THE FIRST TWENTY PER CENT—SOWING SEEDS INDOORS—THE CHOICE 
OF SEEDS—GETTING AN EARLY START; SOIL; A SMALL GARDEN PLAN 
by F. F. Rockwell 
Note: Heretofore the home garden has been looked upon by many people as more or less of a hobby, and deserving only as much attention 
as one usually gives to the pursuit of recreation. That it deserves to be taken up seriously, studied in all its details, and developed to the limit of 
efficiency, is a new presentation of the subject. How to have the very best garden possible, on a business basis, is the theme of the present articles, 
which take up carefully and practically one detail after another in natural succession, to the completion of the hundred per cent, garden. This series 
gives you concretely all the pleasures and protits of gardening. 
N EGLECTING all personal delight and the benefit to health 
that accrues from gardening, one finds this year many 
potent arguments for growing vegetables. A few of these practi¬ 
cal considerations should induce the hundreds of readers of this 
magazine who are in the position to engage in truck gardening. 
Though the prices of food stuffs are higher than ever, the means 
available to the home gardener for getting good crops with a 
small amount of labor are greater than before. Simply on the 
basis of business economy everyone should grow for himself a 
plentiful supply of vegetables that should provide the summer sup¬ 
ply and well into the winter as well. 
Several recent developments have so enlarged the possibilities 
that the term “new gardening” is not undeservedly used. The 
improvements tend to certify results, and perhaps one of the chief 
aids to success is a new and practical system of irrigation as suit¬ 
able for the fifty by a hundred foot garden as for the large truck 
farm. This modern irrigation will do more to revolutionize gar¬ 
dening on a small scale than any other mechanical invention, 
plant introduction or cultural discovery of the last two decades; 
it will do as much to make garden results certain as the wheel hoe 
and seed drill did to make garden labor less. It is practically 
automatic in its operation, 
and almost the whole cost of 
equipment for a garden 50 x 
100 feet would be two hun¬ 
dred feet of three-quarter- 
inch galvanized pipe at six to 
nine cents a foot (according 
to market prices) ; fifty brass 
spray nozzles at five cents, 
and two patent unions and 
handles at one dollar and 
eighty cents each. With this 
equipment you can get more 
out of that garden in one sea¬ 
son than you did before in 
two or three years, especially 
since the schedule of compan¬ 
ion crops and succession crops 
may be adhered to bv the as¬ 
sistance of this artificial rain. 
Improvement in varieties 
also has increased the possi¬ 
ble profit of the home gardener, for where the private planter 
gets better products and can use varieties that occupy less space 
and produce earlier, the advantage to the professional gardener 
is taken away in competition with competitors. Lower cost of 
production is effected through a better knowledge of fertilizers. 
Besides, good seeds and strong plants of much better quality 
than ever before are at the service of the home gardener. 
With these aids and inducements to gardening in mind, let us 
consider the first step toward success, the preparation of the 
right kind of soil. 
Proper soil for starting seeds is light, friable and quick. I 
believe that the biggest part of the trouble people have in start¬ 
ing seeds is due to carelessness on this point. Thinking that 
garden soil “will do,” they take no further pains, and when, after 
careful watering, plenty of heat and the specified number of 
days’ time, only a few scattered and crooked weaklings manage 
to struggle up through the crusted surface of the pan or box, the 
seedsman and the magazine writer come in for equal shares of 
blame. You can make a soil of the proper mechanical condition 
as follows : Take some dirt from the bottom of a pile of old, 
rotted sods or rubbish, or some light garden soil; add to it about- 
half its bulk of leaf-mold 
from the woods, or chip dirt 
from the bottom of the wood 
pile, and, if available, some 
sand, enough to “cut” it so 
that it crumbles apart readily 
when compressed in the hand 
—say, a peck of sand to a 
bushel of loam and two pecks 
of leaf mold. Mix together 
and sift through a sieve with 
meshes the size of a coal ash 
sifter or smaller. 
At this season of the year, 
however, it may not be possi¬ 
ble for you to get these things 
—in which case there are two 
alternatives left you; first 
(and easiest), go to a local 
florist and get a bushel of pre¬ 
pared soil, such as he uses 
for starting seeds. Failing in 
In the loosely boarded box section place crocking and cover with sphag¬ 
num moss — above this put the prepared soil 
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