1914. 
THE) R UKAL N fcC Vv - VOHKKR 
«93 
The Home Acre. 
Rye Before Berries. 
I have a piece of ground sown to rye 
last Fall on which I intend to plant 
raspberries and strawberries this Spring. 
I would like to allow the rye time to 
grow before turning it under. When 
should this ground be plowed and what is 
the best method of lifting such a field 
for the small fruits? Would an applica¬ 
tion of lime be a benefit to the rasp- 
berries? F. t. j. 
You could delay planting the rasp¬ 
berries and strawberries if you take care 
of the plant properly. If you are to do 
this, unpack the plants promptly when 
they come and put them close together 
in drills. Strawberries may be put one 
inch apart and the raspberries two 
inches, cutting the latter back severely 
and seeing that the roots are covered. 
Water them from time to time if need be. 
As the rye is coining into bloom, plow 
it in and immediately pack down hard 
with a roller or heavy drag. Then fit 
the ground thoroughly and set out the 
plants, taking them from the drills a few 
at a time. The strawberries do not re¬ 
quire lime. Raspberries do not respond 
to lime freely, but after plowing under 
this rye, the soil may be too sour, so 
that an application of limestone imme¬ 
diately after plowing would pay. 
Notes From A Maryland Garden. 
Our calendar seems to have slipped a 
cog. Winter did not begin till February, 
but once started it has held the stage, 
and here after the middle of April still 
gives us chilly mornings. I have been in 
the habit cc planting my earliest roasting 
ear corn in March, but it was well into 
April before it was done this year. By 
the 20tli of April I usually think about 
getting the early tomato plants from 
the frames into the garden. This year 
they will probably stay in the frame till 
May. The early peas which should be 
blooming now are only two or three 
inches above the ground, and the sweet 
peas that were planted in January, are 
but just now showing above ground. 
Spinach has wintered well, but has made 
a slow Spring growth, and the late 
Spring crop of lettuce, with which we 
generally wind up the lettuce season in 
May, looks as though it may be June 
before we get the heads. 
I planted in the Fall of 1012 a lot 
of the so-called Dutch Roman hyacinths; 
really small bulbs of the regular Dutch 
hyacinths. They gave me a line bloom 
last Spring and I ripened the bulbs, 
which had greatly increased in size, and 
replanted them last Fall. Now the bed 
is very showy, and the spikes are fully 
as large as those of the regular Dutch 
bulbs. I believe that it would be a good 
plan to import the small size bulbs and 
grow them one season here. 
The first planting of Gladiolus conns 
was made the first week in April. But 
I do not plant all at once, but keep back 
some for a succession. Planted in groups 
among the shrubbery border plants the 
flowers have a better effect than standing 
alone. 
A new tomato of any promise is always 
a temptation to me. Of course I do not 
depend on the new ones, but always try 
one or two novelties. This year I in¬ 
vested a dollar in a paper of the new 
John Baer, which is claimed to be the 
earliest and best ever. The seed certain¬ 
ly germinated well and I have a super¬ 
abundance of plants, and hope for a new 
sensation. 
While as a rule I do not think that it 
pays a gardener to save vegetable seed, 
there are occasional plants where it can 
be done to advantage. For several years 
I bought potted plants of eggplants from 
the Northern growers, and every season 
had diseased plants. I then bought seed 
of the Black Beauty, selected a fruit on 
one of the best plants and let it ripen, 
and got an abundance of seed from the 
one fruit, and have never had any more 
disease in my eggplants. But. while one 
can put tomato plants out in the. cold 
frames and harden them off, I have never 
found this any advantage to the eggplant. 
I set the small plants in thumb pots in 
the greenhouse, shift to threes and then 
to fours, and get plants with leaves larger 
than my hand before setting them out, 
and never set them before the last of 
May. The soil is then so warm that they 
grow right off. A chilled eggplant takes 
a long time to recover. 
Aside from the green onions, which we 
have been eating a month, the first fruits 
from outside in the garden was rhubarb; 
could have had this earlier had I used 
my old method of turning barrels over 
the hills and banking around with hot 
manure. But this was neglected at the 
right time, and we get only the natural 
growth. One Spring job in the rhubarb 
bed is the cutting out of the bloom heads 
that persist in trying to get up. We 
want all the growth in the leaf stalks, 
and cut out every bloom head that shows 
before it has time to open flowers, for 
we are growing rhubarb for the leaf 
stalks. w. F. MASSEY. 
Maryland. 
Late Planted Telephone Peas. 
In “Brevities” you ask if anyone can 
report on planting mixed peas for a long 
continued crop. I have the long contin¬ 
ued crop all right, but do not plant 
mixed peas. I use the Telephone, which 
planted first of July will bear contin¬ 
uously till killed by frost. If planted in 
April or May the vines die, but planted 
in July three or four inches deep they 
remain green till killed. In 1013 I 
had green peas into November, and 
when they were killed by frost there were 
peas in all stages from ripe peas to blos¬ 
soms. e. E. s. 
Skowhegnn, Me. 
Growing a Crop of Mulch. 
I have been a small fruit grower for 
many years, and have made great success 
mulching with straw. Straw mulch saves 
lots of hard work; it keeps the weeds 
down, holds the moisture and keeps the 
fruits clean. With me straw is scarce, 
hard to find, and I have to look for some 
other mulch that will take the place of 
straw. What do you advise in its place? 
Small fruit growing without a mulch 
of some kind is a failure with a slow man 
behind this business, but mulch is what 
produces big crops in Maine. a. a. e. 
Maine. 
This problem is troubling many straw¬ 
berry growers. Small fruit growing is 
coming into localities where little grain 
is grown. This makes a shortage of 
straw, and the grower can hardly afford 
to buy baled straw for his purpose. 
Usually some late planted crop is most 
economical. There are few crops better 
for this purpose than Japanese millet. 
A thick seeding of this millet on rich 
ground will give a heavy crop of coarse 
material, which when cut just before the 
seed forms will make a very good mulch. 
Another good mulching crop is sorghum, 
or ordinary field corn, broadcast thickly 
on rich ground late in the season. Both 
the millet and the sorghum can in an 
ordinary season be seeded on an old 
strawberry bed. After picking the old 
bed is plowed under, and the ground 
fitted. The millet or sorghum seeded 
after such a bed will have time to de¬ 
velop a good crop, and cut just before 
frost will make good mulching material 
quite free from weed seed. The millet or 
corn stubble may then be plowed, and 
seeded to rye if desired. Another plan 
followed somewhat in a wet season, is 
to sow barley alone, or barley and oats 
together, right among the strawberries 
in early September, after cleaning the 
beds up. This grain makes a thick 
growth during the Fall, and in Winter 
mats down over the berries, providing a 
partial mulch, and saving considerable 
mulch material in that way. 
Corn Ear-worm. 
The Kansas Experiment Station right¬ 
ly states that the corn worm causes a 
loss of millions of dollers: 
“The corn ear-worm is destructive to 
the sorghums. Alfalfa, cow peas, and to¬ 
matoes-, as well as corn. It is able to fly 
long distances, and is therefore a serious 
pest to control. No method has been 
found to eliminate entirely the damage 
done by the ear-worm, but the individual 
farmer can greatly reduce the injury to 
his crop by planting a thoroughly pre¬ 
pared seed bed as early as it is possible 
to do so, and avoid a set-back from cold 
weather.” 
In New Jersey experiments have been 
made in dusting a dry poison like pow¬ 
dered arsenate of lead on the corn as the 
ears form. Machines are made for the 
purpose, and some very good results are 
reported. 
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