298 
The Garden Magazine, June, 1924 
out limbs with coarse-toothed, cross-cut saws. Clean cuts are es¬ 
sential to quick healing and nought but a saw made for clean cutting will 
answer for the garden; and the inexperienced worker will be chary of 
the two-edged saw for the “other” side has a strong tendency to cut 
where it is not wanted to. 
Any knowing gardener wastes no sympathy on the man who begins to 
prune or trim shrubs or Rose bushes with a pocket knife and breaks 
it! He ought to break it! The average pocket knife is made for show, 
not for service. Dull blades are responsible for root systems being 
disturbed by undue pulling around of the plant with the result that 
the plants are “set back.” If that “set back” happens before a 
drought, small plants frequently die. A good pruning shears can be 
bought for as little as $2.00. Sensible pruning knives with extra strong 
blades and reinforced sockets cost but $1.50, and a fine combination 
budding and pruning knife will give years of satisfactory service for 
$3.00. And as regards these pruning tools, use them only for the pur¬ 
pose designated! 
Being Ready for the Little Pests 
E ARE just learning to appreciate the wisdom of vigilance when 
it comes to the pests that relentlessly destroy garden pleasures 
and profits. No garden workshop is complete without a well-stocked 
shelf of insecticides. There should be kept on hand both contact 
insecticides and stomach poisons. Of the latter, the various prepa¬ 
rations holding paris green and arsenic are the standards. The list 
of good chemicals that kill when they touch (contact poisons) is so 
great as to make specific recommendations impossible, but the manu¬ 
facturers are not backward in offering their wares. 
The Indispensable Odds and Ends 
M INOR accessories are many and manufacturers oblige us by con¬ 
stantly evolving more. The problem for instance, of an inex¬ 
pensive yet thoroughly practical seed sower seems to be solved through 
recent offerings. 
Always have on hand a dozen or more ordinary red flower pots of 
various sizes. One never knows when a plant may have to be shifted, 
without a place—for a day or two—in which to keep it. A ball or two 
of soft twine is almost indispensable, for plants will forever seek their 
level, should man choose to do artificial training. 
Those enjoying the invaluable aid of hotbed or coldframe will want 
a thermometer. Particularly eager gardeners indulging in early spring 
or late fall activity around the frames will want some regular hotbed 
mats or covers. Greenhouse glazing points and wooden labels for mark¬ 
ing rows,everlasting metal labels for outdoors, aprons, brooms, gloves, 
and fumigators—great is the choice and greater the joys in store for 
the gardener who believes in starting in right with the right tools and 
keeping right at it. 
THE HUMBLE RHUBARB OF MANY USES AND ANCIENT LINEAGE 
r,TI. 11E common garden Pie-plant used to have a brief popularity 
in the early spring. Now the progressive housekeeper says 
t0 h erse ^ : “You can make any sort of jelly or jam one half 
trifjp' rhubarb, and the family does not know the difference.” 
The ample combination of malic and citric acids in this 
accommodating vegetable assimilates completely the flavor of any fruit. 
If not provided by the garden it can be had from the shops at negligible 
cost. Rhubarb requires little preparation and no more sugar when it is 
properly young and tender than the usual tart fruit. It may be 
canned with a modicum of labor for use in winter in making any of 
the conserves now so popular, orange, pineapple, raisin, prune or what¬ 
ever. Though not so rich in color as many fruits, the fresh, crisp, rosy 
stalks are very beautiful, and it should never be peeled, both for the 
sake of the color and the vitamines. 
The common vegetable variety (Rheum rhaponticum, from the 
deserts and subalpine parts of Siberia) will grow anywhere, given a 
bit of rich soil and plenty of mulching in the winter; against the end 
of the kitchen porch or at the edge of the orchard; in any possible 
nook of a city yard, or even in a box of earth out on the fire-escape. 
It does not mind a little shade and it likes plenty of water—though, of 
course, you can give it too much. It should not be pulled the first 
year—no matter how strong the plant, it is always well not to dis¬ 
turb the heart of the concentric growth. 
It adds to the interest of Rhubarb to know that it comes of ancient 
THE “WOODEN SOLDIERS” OF THE 
M RS. J. R. ELL 1 COTT, Florida Chairman of the Billboard Com¬ 
mission, has received assurance from officials of the Standard Oil 
Company that they will discontinue using signs and billboards along 
public highways in Florida. With this decision and a similar one in 
California, the Standard Oil Company decided to make this policy 
a national one. 
In announcing their decision they have also called attention to a 
condition along our highways and especially near any historic spot 
that is fast becoming as objectionable as any billboard ever erected. 
This is the existence in great numbers of the unsightly refreshment 
booth, peanut and “hot dog” stands made out of old packing cases or 
other odds and ends of lumber. The highways near them are littered! 
The president of the Standard Oil Company justly calls attention to 
their unsightliness and suggests that a little more expense would 
Oriental lineage, the name, however, deriving from the Greek. There 
are in all some twenty-five species of Rhubarb, natives of Syria and 
Siberia to China through the Himalayan region. Despite the fact 
that they are mostly hardy and make striking effects with their bold 
foliage and tall, interesting inflorescence, they are less often found in 
gardens than their qualifications seem to merit. The variety whose 
root is used in medicine was known in China and such alluring quarters 
as the Himalayas, the Island of Java, India, and Turkey, long before 
the time of Christ. It came into European use by way of Moscow, 
and it was cultivated in England in 1657, bringing sixteen shillings 
a pound when opium was only six shillings. It takes this root six 
years to mature, and the sun-dried should bring a better price than 
the kiln-dried. 
Just when the Pie-plant was differentiated and began to come into 
its own we do not know. Some clever English person tried a variant 
stalk in an initial tart, or maybe a French chef used a kind he knew in 
a toothsome confection. Time and gardeners and all sorts of good 
cooks have done the rest. Some people have tried to use the matured 
leaves in a “dish of greens”; but the results are likely to be disas¬ 
trous, so don’t try it! It is highly poisonous! The inflorescence has its 
own charm and ripens into lovely brown seed, but Rhubarb is usually 
grown from the root, a hardy, bulbous, fibrous thing that flourishes 
after a time by division. 
Florence L. Snow 
HIGHWAYS ARE TOPPLING DOWN 
permit these owners to erect neat, attractive buildings that would orna¬ 
ment and not disfigure the roadside. This is another phase of the 
“Save the Scenery” campaign that must be taken up. In planning 
to banish their billboards, the Standard Oil Company has gone even 
farther. They have prepared plans for model booths along highways, 
inexpensive and in harmony with their surroundings. Best of all, 
these plans are free to any concessionaire upon application. 
To the name of the Standard Oil Company and the sixteen other 
national advertisers whom we have already listed (page 214, May 
G. M.), we are glad to add that of Procter & Gamble, the manufacturers 
of Crisco and Ivory Soap. With these eighteen firms enlisted in this 
anti-billboard crusade, by another summer we can hope to find that 
along our scenic highways, distance may once more be measured in 
miles instead of in “pink pills”! 
