APRIL 44 
250 
THE RURAL fSEW-YORRER. 
of the ground. The seeds if sown early don’t 
need soaking. 
Now, garden ground should be deeply 
plowed; indeed, if subsoil plowed as well, the 
extra labor will be repayed in our better 
crops. But in subsoiling the land keep the 
subsoil in the bottom and the good soil on top 
as before, and keep the manure near the top. 
All manner of tender vegetables as egg 
plants, tomatoes, and peppers, should be well 
looked after in hot-beds. Avoid overcrowd¬ 
ing. Towards the end of April will be soon 
enough to sow corn and snap-beans, and the 
middle or 20th of May for melons, Lima beans 
and the like. 
House Radish.— if you want first-class 
horse radish you have to plant it afresh 
every year, and if you wish to grow it for 
market you have got to replant every season, 
as two-year-old roots are hard, tough, striugy 
and often bad-hearted. You may plant it 
right away or defer planting till May; if you 
don’t wish to use the ground for an earlier 
crop,as cauliflower or cabbage,you may plant 
at once, and plant lettuces or sow spinach be¬ 
tween and along the rows. I use heavy sub¬ 
soiled land and plant in rows two feet apart 
and 18 inches between the sets in the row. 
For sets I use clean, thong roots, seven to 
nine inches long, and plant them with a dib¬ 
ber so that the tops shall be some two inches 
below the surface. Summer care consists in 
keeping them clear from weeds. 
Before hard frost sets in, say,about the mid¬ 
dle of November, I dig out the roots, being 
very careful to pick out every morsel of root, 
for if any should be left they grow with the 
persistence of vicious weeds next year. Strip 
the main roots and bury outside the thongs 
needed for sets for next year; the large roots 
I winter in a cold cellar, bedded in earth. 
Early in April, I remove them from the cellar 
and pit them out of doors on the north or 
shady side of a building, but even there they 
soon begin to sprout. 
Now, sprouting injures them very seriously: 
it robs them of their pungency. But as I can¬ 
not go without them from May till August, I 
just pack some roots into an old soap box filled 
with sand, and set this in the ice-house, and in 
this way, with a little attention, I’m secure 
till the new crop comes in. 
Mr. Peter Henderson in “Gardening for 
Profit”—the best book of its kind extant—says 
“All American writers . . . recommend 
planting the crowns. . . . They also tell 
us that after two seasons’ growth the roots 
will be fit for use.” Please let me claim an 
exception to this rule. I always have recom 
mended and practiced the annual system, and 
have never planted crown sets nor advised 
others to do it, but always thong sets—that 
is, pieces of the young, fleshy roots. 
ened and driven into the ground to some 
depth, the one in the middle of the panel hav¬ 
ing a longer point than the end ones. One 
Fig. 95. 
can make up a lot of such panels during win¬ 
ter. 
With a “Planet” drill for sowing the seeds, 
one is nicely fixed, indeed. For much of our 
planting we use a marker, and then open the 
drill with tue clumsy-looking but easily used 
tool shown at Fig. 96. It is made of inch and-a- 
Fig. 96. 
half by six-inch pine, with an old corn plow 
shovel bolted to the end. It pulls along quite 
easilv. E - s - L ’ 
'Qtyt poultry 
NEW BREEDS. 
RED CAPS. 
HENRY HALES. 
This so-called new breed of poultry is a de¬ 
cided novelty. They attracted great attention 
GARDENS ON THE.FARMS. 
Of course, a piece of “last year’s breaking” 
on a virgin soil is the very best ground for 
vegetables. They are much earlier, unsur¬ 
passed in flavor and but little troubled with 
weeds on such new land. But if you cannot 
have that, plant from one-half to two acres on 
the best old ground you have, putting every¬ 
thing in straight rows, wide enough apart to 
be worked out with the horse hoe or culti¬ 
vator. These rows when worked out once a 
week with the horse, need less hand-weeding 
than one-tenth of that amount would require 
in old-fashioned “beds.” 
We make two jobs of the plowing—one as 
early as possible, taking about two-thirds of 
the ground laid out for the season’s planting. 
All such crops as go in early and come off in a 
little while are rowed together at one side of 
the plot, and as soon as they are off, we set 
strawberry plants for next year to be kept 
cultivated along with the garden truck. 
Lettuce, pepper-grass, early peas, radishes, 
onions sets, spinach, early cabbages, etc., come 
under this head. 
