April, 1915 
the spade. Be sure, in any case, to get 
the winter mulch off before the grass be¬ 
gins to make any growth. 
If roads and paths are inclined to get 
grassy or weedy, now is the time to give 
them a good scraping with the hoe or 
scuffle-hoe. Make use of the “edger” for 
trimming up the roads and walks, but 
don't overdo it—it is very easy to cut 
Potatoes started in sand at this time have every chance 
to become strong, healthy plants 
back too far into the sod, making an edge 
that will dry out quickly, and looks ama¬ 
teurish. 
Work for a Cold Day 
It is a good scheme to plan work as 
much as possible for cold days. One can 
be quite comfortable chopping pea brush 
or taking more or less violent exercise 
with hammer and saw on a day that would 
be decidedly uncomfortable for setting 
out plants, and vice versa. Get your pea 
brush early. If it is quite near at hand 
and you expect to carry it yourself you 
will find that a piece of rope fifteen feet 
long will furnish a better means of trans¬ 
portation than the wheel-barrow. You 
will find that the brush is of much neater 
appearance and handier to handle if you 
get it long before you want to use it and 
lay it in a long, narrow pile on the top 
of which a few heavy fence posts or 
plank are placed. These will press it out 
flat, with the result that you will have 
much neater-looking rows and your brush 
will go farther. 
Roses and climbing vines trained 
against the house should always be sup¬ 
plied with trellises that will hold them 
out a foot or so from the wall. This is 
better for the plants and also for the 
house. Where the vine grows directly 
against the wall, unless it is of brick, it 
will at least disfigure it and possibly cause 
decay to set in by rotting and rubbing off 
the paint and by keeping out the anti-rot- 
ting influences of air and sunshine. The 
form of trellis will depend largely upon 
the vine which is to be grown. If it is a 
real climber, making use of tendrils or a 
twisting stem, the cross pieces on the 
trellis should not be very far apart, and 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
the trellis should be comparatively broad 
and flat. For climbing roses and plants 
of similar habit of growth, all that is 
needed is a rugged support to which the 
strong-growing canes can be fastened in 
any desired position, or through which 
they may be trained. Frequently, espe¬ 
cially for the annual climbing vines, 
strings are used as supports. This makes 
a cheap and easy method of vine training, 
but it usually breaks down before the sea¬ 
son is over. If you must use strings, get 
a heavy, brown jute or hemp, or ordinary 
“binder twine,” instead of the white, 
“store string” which one so often sees. 
It is much stronger and infinitely better 
looking. 
If you haven't finished all your pruning 
and tree-repairing, that will make a good 
job for the colder days. One can get a 
good deal of exercise digging out old 
pruning wounds that have rotted back a 
foot or two into the limb or trunk. Clean 
out to firm, live wood, paint with creo¬ 
sote or tar, and, any time when there is 
no danger of a frosty night, fill with con¬ 
crete. 
A Special Bed for Seedlings and 
Radishes 
Beside the vegetables mentioned above, 
to be started now for plants to transplant 
later, a number of flower seeds give earlier 
and better results when handled in this 
way. Among these are asters, antirrhi¬ 
num, carnations, dianthus, kochia, petu¬ 
nias, salpaglossis, stock, verbenas and 
zinnias. A small packet of each of these 
will furnish a supply of nice, stocky little 
plants to put in the garden, not as early 
as those you would have from a green¬ 
house, but ahead of seeds sown in the or¬ 
dinary way in the garden. 
Radishes sown in the usual way in the 
garden are almost always put in in too 
2/3 
large quantities, and are not sown fre¬ 
quently enough. Besides this, the soil 
should be especially prepared for them. 
P'or all these reasons, it is a good plan to 
make a bed in some sheltered spot for 
starting these seedling plants and for 
growing your radishes, where the water¬ 
ing, the thinning, and so forth, can be 
regularly attended to. A couple of short 
rows may be put in regularly once a week 
—say every Saturday afternoon. To 
make such a bed, dig up a place some 6 
feet wide and 10 feet long (the dimen¬ 
sions can be varied according to your re¬ 
quirements). Dig up the top soil for 4 to 
6" deep, put in a layer of rough cinders 
and put the soil back—a little bone dust 
or wood ashes may be put with it, but 
avoid manure—especially for the radishes. 
A row of brick around this bed, set on 
edge, will hold it in place and will give it 
a neat appearance. The end of the bed 
to be devoted to radishes should receive 
a very heavy dressing of lime. Cover the 
ground thick; use raw, ground limestone, 
unless it is some time in advance of plant¬ 
ing, when other forms can be used. 
Set Out New Beds of Asparagus, 
Rhubarb and Strawberries 
April is the month, and the earlier in 
April the better, to make your new plant¬ 
ings of rhubarb, asparagus and strawber¬ 
ries. There are a good many kinds of 
asparagus listed by the seedsmen, but the 
listing is about as far as the difference 
goes, except for two or three varieties — 
Palmetto, Barr's Mammoth and Giant 
Argentine. As the asparagus bed is made 
for a long time, fifteen or twenty years, 
if you take care of it, it pays to prepare 
it thoroughly in the beginning. The rows 
may be made 3 or 4 feet apart. After 
marking them out, dig out a trench along 
(Continued on page 300) 
The trellis should be permanent if roses are to be trained on it. Plain, straight bars of iron arranged 
in this fashion are simple and effective 
