Gfce  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
977 
The  Home  Acre 
Notes  from  a  Maryland  Garden 
After  nearly  all  the  shrubbery  lias 
completed  its  bloom  the  most  showy  plant 
T  have  is  a  specimen  of  Bignonia  grantl- 
iflora,  the  Chinese  trumpet  flower.  This 
is  trained  on  my  porch,  and  at  midsum¬ 
mer  and  later  it  is  a  perfect  glory  of 
great  orange  flowers.  My  plant  is  graft¬ 
ed  on  the  native  trumpet  vine,  and  I 
have  to  watch  the  sprouts  and  keep  down 
the  native  from  getting  too  rampant. 
Now  I  have  coming  on  a  lot  of  seedlings 
from  the  Chinese,  and  as  it  is  a  true 
species  I  suppose  that  the  seedlings  will 
come  true.  This  plant  is  hardy  in  north¬ 
ern  Maryland,  but  I  do  not  know  wheth¬ 
er  it  is  hardy  farther  north  or  not,  but 
suppose  it  is.  I  once  saw  a  plant  of  it 
near  Baltimore  trained  to  a  stake  and 
made  into  a  weeping  tree,  and  it  was  a 
wonderful  sight,  when  in  bloom. 
I  have  tried  all  the  different  strains 
of  Salvia  splendens  sent  out  under  vari¬ 
ous  names,  and  have  found  only  one  Jliat 
is  worthy  of  a  separate  name.  This  is 
the  Zurich,  a  bed  of  which  I  now  have 
in  dazzling  bloom,  and  only  a  little  over 
a  foot  tall.  It  is  .the  earliest  of  all  the 
strains  I  have  tested. 
Salting  asparagus  as  described  by  Mr. 
Weaver  may  not  do  any  damage  to  the 
asparagus,  but  T  doubt  the  benefit.  Here 
all  along  the  salt  water  estuaries  of  the 
Chesapeake  the  wild  asparagus  grows 
along  high  water  mark,  and  evidently 
does  not  mind  the  salting  twice  every 
24  hours.  But  the  wild  shoots  are  not 
fat  like  those  I  get  from  my  garden 
where  no  salt  has  ever  been  used.  The 
heavy  salting  may  prevent  weeds  aud 
grass  from  growing,  but  I  rather  suspect 
that  that,  is  the  main  benefit.  Heavy  ma¬ 
nuring  and  clean  cultivation  will  make 
as  heavy  asparagus  as  any  method  I 
have  tried.  Tears  ago  I  U9ed  kainit 
heavily  in  the  Fall  on  asparagus,  and  of 
necessity  got.  a  good  deal  of  salt.  But 
I  have  not  used  even  the  kainit  for  years 
aud  still  get  big  shoots.  In  my  garden 
T  have  two  asparagus  plantations  six 
years  old.  One  is  from  seed  sown  right 
where  it  stands  and  never  transplanted. 
The  other  was  transplanted.  The  un¬ 
disturbed  roots  gave  cuttings  a  year  soou- 
er  than  the  transplanted  roots  of  the 
same  age,  and  today  the  undisturbed 
roots  are  giving  the  heaviest  stalks. 
I  would  add  to  what  “K.”  says  to  an 
inquiry  about  Amaryllis  bulbs,  that  fail¬ 
ure  to  bloom  by  amateurs  is  often  due 
to  overpotting.  They  like  to  have  the  pot 
full  of  roots  and  then  have  some  liquid 
fertilizer  occasionally.  When  living  in 
North  Carolina  I  grew  Amaryllis  .Tolm- 
soni  on  a  commercial  scale,  and  the 
Northern  dealers  readily  paid  a  good 
price  for  the  bulbs.  They  were  planted 
in  the  open  ground  early  in  Spring;  in 
fact  they  will  survive  the  Winter  there 
outside  if  slightly  covered.  But  I  lifted 
them  in  the  Fall  aud  packed  them  close¬ 
ly  in  the  cellar  on  a  layer  of  moist 
sphagnum  to  preserve  the  roots  alive, 
and  left  them  in  that  way  all  Winter, 
with  the  exception  of  those  cured  and 
old  in  the  Fall,  for  I  found  that  with 
<;he  roots  kept  'alive  I  had  a  far  better 
growth  of  offsets,  and  the  large  ones 
bloomed  wonderfully  in  the  open  ground, 
coming  in  about  commencement  time, 
and  were  very  popular  with  the  young 
women  graduates.  While  kept  dormant, 
I  would  not  entirely  dry  them  off,  for 
they  are  naturally  an  evergreen  plant. 
Crown  in  the  way  I  mention  I  have  had 
bulbs  that  measured  13  inches  in  cir¬ 
cumference. 
The  Pennsylvania  law  prohibiting  the 
use  of  the  word  bone  in  naming  a  fer¬ 
tilizer  that  gets  its  phosphoric  acid  from 
rock  is  all  light,  but  really  is  there  any 
difference?  Is  not  phosphoric  acid  one 
and  the  same  thing,  whether  from  bones 
or  phospbatic  rock?  The  only  thing  the 
farmer  need  bother  about  is  the  avail¬ 
ability  of  the  article.  Manufacturers 
imagine  that  farmers  will  be  attracted  by 
the  word  bone,  as  they  think  the  phos¬ 
phorus  from  bones  is  better  than  phos¬ 
phorus  from  rock,  and  it  is  well  to  cheek 
them  from  calling  rock  phosphate  bone, 
while  one  is  just  as  good  cent  per  cout. 
as  the  other.  But  if  a  farmer  wants 
that  from  I'eal  bones  be  should  be  able  to 
get  it,  and  not  have  something  else 
palmed  off  on  him. 