The panels for the fences were described 
and figured in the Rural New-Yorker sev¬ 
eral years ago. We have used them constant¬ 
ly since. They can be made of almost any¬ 
thing. We use poles, edging, fencing, wire, 
lath, any and all of these, combined or separ¬ 
ate, as we happen to have them. Fasten the 
panels to each other with wire, willow bands, 
old hoops or anything that will hold. I be¬ 
lieve this sort of inclosure was recommended 
by the originator for portable hog yards. I 
began by using it for that purpose. An ex¬ 
tension—so to speak—of the idea resulted in 
the inclosing of a piece the right size for a gar¬ 
den that was occupied by the hogs until it 
was rich and clean enough to be properly 
planted. Then three sides of the fence were 
removed for convenience in plowing. The 
hog yard joins the garden on one side. Of 
course, if one wants his garden inclosed he 
can leave the fence standing. For the ben¬ 
efit of new readers I give a view of fence 
panel at Fig. 95. The ends of the pieces that 
answer the purpose of posts are well sharp- 
ties are claimed, they have at length reach¬ 
ed our shores. Those exhibited at the New 
York Poultry Exhibition were fair specimens 
of the breed. They are decidedly handsome 
birds, with plump, square, deep bodies, not 
very large, but very compact. Weight of 
males, six to eight pounds; of females, four to 
six pounds. The colors are rich and 
bright. The cock’s hackle, back and sad¬ 
dle are a rich chestnut or golden red, striped 
with black. Hackle full and flowing. Breast 
and tail black. The tail is well arched; the 
breast full and deep; the legs clean and slate- 
colored. The hens are of arich chestnut color; 
feathers edged with black; two black bars 
across wings; tail black. The most striking 
characteristic of this bird is the head, which is 
short, broad and flat, face red; eye dark and 
large; beak rather short and curved,of a bluish 
black. But the comb is the novelty that gives 
the name to the breed. It is broad in fine 
specimens, reaching five or six inches in width, 
and almost as long as broad; low on the head; 
the surface is covered regularly with fine 
points, and there is a well defined spike behind. 
The hen has the same sort of comb, but it is 
smaller. How these large combs will suit our 
hard winters is a question. Very glowing predic¬ 
tions have been made for the birds ;they are said 
to excel anything we have for laying qualities, 
hardiness, ease of raising, healthfulness and for 
first-class table properties. Although these 
fowls are called a new breed, Mr. Lewis 
Wright, in his great work, mentions them as 
a breed long neglected,and expresses fears that 
they will disappear entirely. After having 
been shown years before, Mr. Hewitt, writing 
to Mr. Wright, speaks of them with unspar¬ 
ing praise, saying that they kept on laying 
during spells of bad weather; were quite hardy, 
and that the richness of their eggs transcend¬ 
ed that of all other breeds. He says, however, 
that they were non or bad sitters and mothers. 
Mr. E. Hewitt was one of the greatest English 
fanciers with experience of many breeds. Mr. 
Wright quotes very often from him. The 
consists, than animals which breed bu 
slowly. At any rate, poultry are the mos 
provoking creatures in the world for getting 
into trouble, or acting in ways that are most 
injurious to their health, such as roosting in 
the draft of a window; staying out on trees of 
a cold night; getting all of a heap in one 
house instead of separating into two; picking 
off feathers or scabs, and a hundred other ex¬ 
asperating ways. But nothing is so provok¬ 
ing as to see all the hens around a filthy pud¬ 
dle that drains towards or into their house 
during a rapid thaw, while the snow is banked 
up too high for it to get away before one can 
open a drain. While a vessel is standing near¬ 
by with fresh, clear water, the stupid things 
will drink away at this nasty, sickening pud¬ 
dle which, if not soon got out of the way, is 
sure to cause sickness, sometimes to a great 
degree. One may wonder why this is so, see¬ 
ing that the birds have a keen knowledge of 
what is best to eat, so that they will eat ihe 
best before them; but in the matter of drink 
poultry seem deficient in the sense of taste. 
The high price of grain has caused a 
serious loss to Eastern poultry breeders this 
winter. The price of eggs is an important 
item, but this seldom varies much foi certain 
seasons of the year; but when food rises 30 to 
50 per cent, higher than usual, the profit of 
poultry keeping is seriously affected. 
One consolation to the poultry breeder lies 
in the fact that the demand for eggs does not 
seem to slacken, nor does that for first-class 
dressed poultry. There is every appearance 
that fine birds will be in demand as much as,if 
not more, than ever. Earliest chicks find the 
worms, and the earliest chicks in market ob¬ 
tain the best prices. 
If a number of breeds have been running 
together, they must be separated fully 25 to 30 
days before the eggs can be depended on as 
pure. If male birds were running promiscuous¬ 
ly with them, 21 days are generally thought 
sufficient, but impurity is known to have oc¬ 
curred up to 30 days. 
at the leading poultry exhibitions of this coun¬ 
try during the last season, although they 
were few in numbers. I do not know who 
lays claim to the original breeding of this va¬ 
riety. It was first bred years ago in England, 
and had a run in the Midland Counties, from 
which it spread over the whole country, and 
to the continent, where it appeared as a 
novelty and was widely exhibited. Like other 
novelties, especially where many great quali- 
TYPICAL RED CAPS. Fig. 08. 
pair of Red Caps shown at Fig. 98 belong to 
what is known in England as the Derbyshire 
Red Cap strain, and the likenesses have been 
re-engraved from the (London) Fanciers’ Ga¬ 
zette. _ 
PITHY POULTRY PARAGRAPHS. 
Deficiency of Taste. —Animals that are 
naturally prolific seem to have less sense of 
their own danger or wherein that danger 
Preserve the Best.— After keeping young 
fowls till they are fully developed, which is 
towards spring, we are often disappointed in 
some. During the first three or four months 
of their lives many will show very bright 
promise, but as they come to fill out, color and 
develop form, many do not fulfill our expec¬ 
tations. Now before we set eggs from any 
yard or pens from which we want the best,we 
should look over each of the birds carefully 
