There are other methods which might be 
given; but they are either more complicated, 
or possess no special merits over the methods 
already given. 
FLOWERS FOR SUMMER. 
WILLIAM FALCONER. 
ANNUALS. 
As the days become longer, brighter and 
warmer, and seedsmen’s catalogues pour in 
upon us, we are reminded that it is about time 
we had made up our minds about what sorts 
of seeds we should get for our gardens so as to 
have our homes as pretty and gay as possible 
in summer. 
Well, first of all, make out a list of indis¬ 
pensable annuals, such as stocks, asters, zin¬ 
nias, mignonette and sweet peas, and then if 
you can afford it and have the time and space, 
add a few new sorts that you have not before 
tried watching them will give you a good 
deal of interest, and the result perhaps a good 
deal of pleasure. 
Where to Get Your Seeds.— Get them 
either from a reputable seedsman in your own 
town or from one of the many first-class seed 
houses who advertise in the Rural. Don’t 
buy them at the village drug or grocery store. 
No matter if you are a thousand miles away 
from the seed-house you wish to patronize, 
just write out your order plainly, then get a 
Post-Office money-order for the amount, and 
send these by mail to the seed house. You 
will get your seeds by return of mail (if not in 
the busiest time, anyway within a day or two) 
and just as good and true as if you lived next 
door to the seed-store. If your order amounts 
to less than a dollar, send two-cent postage 
stamps equivalent to the amount, instead of a 
Post-Office order. 
Club Together. —If you have a few 
friends and neighbors interested in their gar¬ 
dens, club together in buying your seed, and 
in this way get the advantage of the liberal 
discounts allowed by seedsmen. Thus you can 
afford a more extended list, and, after you 
get them, divide your packets into two or 
more parts, according to the number of per¬ 
sons in your club. Now will come the most 
exciting part of all: Who will make the most 
of her or bis part—have the prettiest garden, 
the handsomest plants and the most flowers. 
Sow In-doors. —Where you have the conve¬ 
nience sow petunias, vincas, nierembergias 
salpiglossus, snapdragons, cockscombs, celo- 
sias, mirnulus, tobacco, sanvitalia, statices, 
and the like in pots or flats in doors in March 
or in pots or fiats in hot-beds about the end of 
March or in April. But don’t sow aDy of 
them till you feel sure of being able to main¬ 
tain a night temperature of about 00 degrees 
Verbenas and pansies shoufc also be raised as 
early as possible. And our November-bloom¬ 
ing chrysanthemums, if sown early enough, 
will make capital blooming plants for the suc¬ 
ceeding fall. If you have only a very few 
seeds of anything or the seeds are very fine* 
don’t trust them out of doors, but sow them in 
the house. 
Sow in Hot-beds. —Make up your hot-bed 
in March. About the end of the month is 
soon enough to sow. I much prefer sowing 
in pots and flats and placing these in the hot¬ 
beds to sowing in the earth on the surface 
of the beds, as I would lettuces or carrots. As 
all the kinds of seed don’t germinate at the 
same time, and some of the plants, as asters, 
are large, and others, as petunias, are small to 
begin with, when in pots or flats I can move 
them about as I please. All the sorts of 
plants recommended to be sown in-doors may 
be sown in the hot-bed; also others, as asters, 
stocks, zinnias, marigolds, salvias, balsams, 
pinks and the like. Don’t sow till the bed 
has cooled down to about 110 degrees near the 
surface. So long as there is steam in.the 
frame ventilate it a little day or night. Keep 
it covered up well at night and in cold 
weather. Always shade germinating seeds 
from bright sunshine. 
Sow in Cold-Frames. —Cold-frames are 
capital places into which to put young plants 
that have been pricked off into flats, also in 
which to raise seedlings. But we should not 
sow in them till we are sure of maintaining a 
temperature of about 00 degrees in the soil. 
After the second week in April we can be 
pretty sure of doing this if we particularly 
attend to the covering, shading and venti¬ 
lating. All large seeds, as asters, salvias, rud 
beckias, nasturtiums, balsams and the like, 
can be sown in rows in the soil, and so can 
small seeds too, but I much prefer sowing 
them in flats. 
