Vol. LXIII, No. 2816 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 16, 1904 
ORNAMENTAL PLANTING ON THE FARM. 
Third Prize Picture in the Garden Contest. 
Fig. 12 is the picture of our home in Winter, with 
snow on the ground, and the grapevines on the front 
WINTER VIEW OF VINES. Fip. 12. 
pruned. Fig. 13 is also our home as it appeared Sep¬ 
tember 15 covered with grapevines, the varieties being 
Catawba and Concord and bearing large crops of fruit 
every year. At the bottom of grapevines are nastui’- 
tiums which grow as high as the windows. To the 
left of the house is an arbor of grapevines. In the 
foreground is a bed of dark-leaved Cannas surrounded 
by Salvias. Fig. 14 shows the way we hide our wood 
place. Raspberry bushes are planted in front of the 
pile of wood and a row of double hollyhocks precedes 
them. The outbuildings are covered with grapevines, 
and to the left of the dog’s hut is a Ruby Queen rose 
which -we received from The R. N.-Y. 
Seneca Co., 0. eranic o. bork. 
R. N.-Y.—This season of the year affords the great¬ 
est possible contrast to the garden in its Summer 
dress. This fact gives especial value to such a picture 
as Fig. 12, where the unadorned house shows nothing 
more than the bare tracery of vines. The transfor¬ 
mation is great in Fig. 13, where straight lines and 
abrupt angles are disguised by the mass of foliage. 
There are many advantages in the use of grapevines 
for house decoration. They are easily kept in bounds, 
the foliage is out of the way in the Winter, and they 
ripen an abundant crop of high-quality fruit if prop¬ 
erly treated. The Isabella grape, which is not always 
satisfactory under other conditions, is recommended 
for house planting, as the foliage is very clean and 
healthy, and -when grown against a wall the fruit 
ripens to delicious quality. Catawba and Delaware 
also possess special virtues for a similar situation. 
Fig. 14 is a valuable suggestion for the disguise of 
unsightly objects; few hardy flowering plants are 
more valuable than the stately hollyhock for screen 
planting. These three unpretentious pictures, which 
received third prize in our recent competition for 
farm garden photographs, convey a valuable lesson 
in landscape art about the home, and show the effects 
that may be produced by permanent planting, costing 
little in the beginning, and increasing in value year 
by year. While every garden lover wishes to make 
some display of tender bedding plants that must be 
annually renewed, herbaceous species are the best in¬ 
vestment for the farm garden. The season of bloom 
in our herbaceous garden (15 miles out of this city) 
began last year with snowdrops March 2, and ended 
with the last unprotected Chrysanthemums November 
21. This year we hope to lengthen this season at both 
ends with hardy violets. These, planted on a warm 
southern slope, with a few leaves for protection, 
should flower nine months of the year. 
BRIEF FERTILIZER TALKS. 
Success With Chemical Fertilizers. 
What is the testimony of those who have found a gold 
lining to the fertilizer sack, from the home mixers and 
users of factory mixed goods? We want to learn how 
they found it; that is, the kind of cropping engaged in, 
what rotation followed, where in the rotation the fer¬ 
tilizer was used, in what quantity and what kinds. 
READER. 
The gold in a fertilizer sack has to be dug out by 
hard labor the same as gold out of a mine. People 
sometimes make a mistake in supposing that they 
can use high-grade fertilizers and neglect necessary 
care of the crop. No greater folly could ever be im¬ 
agined. The men who succeed with fertilizers are 
first-class farmers. They may be divided roughly 
into two classes. One class handle thin land—like 
the farmers on Long Island or southern New Jersey. 
