Notes from a Maryland Garden 
A letter from a correspondent in the 
great potato-growing section of Virginia 
just south of us here says that his early 
Irish potatoes are all rotted, and wants 
to know what he would better put in the 
land, let it lie and grow up in weeds and 
plant late potatoes, or to plant it in corn. 
I told him that doubtless the land, after 
the heavy application of commercial fer¬ 
tilizer for the potatoes, would make a 
good crop of corn, but that what always 
pained me in passing through the Eastern 
Shore counties of Virginia in Winter was 
the sight of bare land wasting its fertility 
in the Winter rains, and that I had hoped 
to find someone down there farming for 
the permanent improvement of the land. 
I suggested that instead of letting the 
land grow up in weeds he would do better 
to sow it to oats at once, and in July 
turn these oats under and plant early va¬ 
rieties of Irish potatoes, like Cobbler or 
Early Rose or Ohio. These would make 
a good crop for Winter use, and the best 
seed for the Spring planting, and that 
after the potatoes he could still sow rye 
as a Winter cover and could have a mass 
of vegetable matter to turn under for the 
sweet potato crop and save the raking 
and hauling of pine shatters. 
I hardly think that the Virginia growers 
will be much worse off if the potatoes 
have all rotted. It reminds me of a con¬ 
versation I had once with an extensive 
grower of truck crops near Norfolk. I 
was going towards Florida and stopped 
over night in the middle of March at the 
DeSoto Hotel in Savannah. A party of 
men arrived on their way North, and the 
farmer I have mentioned, seeing my name 
on the register, hunted me up and asked 
if I had been in the trucking section 
about Norfolk on my way South. I told 
him I had been all through it and noted 
that a great many early cabbages had run 
into bloom. He said, “I wish one-half of 
them would run to seed, for Norfolk 
County always kills her own interests by 
planting such a vast amount of things 
that must all go to market at the same 
time.” And yet this man, a banker in 
the city, had six farms growing cabbages, 
and every man of them wants to grow 
more than his neighbors. Human nature 
is about the same everywhere except in 
Cermany. While our trucking sections 
have now well organized selling exchanges, 
which have accomplished a great deal for 
the benefit of the gardeners, they need 
to make or combine with the present or¬ 
ganizations a planting organization so 
that some of their members can be al¬ 
lowed to specialize in certain crops and 
others in other crops, and so divide things 
between them and avoid a ruinous com¬ 
petition. 
Yesterday, April 15, I set out the big 
tomato plants sent to me from South 
Carolina. We are not yet immune to 
frost, but I have the plant protectors 
alongside of every plant, and it is a 
short job to put them off until the stakes 
are set beside them, and even then I 
can tie a newspaper to the north side of 
the stake. I have such a liberal reserve 
iti the frames that I can stand some loss. 
Rut the earlier we get the tomato plants 
out and they live the earlier the first 
ripe fi’uits. The plants in the frames 
are smaller and are better off wiiere they 
are, and they make room for the eggplant 
and the peppers in the greenhouse. A 
week of constant rain makes the reappear¬ 
ance of the sun peculiarly agreeable. Not¬ 
withstanding the long, cold rain, the Gold¬ 
en Bantam corn is making its way above 
ground, and the earliest peas are nearly 
in bloom. The early tulips are in full 
blaze of bloom before giving way to the 
Darwins, which are just showing buds. 
But the brightest thing in the early 
Spring is the bed of scarlet Anemones, 
which vies with Jhe scarlet Due Van 
Thol tulips in giving us the first color 
besides yellow and white. Spirsea Thun- 
hergii has passed out of bloom, and S. 
\ an Houttei is preparing its snowbank, 
while right alongside of it the white 
Weigela will supply the snow when Van 
Houttei has faded. Just now the only 
shrubbery in full bloom is the Japan 
quince, but the lilacs will soon be out. 
And the crop of Liberty bonds in my 
safe deposit box is giwing like the gar- 
W. F. MASSEY. 
RURAL NEWeYORKER 
649 
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