122 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTURE 
April, 1918 
garden plow may also be used to 
make furrows four inches deep and 
the seed pieces may be dropped 
about every foot in this furrow 
and promptly covered. 
Sprouting Seed Tubers. Gar- 
deners who desire extra early po- 
tatoes may desire to sprout tubers 
before planting by spreading them 
out in flats or boxes and exposing 
to light. Strong, stubby sprouts 
will start. The seed tuber may be 
cut carefully in order to. secure a 
good strong sprout for each hill 
and if planted carefully such seed 
pieces will start into a strong, 
healthy growth. 
Seed potatoes are commonly cut 
for planting as close to the plant- 
ing date as possible, but the seed 
pieces may be kept for several 
days if protected. 
Cultivation. After planting the 
surface soil -should be raked with 
garden rake or cultivator. After 
rains the rake or cultivator should 
be used as soon as a crust begins 
to form. The soil should be work- 
ed and kept mellow around the' 
young plants as soon as they come 
above ground. For small patches 
the garden rake is a useful tool for 
this purpose Level cultivation 
should be given at first but as the 
vines begin to cover the rows the 
soil should be worked up around the 
plants. Higher hilling is prac- 
ticed on the heavier soils than on 
the sandy soils. Care should be 
taken not to cut into hills with hoe 
or other tools. 
Control of Bugs. On small 
patches gardeners will be able to 
collect and destroy old beetles 
when they appear in the spring. 
It is also possible on small gar- 
dens to pinch off clusters of the 
orange colored potato beetle eggs 
which are laid on the under side 
of the leaves. 
On larger gardens, however, 
where spraying is necessary the 
young bugs may be killed by the 
use of one tablespoonful of Paris 
Green to a pail of water. Apply 
with the common hand sprayer or 
atomizer. Paris Green is also ap- 
plied satisfactorily in the dry form 
diluted to half strength with land 
plaster, flour or air slacked lime. 
Gardeners who desire special 
directions for growing large areas 
should secure Wisconsin Experi- 
ment Station Bulletin No. 280. 
Why We Send Our Wheat to 
Europe. 
No question is more frequently 
asked than why we send wheat to 
Europe and stint our own people. 
The first answer is that we sent 
wheat to furnish a foundation for 
the mixed cereal bread that the 
Allies have eaten for three years 
and a half ,and not to supply 
them with a straight wheat bread. 
We are now eating Victory Bread, 
a bread that calls for only 20 per 
cent wheat substitute, while Eur- 
ope since the outbreak of the war 
has eaten a war bread which con- 
tains from 25 to 50 per cent sub- 
stitute. They are asking us for 
wheat enough to make this war 
bread. 
Wheat flour is the only known 
foundation for a bakery loaf. Corn 
meal and buckwheat can be used 
in making cornbread and batter 
cakes but these breads cannot be 
looked on as bakery products as 
they will not stand 24 hours hand- 
ling between the oven and the' 
table. American women who do 
their own baking can make good 
use of cornmeal, rice and oatmeal, 
but wherever women work in fac- 
tories or long hours in the field, 
whether in America or Europe, 
bakery bread must be within their 
reach. 
Dr. Alonzo Taylor, representa- 
tive from the United States Food 
Administration to the recent Al- 
lied Conference in Paris, and an 
expert on the food needs of the 
world answers the question in this 
way : 
“We receive many letters at 
Washington as to why we want to 
send so much wheat to Europe 
when we are told that corn, oat- 
meal, rice and barley and rye are 
just as good. They ask, 'Why 
don’t we keep the wheat and send 
them the corn and rye and bai’ley 
and rice?’ I will answer that: 
We want to send wheat to Europe 
because you can make bread of 
wheat, and you can’t make bread 
out of rice and oats and corn. 
And nobody bakes domestic bread 
in Europe. You can go to any 
town in France and you will find 
that there are no individual bakers 
there. There will be employed 
probably two or three men in one 
place, who will have one large 
hearth, who will be able to bake 
2,000 loaves of bread together, 
with a minimum amount of coal. 
“This bread is delivered to the 
home ; and this is one-half of the 
diet of that home. It was in peace 
time and it is now. In peace times 
there was considerable sugar, and 
dairy products were plentiful. 
Now these things are scarce and 
the bread largely takes the place of 
these foods. So the bread becomes 
of added importance from every 
point of view. Now just visualize 
this peasant home. Remember 
that the peasantry in France live 
in villages, not on farms, and they 
subsist on the small local store and 
bakeshop. 
“Please remember that the coal 