They do not follow any particular rotation, since 
they do not pay much attention to vegetable matter 
THE VINES IN SUMMER. Flo. 13. 
in the soil. They use from 1,200 to 2,000 pounds or 
more of fertilizer per acre, depending on the plant 
food thus supplied to feed their crops. If possible 
during the Fall and Winter the ground is covered 
with Crimson clover or rye, and at intervals grass 
and clover are seeded. The money crops on such 
farms are asparagus, potatoes, hay or straw and some 
smaller truck crops. Little stock is ever kept. These 
light, warm lands handled in this way are very pro¬ 
ductive and profitable. Another class of farmers on 
heavier soil follow a definite rotation. The year’s 
supply of manure is hauled out on the two-year-old 
sod and plowed under for corn. Following corn come 
potatoes fertilized with 1,200 pounds or more per acre 
of a high-grade mixture. After potato harvest the 
ground is seeded to wheat and grass with clover added 
in the Spring. The wheat is cut and the grass cut 
two years, thus bringing the field through its five-year 
rotation to corn again. The theory is to use all the 
fertilizer on the potatoes, but it is sometimes found 
profitable to use more on the wheat and grass. All 
such farmers believe in using heavy dressings of ferti¬ 
lizer. It is safer to use too much than too little. They 
want a fertilizer with high per cents of all three ele¬ 
ments and with the nitrogen obtained from three or 
four different sources like nitrate of soda, dried blood, 
bone and tankage. This nitrogen supply is the strong¬ 
est feature of a high-grade fertilizer, especially where 
one application of fertilizer to potatoes is expected to 
feed several different crops. 
Celery With Chemical Fertilizers. 
I have been interested in the articles on celery growing. 
In my opinion the Glade regions in the mountain parts 
of West Virginia furnish similar conditions to Tioga Co., 
Pa., if altitude counts. I called on Weber & Sons, Oak¬ 
land, Md., who had been raising choice celery and had 
to quit because they could not get enough stable manure. 
I looked to the Webers as entitled to speak for their 
region and gave up all idea of growing celery in the 
Glades. Mr. Niles’s work has taught me different, re¬ 
membering the Irishman in “Ten Acres Enough,” who 
said all the use he had for Jersey sand was to hold the 
plant up while he fed it manure. I want to make an ef¬ 
fort to do something in an old cranberry swamp. Will 
yqp advise me what books I should have as authorities 
to assist me in working out such a problem? reader. 
We advise you to study “Agriculture,” by Prof. F. 
H. Storer, three volumes, price $5, and “Fertilizers,” 
by Prof. E. B. Voorhees, price $1. The'"experiment 
stations at Orono, Me., Kingston, R. I., New Haven 
Conn., New Brunswick, N. J., Wooster, O., and others 
have issued bulletins which will help you. The best 
soil for celery is one naturally moist and containing 
an abundance of humus. Good celery has been grown 
on light open soil with nothing but fertilizers sup¬ 
plied, but such culture is not the surest or most eco¬ 
nomical. Those Pennsylvania growers have shown 
that on such soil celery can certainly be grown with 
chemicals. 
Cheap Wood Ashes; Shavings for Bedding. 
I can get wood ashes for two cents per bushel, hauling 
them 2 y 2 miles; can get them for 50 cents per two-horse 
wagon load hauling six miles. Our stables were bedded 
with shavings. I used some manure made with hemlock 
shavings; the hemlock was as fatal to vegetation as to 
Socrates. The baled shavings, I think, are poplar. b. 
West Virginia. 
If the wood ashes have not been leached too much 
you have a gold mine. We would gladly pay 10 times 
as much for good ashes. Remember what the ashes 
contain; no nitrogen, but lime, potash and a small 
amount of phosphoric acid. They will give great re¬ 
sults on muck soils on clover or in orchards. One 
part fine ground bone and two parts by weight of 
ashes make a good mixture for most crops. Hemlock 
shavings contain a strong acid, and should be rotted 
or neutralized before being used. Usually when well 
A SCREEN OF HARDY PLANTS. Fia. 14. 
soaked in liquid manure or rotted in manure they are 
harmless. The hemlock administered to Socrates was 
not the innocent evergreen tree, but a plant belong¬ 
ing to the carrot family, Conium maculatum, known 
as poison hemlock, spotted parsley, herb-bennet and 
