"Uhe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
725 
Notes from a Maryland Garden 
May 6 the Spring-sown spinach was 
ready for cutting, and we had finished 
what little of the Fall-sown crop the 
Winter left ns. This is the first time for 
many years that I have sown any spinach 
in the Spring. Now I have set the 
pimiento pepper plants right along with 
the spinach, for the weather is now hot 
and the spinach will be running to bloom 
faster than we can eat it. Then we shall 
chop out the spinach and let it lie and 
decay while we cultivate the peppers, and 
the crop will be changed on that piece of 
ground till frost comes. Then we can 
set plants of the Early Wakefield on the 
ground for Spring. 
Manuring the ground heavily we try to 
keep it cropped, I made a lot of card¬ 
board rings about four inches in diameter 
and four inches deep, the ends of the ma¬ 
terial sewn together These rings were 
pushed down around the early tomato 
plants when set. The idea is to keep the 
cutworms off. So far they have been 
successful. 
Plants of tomatoes from seed sown in 
a cold frame early in March are now 
nearly as big as the plants that were 
transplanted from the greenhouse to the 
frames, and later to the garden. But 
height does not tell the whole. The 
plants^ which have been reneatedly trans¬ 
planted are stout and sturdy, and their 
.stems three times as stout as those of the 
cold-frame plants. But these cold-frame 
plants will make a close succession to the 
earliest ones and later plants just now 
breaking through the soil in the Seed bed 
will wind up the tomato season with 
first-class fruits all through. 
A seed grower sent me a new tomato 
called Redhead. I have been trying new 
tomatoes for so many years that I have 
quit expecting anything very striking now 
in any new one, for I am satisfied th.at 
we have brought the tomato to its limit, 
and all that can now be done is to keep 
it from deteriorating. 
I make but one sowing of the sweet 
peppers, and that is at «ame time I sow 
the Egg Plant seed the last of February. 
I find that this early crop maintains its 
vigor and productiveness clear through 
till frost cuts the plants down. This is 
true of the pimiento, but I never found it 
true of the Ruby King or the Chinese 
Giant, both of which I have dropped. 
The Chinese Giant never im[)ressed me as 
being of much value. It is too large for 
the making of the stuffed pickles*, and too 
shy a bearer to be profitable. Ruby 
King was long my favorite, but with the 
introduction of the pimiento I found the 
perfect sweet pepper. 
My earliest peas, the Nonpareil, w’ill be 
ready for the table in a few days, and 
Gradus in blooming and Puiatan growing 
strongly, though not in bloom, and the 
old Champion of England is trying to get 
hold of the wire fence. The succession of 
varieties seems to be close from the first 
to the Champions. 
One thing that interferes with the suc¬ 
cess of sugar corn down here, and espe¬ 
cially the early varieties, is the fact that 
everyone plants seed from the seedsmen 
every year, and these seed are produced 
so far north of us that they do not give 
the best results. This year I am trying 
.«ome Stowell’a Evergreen, bought from the 
seedsman, and also some home-grown. 
Tliey will be planted side by side, and 
the result carefully noted. We know 
that field corn grown and selected right 
where it is to be planted will always give 
better results than seed corn from far 
north or south of the locality. I knew 
one farmer in North Carolina who for 
years had been selecting his sweet corn 
seed right on his farm, and it had de¬ 
veloped the prolific character of earing 
natural to sugar corn to a greater extent 
than any from the North, and while it had 
become a later crop it was wonderfully 
good and the ears of larger size than 
usual for all its prolific habit, for it made 
an average of three good ears*. This pro¬ 
lific earing seems peculiar to the Southern 
climate, and the prolific field corns of the 
South will never retain the habit .so well 
when taken North, even if they mature 
there. 
I had hoped that the four cros.s-bred 
plum trees which Dr. Van Fleet had sent 
to me from the Government ground in 
California would have bloomed this 
Spring, for I am anxious not only to see 
what they are, but also to persuade the 
lone plum tree long in my garden to hear 
some fruit. w. F. massby. 