Sow out of Doors. —Just as soon as the 
ground is dry enough to work in spring, I 
sow my sweet peas, poppies, mignonette and 
eschscholtzia. My first sowing of sweet peas 
is always the best. These and the mignonette 
u Jsow in rows, and the poppies and esch 
scholtzia broadcast. About the middle of 
April I sow sweet alyssum, corn flower, 
coreopses, snapdragon, Drummond phlox, 
lupins, gaillardias, and most of the hardier 
annuals, and about the last week of April, 
almost everything hardy or tender. Some of 
the most tropical plants should not be sown 
before the middle of May, but, apart from 
ipomseas, we have very few of these among 
our common garden annuals. 
Kind of Annuals to Grow.— Ageratum 
blooms from midsummer till fall. Sweet 
alyssum blooms all summer long and till the 
eDd of November, and like eschscholtzia, pot- 
marigolds, portulaca, larkspur, corn flower 
and coreopsis, it self-sows itself forever after¬ 
wards. Of asters I prefer Truffaut’s Im¬ 
proved Paeonia Perfection, Victoria, Crown 
and Reid’s Quilled; of stocks, large-flowered 
German 10-weeks; of Marigolds, Meteor as a 
pot, Eldorado as African, and Dwarf Double- 
striped as French; of balsams, almost any 
respectable firm’s Superb strain; of petunias, 
Dwarf-striped as a single and Hybrida 
grandiflora fimbriata flore-pleno as a double; 
of verbenas, the Mammoth; of cockscombs, 
the Glasgow; of larkspur, the Rocket and 
Chinese; of tobacco, the new Affinis ; of 
mignonette, Miles; of Drummond Phlox 
the grandiflorum strain; of pansies, the 
Trimardeau; of vincas, the white and white 
with red eye, of nasturtiums, Lobb’s varie¬ 
ties; and of zinnias, the Dwarf Compact 
Scarlet with some Zebra for novelty’s sake 
and some Robusta plenissima for size. Not¬ 
withstanding all the display made to-day 
about French marigolds, balsams, snapdrag¬ 
ons, Sweet Williams, spotted mimuluses and 
stocks, we had as good flowers of these 25 years 
ago as we have to-day; and when it comes to 
the grand old show pansies, so clean, so pure, 
so brilliant in their colors, so substantial and 
velvety in their texture, and so round and 
large in their form, we have nothing now 
to equal the pansies of 25 years ago. 
Besides these,add candytuft, sweet and com- 
mcn; cosmos to bloom in fall, Diadem pinks 
that bloom well the first year and often live 
over for another season’s work; annual gail¬ 
lardias, also G. aristata and its varieties; 
godetias so pretty before midsummer, lava- 
tera and malope, especially their white varie¬ 
ties, lupins if you like them, Pentstemon Hart- 
wegii, which, although a tender perennial, 
blooms profusely the first year from seed, car¬ 
nation and paeonia flowered double poppies, 
salpiglossus, scarlet salvia, which, although 
commonly grown as a greenhouse perennial, I 
always treat as an annual,large-flowered scabi- 
os, sweet sultan and the “New Miniature” sun¬ 
flowers. And don’t forget some globe ama¬ 
ranths and dwarf helichrysum for everlast¬ 
ings, and morning-glories and cypress vine 
among vines. 
veying the predictions to either high points or 
hamlets in the interior, where similar poles 
are placed to flash the intelligence still beyond 
by duplicates of the signals first displayed. 
There is no doubt in my mind that such a sys¬ 
tem would answer all purposes and demands; 
but I believe it to be impracticable at present, 
for the element cf cost for maintenance which 
“F. W. H.” speaks of as “slight” would in 
reality be great, especially in an undulating 
country, where the poles and signals would of 
necessity be very frequent. It is obvious 
that such a plan, to be serviceable, must be 
accurate, and to be accurate a paid operator 
would be necessary at each pole to fly the sig¬ 
nal each morning—for unless the operator be 
paid he cannot be relied on, and we might bet 
ter have no signals than be misled by incorrect 
ones. At,all points reached by telegraph it is 
easy to procure the Signal Service reports; 
but there are numerous small stations on the 
line of every railroad where a telegraph office 
is not considered necessary. Although the 
system described does not seem feasible, there 
is no reason why the locomotive of every 
through passenger train on every railroad 
should not carry and display, as it passes 
through the country, signal flags that would 
give substantially the report of the Weather 
Bureau. At all stations, especially those 
without the telegraph, the agent could note 
the signal and placard a report made up ac¬ 
cordingly. For greater publicity all post- 
offices should show a similar report, conspicu¬ 
ously posted. The benefit of signals carried 
on locomotives cannot be over-estimated. 
