722 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
July 6, 1901. 
milk and butter are met with than at any other 
period. Among these plants the most troublesome 
at this season are Crow Garlic and Hedge Mustard, 
both of which are notorious for imparting a very 
objectionable flavour to the milk and subsequently 
to the butter produced by cows consuming them. 
These plants are very common in many parts of the 
country. The Hedge Mustard bears a pretty white 
blossom and is at present to be found in full bloom 
wherever it becomes established.— Farmers' Gazette. 
BEST TWELVE KINDS OF VEGETABLES 
FOR COMPETITION. 
(Continued from p. 707). 
Scarlet Runner Beans. 
To grow these well, a trench should be taken out 
2 ft. wide and 2 ft. deep. In the bottom of it put 
about 10 in. of good rotten manure. Then put on 
the top of that about 4 in. of manured compost from 
an old Cucumber bed or a spent Mushroom bed. 
In fact, anything of that nature will do, the object 
being to get the plants to root well in this kindly 
compost before travelling down to the stronger 
stimulating manure at the bottom of the trench. 
Tread all this firmly down, putting on the top 6 in. 
of soil. This will leave you a trench 4 in. deep, 
which will be just suitable for holding the water 
long enough in suspense to soak into the roots when 
you mulch them later on. The trench should run 
north and south, and then your plants will have the 
sun on both sides during the day. The Beans should 
be sown about the second week in April in boxes, 
about 3 in. apart each way, that, when they are 
lifted out there may be a nice ball of earth clinging 
to each Bean. Place them in a frame near the 
glass, giving them plenty of air so as to have them 
as sturdy as possible. About the 10th of May they 
will be ready for putting out in the trenches. It is 
a wise plan to put in the stakes first so as to avoid 
breaking the roots in staking. A single row of 
stakes, 6in. from one stake to another, does very 
well. The plants should be 12 in. apart in single 
rows to give them light and air. There will thus be 
a plant at every second stake. Water freely after 
planting. By the end of June you may mulch with 
manure on each side of the row. Soon after this 
you may give them manure water, weak, but plenty 
of it, and increasing in strength as the plants get used 
to it, which being now tall and branching can take 
more Towards show time (in August) you can 
hardly, in reason, give two much manure water, as 
they can then absorb a great deal. 
Peas. 
A good dish of Peas is not only a strong feature in 
a collection of show vegetables, but it is one of the 
dishes that cannot be done without. To grow Peas 
successfully, the ground must have been well 
manured the previous year, for such a crop as 
Celery. The ground must be well trenched, and if, 
in your opinion, there is not enough mahurial 
elements left in the ground, you can help it by 
digging in some-at a depth of about 15 in. in the 
trench This is deep enough to allow the Peas to 
have rooted well before reaching the manure. The 
trenching should be done early, and before the Peas 
are sown a good dressing of lime or soot, well forked 
in so as to clear the ground of worms and slugs, 
would be very beneficial. To make sure of having 
two good dishes of Peas for the first week in August, 
three sowings should be made, say on the 1st, 7th, 
and 14th of May, but for a later show then sow 
about the 21st of May. The seed-drill should be 
4 in. wide and 4 in. deep, planting a double row, the 
Peas 2^ in. apart each way and 2 in. deep. If you 
find every seed has come up and they are too thick 
for your purpose, take out oDe here and there along 
the lines As a rule, varieties which are grown for 
exhibition are strong growers and require plenty of 
room. When the plants are about 2 or 3 in. high, 
draw a little soil in around the plants with the hoe. 
It will help to strengthen them. When they are 
aboat 4 in. high they should be staked. If you 
plant two rows side by side, which is not a good 
plan, there should be not less a distance than 5 ft. 
between them. If you can spare the room, 6 ft. 
would be better. About the first week in July the 
grcu id should be mulched with manure, after which 
give a good watering which will keep the ground 
damp enough for some time. As to the best kinds 
to grow for exhibition, I have found Duke of Albany 
and Alderman answer very well, as they are fine 
long-podded and broad-podded varieties of good 
constitution, and look well on the show table. 
