half feet, cover the bottom with old boards, pieces 
of boxes, or useless odds and ends of old lumber, 
and on top of this throw in a quantity of old shoes, 
slippers, rubbers, etc., which can be gotten for the 
trouble of carrying them away, until you have the 
boards covered completely (if possible fill in with 
this junk to a depth of twelve or fourteen inches) 
On top of this put in one foot of used stable bedding 
(not manure), and cover with a good body soil, well 
mixed with well-rotted manure, until your garden 
patch is eight or ten inches above the level of the 
yard. Box around with one by eight inch boards, 
or what is better, plank eight inches wide. Keep 
the sand cleared away from the outside of the boards 
for a space of a couple of feet, which can be done 
with a few moments’ work each week. 
Washington, D. C. W. G. W. 
A New Mulching Material 
G OB is a refuse material produced when mining 
coal, for which it seems no use has been found. 
Where this material can be easily and cheaply pro- 
cured it makes an excellent mulching material. 
When visiting Mr. Thomas Greenfield, near Oak- 
dale, Pa., this last summer during the prolonged 
drought I was surprised to find part of his currants 
in unusually good condition. The reason was that 
he had used this gob as a mulch. The currant 
ground had been thoroughly cleaned of weeds, and 
the gob had been spread over it with the idea of 
keeping the weeds down. But it had done more 
than that — it had conserved the soil moisture. 
The ground thus protected, when compared with 
an adjacent piece mulched with straw, was found 
to be much damper, the straw mulch being not 
nearly as good as a mulching material. As it comes 
from the mine this gob is a sort of slaty stone which, 
upon being exposed to the weather for a consider- 
able period, slacks to a fine condition and becomes 
finely divided like the soil. 
Pennsylvania. C. H. 
How not to Plant Dahlias and Gladiolus 
I N LOOKING over my back numbers of The 
Garden Magazine, I came across the issue 
where the Editor told us of some of his troubles 
with would-be authors. I am a little different from 
his critic because as often as I have felt like writing 
him about growing something, I would find an 
article printed that was a little better than my own. 
But I have had some experiences that I have never 
seen in print. 
When I had a chance to have a garden of my own 
a friend gave me some dahlia bulbs with instructions 
34 
