THE FOURTH TWENTY PER CENT—CARE OF THE FULLY DEVELOPED GARDEN—CULTI¬ 
VATION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DUST MULCH—FIGHTING THE INSECT PESTS 
by F. F. Rockwell 
Note: Heretofore the home garden has been looked on by many people as more or less of a hobby 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 its 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, although they are also planned to aid those who can give but limited time to the garden's 
cultivation. They take up carefully and practically one detail after another in natural succession to the completion of the hundred per cent, garden. The first four articles 
dealt with the sowing of seeds indoors, solving the plant food problem, and the planting of early and later vegetables, appearing in the February, March, April and May issues. 
This is the fifth of the series. EDITOR. 
I N many ways the planting 
of the garden is the most 
intensely interesting part of 
the season’s operations. It is 
another illustration of the 
ancient assertion that antici¬ 
pation is more of an incentive 
than realization. In any 
event there are every year 
many hundreds of gardeners 
who start in with a very full 
and fixed determination to 
make their gardens as per¬ 
fect as possible, who, when 
here and there something be¬ 
gins to go wrong—when the 
cut-worms get a few of the 
best tomato plants, and some 
seed sown too early or in im¬ 
properly prepared soil fails 
to come up—get very much 
discouraged and consequently 
do not care for things to the 
best of their ability. Thus 
they fail to get the best re¬ 
sults which they might from 
the start which has been 
made, and which it is now 
too late to make over again 
until another year. 
The real reasons for the 
importance of weeds are fre¬ 
quently not understood. The 
average gardener has an idea 
that he uses weeders and 
wheel-hoe simply to fight the 
green and ever persistent 
ranks of his arch enemies, weeds. As a matter of fact it is by 
no means infrequently the case that weeds are among the best 
friends he has. If they were not present to spur him to action 
his crops would never receive the frequent cultivations and stir¬ 
rings of the soil which are essential to their successful growth. 
The killing of weeds is in fact the least of the three main advan¬ 
tages of cultivation. Before it in actual importance, if not 
the mind of the amateur gardener, comes the maintenance of 
proper moisture and fertility. 
You may not see at first 
glance how cultivation will 
help you grow hundred per 
cent, crops by helping to sup¬ 
ply that vital necessity, soil 
moisture. As a matter of 
fact it does not help to supply 
it, but it does save it and dis¬ 
tribute it evenly throughout 
the season. Plenty of mois¬ 
ture in the soil, as I have said 
before, but am in no danger 
of over-emphasizing, is essen¬ 
tial to the growth of perfect 
crops; in fact, many soils 
which are known as being 
very rich, owe their reputa¬ 
tion largely to the fact that 
they are of such a character 
that moisture is retained by 
them readily. Now it is very 
seldom indeed, in fact prac¬ 
tically never, that the sea¬ 
son’s rainfall, upon which 
your crops depend very di¬ 
rectly for the growth they 
are to make, is evenly dis¬ 
tributed throughout the sea¬ 
son. Indeed, during the last 
several years there has seemed 
to be a marked tendency 
toward our having a regular 
“dry season” or prolonged 
drought. Therefore it be¬ 
comes increasingly necessary 
to save part of the moisture 
from the season of superabundance for the period of famine. 
It is, of course, not practical for us all to have reservoirs for 
this purpose, and therefore we have to devise some method of 
saving the water where it falls. You have noticed at some time 
or other how moist the ground or the grass remains under an 
old box or board or even under a piece of paper or a pile of 
weeds. It doesn’t seem to make much difference what the ma¬ 
terial is as long as the soil is shaded and mulched. In fact, so 
The garden that is well cared for during the summer should show a soil 
well cultivated and free from weeds 
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