They would be perceived by very many farm¬ 
ers, whose farms are located so that it is irk 
some to go to the station in the morning or to 
the post-office before evening. Excepting the 
mariner, and, perhaps, the man who wears a 
seer-sucker suit in the summer, no man more 
appreciates and desires than the farmer a 
little knowledge of what the weather is to be, 
To his credit be it said, he has always used all 
the means at his command to get this infor¬ 
mation. Some have maintained flocks of 
geese for this purpose, accrediting the birds 
with a mysterious power of prophecy as to the 
weather. Others have put their trust in the 
moon, and its phases; while some who are not 
weather-wise are obliged to place faith in the 
many old signs and sayings, such as, “If the 
sun sets clear Friday it will rain before Mon¬ 
day,” and “Rain before seven, clear before 
eleven,” etc. All these aids to our penetra¬ 
tion we will gladly set aside if we can be fur¬ 
nished with an authentic daily report. Towns 
and cities are at present principally benefited. 
This is unjust, as arrangements could be so 
easily made to advise almost all. The rail 
roads would undoubtedly co-operate with the 
authorities, as the additional work devolving 
on their station agents would be trifling. 
Meanwhile we will study the sky carefully as 
of yore. T - F - w - 
Oak Ridge, N. J. 
THE NEW GRAPE “MILLS.” 
CORRESPONDENTS’ VIEWS. 
small Rural Blush potato sent me, I got a good 
many bushels after several years’ planting. 
As it was somewhat hollow-hearted, I had a 
great mind to discard it. It did not seem as 
productive as some other kinds. Last year I 
tried it again by the side of Early Telephone, 
Early Mayflower, Chicago Market, Empire 
State, Clarke’s No. 1, Burbank and White 
Star. When I dug them in October, to my 
surprise, I got one-half bushel more potatoes 
to each row from my Blush than from any of 
the other varieties. Does not this go far to 
establish the claim made by the R. N.-Y. that 
the Blush was a drought-resisting variety? 
My experience with the Blush teaches me how 
uncertain it is to jump at conclusions as to the 
merits or demerits of certain varieties of pota¬ 
toes on one or two years’ trial. The Blush, 
though not handsome, is of good quality and 
a good keeper. john hurley. 
Wetzel Co., W. Va. 
Free martins.— Speaking of free-martins, 
I have an eight-months-old grade heifer which 
shows the two front rudimentary teats fairly 
well developed. The back part is neither a 
teat nor udder. There is something abnormal 
about the vulva also. I opine there is room 
for a physiological study in the other organs. 
G. W. THOMPSON. 
R. N.-Y.—The remarkable thing about free- 
martins is that they are generally, though not 
always, barren. They are found only among 
cattle. Among all other animals, so far as 
known, when males and females are' born at 
one birth as twins, the females are as prolific 
as if born siugly; whereas among cattle, when 
twin calves are produced, one a male and an¬ 
other a female, the latter is usually barren, 
and is called a free-martin. In such animals 
the internal generative organs are generally 
imperfect, partaking of the nature of both 
male and female organs. Externally they 
often look like steers, the feminine character 
being mostly wanting. 
Catch Crop. —Keep the machine running. 
Last season after removing a crop of early 
beets, I sowed the ground (a sandy loam) to a 
special strain of Red-top turnip; rows 18 to 20 
inches apart, plants about nine inches apart, 
or just as they were cut out by a hoe and 
“singler.” This with going through once 
with a wheel-hoe is all the working they got. 
From a manured plot we harvested at the 
rate of a little over 27 tons per acre, tops re¬ 
moved, many of them nine inches in diameter. 
Stelton, N. J. <>• w. T. 
This is now for the first time offered for 
sale by Ellwanger & Barry, of Rochester, N. 
Y., a firm whose care in trying all novelties 
is a guarantee of its merits. We have a vine 
growing in the Rural Grounds, but are not 
as yet able to speak of it from experience. It 
is said that this new grape combines quality 
with hardiness, vigor and productiveness, and 
Ellwanger & Barry, whose statements are 
always conservative, say that for size, quality 
and appearance, it conies the nearest to 
their ideal of any variety they have seen. 
It was raised by Mr. William Mills, of Hamil¬ 
ton, Ont., by crossing the Muscat Hamburgh 
with Creveling. The bunch,as shown by Fig 
49 (p. 146), is large, compact, shouldered and 
some of the bunches have weighed 12 ounces. 