Raising Seedling Potato 
I have been a reader of TirE R. N.-Y., 
and have read with pleasure and profit 
Prof. Massey’s “Maryland Garden.” I 
would like to ask if he ever experimented 
in raising potatoes from the seed? I un¬ 
derstand it takes about three years to get 
them to eatable size. I have succeeded in 
getting potatoes the first season, but from 
several causes I have never gone beyond 
that point. ^ If you have had any expe¬ 
rience in this line and have carried it to 
completion I would like to ask the result 
you have obtained. Is it poasible to orig¬ 
inate new varieties of potatoes in that 
way? D. J. T. 
Rochester, N. Y. 
I have experimented some with potato 
seed, and have grown also Sweet potatoes 
from seed, getting the seed from South 
Florida, since they seldom even bloom 
here. Growing Irish potatoes from seed 
_^is only of interest to those engaged in 
breeding new varieties in hope of getting 
something better. There is a general idea 
that varieties of potatoes run out, and 
that it is necessary to get new sorts to 
take their place, and to get new sorts we 
grow plants from seed selected from pro¬ 
ductive plants. For general market pur¬ 
poses there is, of course, no profit in 
planting the seed, though an ignorant city 
man some time ago wrote in one of the 
Philadelphia daily papers that the talk 
about its costing the'farmers so much to 
make potatoes was nonsense, for he could 
get a 10-ceut paper of seed and plant an 
acre of potatoes. He did not know that few 
seedsmen carry the seed, and none would 
sell him a 10-cent paper. He wms simply 
talking about bis own ignorance. But 
there is no need for a variety of potatoes 
running out if the seed stock is carefully 
selected from the most productive hills. 
Potatoes, either sweet or Irish, will'be 
small the first season from seed, but the 
second year should show pretty well wdiat 
they are worth. In my boyhood the po¬ 
tato universally grown for table use was 
the White Mercer. But it had become 
through neglect in selection very unpro¬ 
ductive, and many started to grow new 
varieties. Early Goodrich came out and 
was very productive, but poor in quality. 
The first really good new sort was the 
early Rose, for three potatoes of which I 
paid $1, and after I bought they sold for 
$.‘1 per pound. Then for a time there was 
a great deal of interest in the production 
of new varieties, and a host appeared in 
the catalogues. Now the Irish Cobbler 
has largely replaced the Early Rose, since 
the markets generally prefer a round po¬ 
tato. It is said that the same ball of seed 
produced the Rose and the Peerless, tw'O 
very different potatoes. This shows the 
varying tendency of the plant. It is in¬ 
teresting to grow potatoes from seed if 
one has time and means and cares not 
for profit. W.F. MASSEY. 
Tomato Plants 
Fifty tomato plants well cultivated 
and well watered, if watering becomes 
necessary, will produce in dollars and 
cents average returns equal to those re¬ 
alized from a half-acre of wheat, asserts 
Geoi'ge O. Greene, extension horticul¬ 
turist in the Kansas State Agricultural 
College. 
In our section of Northern New 
Jersey in a season like the present the 
50 tomato plants will return more than 
a full acre of wheat under our condi¬ 
tion of small fields and rather poor soil. 
An equal amount of labor, manure or 
fertilizer spent on the 50 tomatoes will 
surely buy more flour and feed than the 
acre of wheat would produce. The 
tomatoes must be well grown and well 
sold in order to do this, and, of course, 
this statement will not apply to all situa¬ 
tions. Nor would it always follow that 
because 50 plants will equal one acre of 
wheat 5,000 plants will offset 100 acres of 
grain! There ought to be at least 50 
tomato plants and 100 asparagus plants 
in every farm garden. Only those who 
have had a full supply of these vegetables 
can ever realize how they save food and 
conserve health. > 
“Is it true that the government is 
building a new revenue cutter?” “Yes.” 
“Have you any idea what they are going 
to name it?” “Prohibition.”—Life. 
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Rural New-Yorker, 333 W. 30tIiSt., NewTork 
dieShower^ .. 
of GoW 
/coming to fanners from the rich wheat fields of Wosforn 
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