I  put  a  Skinner  irrigating  pipe  over 
my  garden,  and  ever  since  that  it  1ms 
rained  every  two  or  three  days.  Prob¬ 
ably  there  will  be  use  for  the  overhead 
pipe  after  a  while,  and  it  does  beat  a 
hose  a  long  way,  for  the  spray  is  so  gen¬ 
tle  that  it  does  not  pack  the  soil  as  one 
is  apt  to  do  with  a  hose. 
Last  Fall  I  selected  a  typical  plant  of 
the  Zurich  variety  of  scarlet  sage  arid  in¬ 
creased  it  from  cuttings,  as  I  found  that 
the  plants  grown  from  seed  varied  great¬ 
ly  in  height  and  floriferousness.  The  re¬ 
sult  is  that  I  have  now  a  bed  in  a  blaze 
of  bloom  and  every  plant  just  like  its 
neighbor.  As  this  strain  has  now  no 
disturbing  influence  I  shall  save  seed 
from  it  and  expect  to  get  a  more  uniform 
type  of  plant  than  I  got  from  purchased 
seed. 
Dahlias  as  usual  are  trying  to  make 
hot  weather  flowers,  but  I  am  cutting 
them  back  to  the  first  joint  below  the 
buds,  and  the  branching  will  give  me 
more  and  better  flowers  in  the  Fall. 
Bonny  Best  tomatoes  are  being  trained 
to  one  stem  on  stakes.  Earlianas  were 
allowed  to  tumble  in  their  natural 
growth.  The  result  is  that  Bonny  Best 
is  coming  in  ahead  of  Earliana,  while 
usually  it  is  a  little  behind  it.  This 
seems  to  show  that  training  to  stakes 
hastens  the  ripening.  w.  F.  MASSEY. 
Returns  from  Dried  Apples 
We  are  contemplating  trying  an  apple 
evaporator  on  our  fruit  orchards.  Could 
you  advise  how  many  pounds  of  dried 
apples  on  an  average  will  be  received 
from  one  bushel  of  apples?  If  it  is  also 
possible,  would  you  give  average  price, 
merely  an  estimate  of  which  you  think 
should  be  received  by  the  grower  for  this 
kind  of  fruit?  II.  A.  s. 
Allentown,  Pa. 
One  bushel  of  green  apples  will  make 
seven  pounds  of  evaporated  stock,  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  process  followed  by  New 
York  evaporators.  The  maximum  moist¬ 
ure  content  permitted  by  Federal  statute 
is  27  per  cent.  Processed  fruit  contain¬ 
ing  over  this  amount  is  not  supposed  to 
be  sold,  and  a  fine  is  attached  to  the  dis¬ 
covery  by  government  inspectors  of  over 
moist  fruit,  either  in  the  possession  of 
the  maker  or  dealer.  Eight  cents  per 
pound  is  considered  about  the  top  price 
fur  the  host  fruit  in  normal  times.  The 
present  season  is  anything  but  normal, 
on  account  of  the  European  war,  so  that 
prices  generally  have  tumbled.  Hereto¬ 
fore  much  of  the  finished  fruit  has  been 
sold  in  Europe,  and  with  this  market 
practically  shut  off  the  domestic  demand 
finds  itself  unable  to  consume  the  stocks 
on  hand.  For  this  reason  prices  have 
dropped  to  low  levels,  and  many  sales 
have  been  made  at  around  four  to  4% 
cents  per  pound.  Under  such  conditions 
and  markets  the  industry  can  hardly  be 
called  a  profitable  one  to  the  producer  or 
dealer.  A.  u.  P. 
Practical  Landscape  Gardening,  by 
Robert  B.  Cridland. — Most  of  our  land¬ 
scape  gardeners  and  architects  write  so 
much  from  the  millionaire’s  point  of  view 
that  the  modest  gardener  who  does  not 
possess  marble  terraces  and  classic  per¬ 
golas  becomes  discouraged  with  bis  pos¬ 
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house  owners  of  moderate  means  as  well 
as  the  proprietors  of  pretentious  estates, 
and  the  practical  details  given  on  locat¬ 
ing  the  bouse,  arrangement  of  entrances, 
construction  of  walks  and  drives,  etc*, 
will  be  found  especially  helpful.  The 
chapter  on  “Lawns — Grading,  Construc¬ 
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hardy  and  annual  flowers.  There  are 
some  useful  suggestions  for  planting  on 
the  farm,  a  very  interesting  plan  being 
given  for  an  ornamental  small  vegetable 
garden  on  an  old  farm  property,  and  also 
for  trees  and  shrubbery  around  the  barn. 
The  planting  plans  given,  with  keys  to 
material  used,  will  repay  study.  The 
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tails,  and  is  most  attractive  in  binding 
and  make-up;  200  pages,  190  illustra¬ 
tions.  Published  by  the  A.  T.  De  La 
Mare  Printing  and  Publishing  Co.,  New 
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