The berry is large, round, jet black, covered 
with a thick bloom. The flesh is firm, meaty, 
luicy and breaking. The skin is thick and 
the berries adhere firmly to the preduncle. 
The vine is said to be vigorous and produc¬ 
tive, the foliage large and healthy. It ripens 
with the Concord, or a little later, and is a 
good keeper. Let us hope it will not disap 
point the grape-growing public. 
That Weather Bureau. —In the Rural 
of January 28, F. W. H., of Warren, Me., 
discusses at length the feasibility of bringing 
the weather prognostications daily within 
reach of all farmers, and offers a plan by 
means of which it may be accomplished, to 
wit: All telegraph stations are to be furnished 
every morning with the Signal Service re¬ 
ports, and at each station a pole is to be 
erected, and signals are to be displayed con- 
Let the Weather Bureau place signals on 
the cars, and then as the express trains go 
thundering through the country in view of our 
farms, they can very easily tell “probabilities” 
to thousands and thousands of farmers and 
others. „ A - c - 
Thin Out the English Sparrow. —I send 
a copy of a petition which is to be circulated 
in this vicinity. It is time to work in the 
matter, and this seems to be the best move to 
take. ». s. marvin. 
Watertown, N. Y. 
“To the Honorable Legislature of the State 
of New York: 
“Petition for Premiums upon the Scalps of 
English Sparrows: 
“But sparingly insectivorous themselves, 
these birds destroy and drive away our native 
insectivorous birds. They have multiplied 
enormously of late, there being millions of 
them in every part of the State. They have 
already become a public enemy. Like some 
other animals, when introduced into a new 
habitat under new conditions, they are not 
controlled by natural causes, and have acquir¬ 
ed more pernicious habits. In the spring they 
disbud our fruit trees, thronging our vine¬ 
yards, orchards and gardens. They are not 
content with satisfying their natural food de¬ 
sires, but wantonly mar and destroy the fruit, 
to gratify an evil nature. 
“Therefore we, the undersigned citizens of 
the County of-, respectfully ask that your 
honorable body enact a law offering a bounty 
for the scalps of these birds, in order that they 
may be thinned out.” 
N.-Y.—It will be well for all who are in¬ 
terested in this work of extermination to copy 
this petition, obtain as many signatures as 
possible, and forward it to the member of the 
Legislature from their district. This matter 
is important and should be attended to. Gran¬ 
ges, farmers’ clubs, and other organizations 
can do good work in this direction. 
The #Rural Blush Potato.—F rom the 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
[Every query must be' accompanied by the name 
ind address of the writer to Insure attention. Before 
asklnK a question, please see If It Is not answered In 
our advertisinn columns. Ask only a few questions at 
one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper.l 
MANAGING A POOR 60-ACRE FARM. 
A. H. H ., Rayville, Md.—l am thinking of 
raising winter lambs; would the business be 
likely to pay here—25 miles from Baltimore 
at which place I could always find a ready 
market for my lambs at pretty good prices? 
My land is pretty poor, and for some time I 
have been trying with very poor success to 
enrich it without stable manure, of which I 
make very little. I have been using a good 
deal of lime, but it doesn’t help the land, 
probably because I haven’t much manure or 
clover. I apply it on the plowed ground for 
corn and harrow it in just before planting; 
will it pay to continue its use? One of my 
chief objects in raising winter lambs would be 
to make more manure to enrich my farm. I 
have little faith in commercial fertilizers to 
bring up poor land alone to a high state of fer¬ 
tility ; but I believe in them as an adjunct to 
help manure. Would lamb raising be likely 
to pay as well as keeping cows for butter, 
which I can sell at 30 cents per pound gross? 
The cows would have to be kept on soiling 
crops during summer as there are only 60 
acres of cleared land in my farm. For feed 
they would have bran and clover hay, corn- 
meal and roots during the winter. Which— 
the sheep or cows—would make the most and 
best manure? How many sheep could I keep? 
I would buy a new lot every June or July, 
raise lambs, fatten the ewes, sell in the spring 
and buy another lot. I would like to keep 
stock enough to make sufficient manure for 
eight acres every year for corn, to be plowed 
under, and also enough to top-dress eight acres 
every fall for wheat, to be harrowed in. I 
think tnis much manure with 200 to 300 pounds 
of fertilizers on wheat would soon bring up the 
farm to a good condition of fertility. 
Ans.—L ime used in the way described will 