Turnips. 
The Turnip is a more important vegetable in the 
show collection than is sometimes supposed. The 
great consideration in growing Turnips for show is 
to grow them quickly. The ground should be 
well trenched and a fair amount of manure put 
into it. About a week or ten days before sowing, 
give the piece a good coating of soot, lime, or wood 
ashes, forking it well in. Before sowing the seed 
rake the ground over thoroughly. Draw out your 
drills 15 in, apart and about 2 in. deep. Give the 
drills a good dusting with wood ashes, sow the 
seed, and cover it nicely over. When the seedlings 
appear give them a dusting with wood ashes, 
syringing beforehand with clean water to make the 
ashes stick to the foliage. The foliage must be 
kept in a healthy, dark green condition if you want 
to have fine Turnips, as you cannot have the one with¬ 
out the other. When the seedlings are large enough 
to handle, thin them out to 6 in. apart. When you 
see that all is well with them make another thinning 
by taking out every second plant, thus leaving them 
12 in. part. The ground can hardly be hoed too 
often. Before the foliage covers the ground give 
the rows a little artificial manure and hoe it in. If 
it does not rain within a day of giving the manure 
then water. The best aspect to grow Turnips on 
is a northern one so that they do not get scorched 
by the sun. Some gardeners like the Snowball 
type for exhibition, but I have always done better 
with Veitch’s Red Garden Globe, which, when well 
grown, is difficult to beat. The seed should be 
sown about ten weeks before the show. In very 
dry weather you will have to water about once a 
fortnight, and when it is necessary to water, let it be 
a good soaking. 
Tomatos. 
The importance of a good dish of Tomatos in a 
collection is not to be thought lightly of, for the fine 
bit of colour it gives adds greatly to the effect on 
the show table. The first consideration in growing 
this vegetable—for, although it is really a fruit, it is 
also classed and recognised as a vegetable —is to con¬ 
sider well where you are going to grow it, for if in a 
hot-house the seed need not be sown so early a3 if 
grown in a cold house. They can be successfully 
grown in either, and, for an August show, a house 
with no artificial heat will do very well. For a 
show early in August the seed should be sown about 
the third or fourth week in February. Sow Tomatos 
in a light sandy compost and place them in heat as 
soon as the young seedlings appear well above the 
soil. Keep them as near the glass as possible, and 
when they have got well into the rough leaf, pot 
them off singly into thumb pots. The compost used 
should be equal parts of loam, leaf mould, and silver 
sand. The soil should be warmed to the same 
temperaLure as that in which the seedlings are grow¬ 
ing, and the water used should be tepid or nearly 
warm. When potted, place them on a shelf near 
the glass, and when the roots fill the pot have the 
plants shifted into 4j-in. pots, using a little more 
loam and less sand than in the first potting. From 
the day you sow until the time of fruiting, every¬ 
thing must be done which will encourage sturdy 
vigorous growth. The next shift should be into 7-in. 
pots, and the final into 10 or 12-in. pots. The best 
soil for the final shift I have found to be good fibrous 
loam, a little leaf mould, and a little coarse sand to 
keep the soil porous. The pots must be well drained 
and the plants firmly potted at this final stage, 
otherwise the flowers will probably fall off, and, of 
course, the fruit will not set. When the plants are 
in their final pots they must he secured to the trellis 
near the glass, as they will soon begin to travel. I 
grow them on the single stem system, and I think I 
get better exhibition fruit by that means. All 
lateral growths should be removed as fast as they 
appear. When the plants are in flower they should 
be lightly brushed at mid-day with a light camel- 
hair brush to distribute the pollen, This ensures 
free setting. When the plants are well set with 
fruit, they must be watered with manure water and 
top-dressed with good turfy loam, mixed with any 
good chemical manure. Once the fruit is set, 
Tomatos will stand strong feeding, and on no 
account must the plants ever want for water. It 
is a difficult thing to say which variety is the best 
for exhibition purposes, but I may state that I have 
found a good selection of th.p Perfection variety 
answer my purpose very well. It is not the heaviest 
cropper, but it has the great advantages of a plump, 
smooth skin, a fine deep crimson colour, a good 
average size, and very fine quality. 
