312 
The Garden Magazine, February, 1921 
SELECT GOOD TUBERS FOR SEED 
This is the kind of hill to save for seed. Look for 
a lot of smooth uniformly medium sized tubers 
indication of wilt, a common potato disease which causes the 
early death of the plant. After making this initial cut the 
tubers should be cut into pieces about the size of a hen’s egg 
with at least one green sprout to each piece. 
It is best to plant immediately after cutting, one piece in a 
place in rows twenty to thirty inches apart, spacing the pieces 
about twelve inches distant in the row. For small gardens 
rows may be placed as close as eighteen inches. Cover the 
pieces from three to five inches deep and keep the soil loose 
over the patch until the growths appear. Level cultivation, all 
the time keeping a shallow dust mulch, will conserve the 
moisture and keep the plants growing vigorously. 
\\ hen plants are eight inches tall spray them thoroughly with 
bordeaux into which lead arsenate has been placed. Bordeaux 
mixture is made in small quantities by dissolving three level 
tablespoonfuls of copper sulphate in about a quart of hot water 
and then pouring into a large jar or wooden bucket and adding 
sufficient water to make three quarts. Next mix ten level 
tablespoonfuls of hydrated lime with a quart of water and pour 
into the copper sulphate solution, stirring all the time. This is 
bordeaux ready for use. To control the potato bugs stir into 
this quantity six level tablespoonfuls of powdered lead arsenate. 
To make larger quantities all that is necessary is to multiply 
the amounts of the various ingredients. 
Bordeaux will stimulate the plants and keep them green and 
vigorous after unsprayed vines have died. When poison is 
added, potato bugs are controlled at the same time. At least 
three applications of bordeaux should be made, about ten days 
to two weeks apart, during the growing season. By thorough 
spraying, many Indiana farmers have secured from twenty-two 
to thirty-five bushels more potatoes per acre. 
A T DIGGING time it is a wise gardener who goes into his 
patch and selects a few of the most vigorous hills with a 
large number of smooth uniform potatoes for his seed stock 
another year. These should be kept in a cool, moist place during 
the winter. 
Last year many gardeners who started with rich, loose soil 
and followed each step through the growing season grew pota- 
toes yielding from three to five pounds of smooth marketable 
tubers, besides having the satisfaction of growing a successful 
crop, which is one of the joys of gardening. Why not do the 
same thing in the home garden? 
THE REAL USEFULNESS OF TOOLS THAT FIT 
How the Gardener May Take Advantage of Up-to-date Equipment to 
Lighten Labor While Returns Increase. Modern Tendency in Efficiency. 
T^^gSORKING” the soil is the very foundation, the beginning 
of gardening. More than all the fertilizing and all 
ot her attention as growth develops will thorough 
tillage (which is “working”), before the plants are 
set out or even the seeds are sown, insure the future welfare 
of the crops. Tillage opens up the deeper parts of the soil below 
the surface thus admitting air and permitting drainage of the 
surplus surface moisture. It opens the depths to chemical 
oxidization, and, by its mechanical action of abrasion of particle 
against particle, it makes the constituents of the soil available 
to the plant as actual food. A garden that is not deeply tilled 
before it receives the crop can never be brought to proper re- 
A handy combination of culti- 
vator teeth and hoe that has 
a multitude of uses in the 
flower border. The hoe part 
comes also in a square model 
In order from top to bottom: shovel, a lifting tool for 
loose earth, sand, etc; spade, for cutting into compact 
soil; spading fork with flat tines for lifting workable soil 
sponsiveness by subsequent surface treatment. This is a card- 
inal principle of garden work, well recognized by the agricul- 
turist but often, far too often, neglected by the occasional or 
avocational worker. An unworked soil cannot receive and in- 
corporate additional plant food given as fertilizer, and in this 
one fact alone may be found the answer to many complaints 
of failure later in the season. Tillage also incorporates with the 
