HOUSE AND GARDEN 
January. 
igi2 
tried and true sorts, and select the vari¬ 
eties. Don’t attempt to include every¬ 
thing in the catalogue. Take the state¬ 
ments you find there at considerable dis¬ 
count. It’s a pretty safe rule to try any¬ 
thing new its first year in packet amounts 
only. 
Then make a plan of the garden, to 
scale, and decide the location of every¬ 
thing that is going into it. 
Do these suggestions seem to suggest to 
you unnecessary work ? It is work. that 
can easily be done in a few hours, and in 
the long evenings now; and it will save 
you daylight hours in April and May when 
time is much more precious; save your 
hours and give yourself better results. I 
know it, for I’ve done it. 
Some Things to Do Now 
''T^HE success of your garden will de- 
pend very directly upon the number 
of pounds of manure you are able to ac¬ 
cumulate. Start now. At this time of the 
year manure may frequently be bought for 
one-half what it would cost later in the 
spring. Do not worry about having no 
place in which to keep it. If you can’t get 
it under cover, have it put into a square 
sided heap, trod down—not thrown into a 
loose pile. Add to this pile at every op¬ 
portunity, and put in everything that will 
serve as manure — sweepings, old leaves, 
old sod, organic refuse of any and all 
sorts. Get a good percentage of horse 
manure if you can as it will help keep 
things rotting. Cow manure alone is too 
cold. 
If you have a little sheltered corner 
somewhere under cover, put your manure 
and materials there. Then get a small pig 
— no, that isn’t a joke at all! It will cost 
you $3 to $5 or $6. In the spring your 
butcher will get him. alive, and give you 
$6 to $15, and your manure pile will be 
worth half again as much as it would 
otherwise have been, and the manure heap 
is the garden’s foundation. 
Coldframes and Hotbeds 
JF you still use the old plan of wintering 
over plants — and for some things that 
is the best way, although I believe that 
cabbages and most other things are better 
started early in the spring — see that, even 
during January, they have plenty of air on 
all bright days. They will not need water¬ 
ing. As long as the soil within the frames 
is unfrozen, snow must be cleared from 
the sashes. If things get frozen up be¬ 
fore a fall of snow a few days’ shade will 
do no harm. Take advantage of any bright, 
comfortable days to prune grapes, currants, 
gooseberries or peaches. Currants and 
gooseberries should be kept pruned to the 
open bush form. Currants are produced 
on wood two or more years old. There¬ 
fore, cut out branches very small, or not 
until four or five years later, after it has 
borne two or three crops of fruit. 
Pruning Grape Vines 
FIEN set out, grape vines should be 
cut back to three or four eyes. The 
subsequent pruning — and the reader must 
at once distinguish between pruning and 
training, or tbe way in wbich the vines are 
placed — will determine more than anything 
else the success of the undertaking. Grapes 
depend more upon proper pruning than 
any other fruit or vegetable in the garden. 
Two principles must be kept track of in 
this work. First principle: the annual 
crop is borne only on canes of the same 
year’s growth. Second principle : the 
vine, if left to itself, will set three or four 
times the number of bunches it can prop¬ 
erly mature. As a result of these facts, the 
following system of pruning has been de¬ 
veloped and must be followed for sure and 
full-sized crops: 
(1) At time of plant¬ 
ing, cut back to three 
or four eyes, and after 
these sprout leave only 
one (or two) of them, 
which should be staked 
up. 
(2) Following win¬ 
ter (December to 
Alarch), leave only 
one cane and cut this 
back to three or four 
eyes. 
(3) Second growing- 
season, save only two 
canes, even if several 
sprout, and train these 
to ' stake or trellis. 
These two vines, or 
arms, branching from 
the main stem, form 
the foundation for the 
one-year canes that 
bear the fruit. How¬ 
ever, to prevent the 
vine’s setting too much 
fruit (see second prin¬ 
ciple above) these arms 
must be cut back in or¬ 
der to limit the num¬ 
ber of fruit-bearing 
canes that will spring 
from them ; therefore : 
(4) Second winter 
pruning, cut back these 
arms to eight or ten 
buds — and we have 
prepared for the first 
crop of fruit, about 
forty bunches, as the 
fruiting cane from 
each bud will bear two bunches on the 
average. However, these main arms 
will not bear fruiting-canes another year 
(see first principle above), and. therefore: 
(5) At the third winter pruning, (a) 
of the canes that bore fruit, only the three 
or four nearest the main stem or trunk 
are left; (b) these are cut back to eight 
or ten buds each, and (c) everything else 
is ruthlessly cut away. 
Each succeeding year the same system 
is continued, care being taken to rub off, 
each i\Iay, buds or sprouts starting on the 
main trunk or arms. 
Ihe wood, in addition to being cut back, 
must be well ripened; and the wood does 
not ripen until after the fruit. It, there¬ 
fore, sometimes becomes necessary to cut 
out some of tbe bunches in order to hasten 
the ripening of the rest. At the same time 
the application of some potash fertilizer 
will be helpful. If the bunches do not 
ripen up quickly and pretty nearly to¬ 
gether, the vine is overloaded and being- 
damaged for the following year. 
Other pruning work should demand 
your attention. The apple trees may be 
pruned now if they have not already been 
attended to. This will save time later on. 
Final advice should be about house 
plants. With what information has been 
given before you can have much pleasure 
from an indoor garden. 
Plants in the house in winter, even when 
growing and blooming, need very little 
water compared with what they require in 
the summer out of doors. But they should 
be kept clean. A soft, moistened cloth may 
be used to wi])e tbe leaves off. Do not use 
olive oil or any sucb discovery; it may 
make the leaves shine and look very pretty, 
but is not good for the health of the plant. 
A very satisfactory provision for house plants was made here by 
waterproofing the floor of a bay window and building shelves for 
hanging plants 