(To be continued.) 
POISONOUS GARDEN PLANTS. 
Like as are the spring poets, perennially moved by 
the re-awakening of Nature and the resuming of her 
garlands and mantles, so are also gardeners inspired 
by the same sentiments—at any rate, we take the 
matter for granted. Who is he that has not soul 
enough to be roused to cast off the effects of his hiber¬ 
nation by the new birth of our spring flowers as 
they come one by one forth from the cold bosom of 
Mother Earth ? If autumnal golden tints have a 
pleasing melancholy to our minds, truly vernal 
beauty has quite the opposite—just the kind of thing 
we require to brace us up for the arduous duties the 
following seasons demand of us. 
It is on this assumption that we take this oppor¬ 
tunity of saying a few words on the nature of some 
of those beautiful harbingers of spring and life. All 
that is fair to look upon is not good nor safe to 
handle indiscriminately, and some of the loveliest of 
our garden plants, for some reason which is im¬ 
possible to tell, are very treacherous in their natures. 
It has happened not infrequently that through care¬ 
lessness and ignorance very alarming effects have 
resulted from using improper caution when working 
among them. Some of them have proved over and 
over again how deadly they are if they should be in¬ 
advertently used as eatables. Happily, such cases 
are each year becoming less common, in proportion 
to the growth of knowledge regarding such plants, 
except, perhaps, in the cases of children, who are 
always allured to eat everything that has the appear¬ 
ance of being good. This latter case is not so easily 
remedied, until our schools shall see their way to 
take the subject more earnestly to heart by making 
botany, especially the economic side of it, an obliga¬ 
tory subject in the higher standards. 
One of the most common and prettiest of our 
garden plants is the Monkshood or Wolf's Bane 
(Aconitum Napellus),so-called from its helmet-shaped 
flowers. On account of the partial resemblance the 
roots have to Radishes or small Turnips, it is easy 
to see how it has been so frequently the cause of 
poisoning. 
The leaves are very much cut, a typical character 
of the family to which it belongs—the Crowfoots, 
and in general it resembles that other beautiful 
species, the Delphinium, which is probably also 
poisonous. The poisonous record of the Monkshood 
is well known, but the terrible instance which 
occurred forty-five years ago in Dingwall is enough 
to illustrate its virulent properties. In this case the 
roots were mistaken for Horse Radish, with the 
result that all who partook of the preparation were 
poisoned, three fatally. We remember how with a 
pious terror we used in our childhood to read the 
monuments over two of the illfated clergymen in a 
neighbouring cemetry. Monkshood at this period 
was expelled from gardens in northern counties, and 
when the writer began his apprenticeship, it was a 
botanical curiosity. There are cases on record 
where the mere handling of this plant caused 
suspicious symptoms. All the Aconitums are more 
or less virulently poisonous. 
Another beautiful garden plant of a very poisonous 
nature is the White Hilla or Hellebore (Veratrum 
album). There are two other varieties common in our 
gardens (V. nigrum and V. viride), and while they 
may not be sufficiently destructive to the casual 
observer by their foliage, they are easily known by 
their flower, as the specific name indicates. The 
first has a white flower, the second black, and the 
last green. For a herbaceous border their beautilul 
corrugated large leaves have no rival. The flowers 
are on a stout branching spike, and are rather 
demeaning to the foliage. They are members of the 
Saffron family, Melanthaceae. All parts of the plant 
are poisonous, and said to be extremely virulent. 
Baneberry (Actea spicata) is a charming garden 
plant when all covered with its white mistletoide 
berries, otherwise it is devoid of beauty. It is, how¬ 
ever, very poisonous, and wa believe it has been 
several times taken for the Elder, to which it has a 
faint resemblance. It belongs to the Crowfoots or 
Ranunculaceae. Common Hellebore or Christmas 
Rose (Helleborus niger) is too well known for its 
