CULTIVATION 
sheep manure, buying a few pounds each year. Unless 
you are among the happy and fortunate few who live 
on a farm, or "place," with a cow and a horse or two, 
start a compost heap. Do it no matter where you are. 
Pile up every leaf, never burn leaves; they are too valu- 
able for that. Add lawn clippings, kitchen garbage (put- 
ting to one side the cutlery, silver spoons, and tin cans). 
Sods, weeds, should be included. Wet the pile down 
twice a month with hose or bucket. The older this 
compost is the better. It requires eighteen months to 
compost hardwood leaves thoroughly. In the fall, or 
spring, spread this compost over the garden and turn it 
under. The results will be worth dollars and will amaze 
you. As large a proportion as forty per cent of leaf 
mould, or home compost, can be added to the soil. 
Before planting cut off the long, weak, white 
sprouts a quarter inch from the tuber, and throw the 
spindling shoots away. "There's a reason." If your 
storage was warm, a little moist, and if you are among 
the wise ones, and plant late, your tubers may have 
long sprouts. Generally they are white, literally 
enemic, unfit to start a struggle for existence; not suffi- 
ciently strong and vigorous to graduate into sturdy, 
fine plants. Gut the sprout off. Another and a stronger 
shoot will take its place, and invariably will be better. 
Those who grow mainly as a hobby, and are wishful of 
carrying off the first prizes at the dahlia shows, always 
discard the first sprout, no matter how short or how 
thick and promising it may be. 
