Winter Gardening 
There are still a few things to he done 
during the early days of December. The 
little odds and ends which may have been 
overlooked in the harvesting rush should 
be cleaned up. Every scrap of refuse and 
rubbish should be either composted or 
burned, according to its character. All 
tools should be “checked up” and put un¬ 
der cover, being oiled and wiped clean 
with a kerosene cloth at the time. This 
will save rusted nuts and gears, missing 
attachments and other aggravating delays 
in the spring. It is a good plan to sharpen 
up all hoe and cutting tools now. In the 
winter you cannot do it so conveniently, 
and in spring you will be too busy. Sharp 
tools cut your work in two. 
As the ground freezes hard, those things 
which recjuire winter protection should be 
looked to. Strawberries and onions and 
spinach for taking through the winter, the 
asparagus and rhubarb beds, if they have 
not already been done; the hardy border 
and bulb beds, newly planted shrubs, the 
rose garden, the azalea bed, will all require 
mulching. Your mulching material — 
leaves, marsh hay or stray dry manure—is, 
or should be, on hand. If not, get busy 
and procure it at once. A supply of ever¬ 
green boughs, if they are available, should 
also be obtained, as they are not onlv ex¬ 
cellent for holding the mulch in place, but 
remain attractive in appearance through 
the bare winter months. Where these are 
not to be had, old boards will answer the 
purpose. Narrow chicken wire, run around 
the edge of the bed and held in place by 
short stakes, provides a very neat and 
effective method of keeping the mulch of 
leaves in place; a few boards laid across 
the top will keep them from blowing 
away until they become “settled.” 
Teas and tender hybrid tea roses, and 
standard or tree roses, require special pro¬ 
tection. Straw jackets, bound in place 
with heavy tarred twine, may be placed 
around them. A surer and easier way for 
the latter is to have them growing in large 
pots, or, better, plant tubs with handles, 
such as are used for tender hvdrangeas. 
These may be moved, after moderate 
winter quarters, where they will be pro¬ 
tected from too severe freezing, but will 
remain cold enough to stay dormant until 
spring. 
Where experience has proved that the 
winters are too severe for the varieties of 
raspberries which may be grown, they may 
be given protection by bending them 
down, after the old canes have been cut 
out in the fall, and shoveling a little earth 
on the ends to hold them in place. This 
in itself is a good deal of protection, but if 
not enough, a mulch of hay or cornstalks 
Frames in active use should be watered more sparingly 
as the days grow colder 
may be spread over the whole bed. It 
must, however, be removed in the spring 
before any growth starts, or the canes will 
root where covered with soil. 
After these things are done, take advan¬ 
tage of every sunny day to get the winter 
work started ; pruning, the first “dormant” 
spraying, brush cut, stones or rubbish 
heaps removed, or any other cold-weather 
job which may be waiting. The pruning 
of young trees is comparatively easy-—- 
“prune to an open center,” or so that a 
low, spreading head is developed, being 
the rule to follow. But old trees that 
have been neglected for a long time are a 
38° 
much more difficult job. With such you 
should aim to do three things: cut out all 
dead, diseased and “barked” wood, re¬ 
move all brushy and surplus growth, and, 
if possible, lower the head by cutting out 
the top and saving clean, young growth 
on the lower branches. With grapes, nine 
people out of ten don’t prune enough. If 
the vines have been cared for regularly 
everything should be cut away clean ex¬ 
cept three to five of the canes which bore 
this fall. These should be cut back to a 
few buds — eight to twelve — each. Vines 
growing over an arbor, or which have 
gone without pruning for a number of 
years, should have the laterals cut back 
to a few buds each. 
The Frames and Hot-Beds 
Even if you do not plan to keep your 
frames busy all winter, do not neglect 
them now. After the spring supply of 
plants is removed the frames are fre¬ 
quently left to themselves. By fall they 
are grown up to grass and weeds, which 
are allowed to go to seed and finally to 
freeze into the soil, even if the tops are 
cut off in the late fall clean-up. Fork the 
beds up now, removing all old bunches of 
roots, etc. If you have manure available, 
put on a good dressing of it, both to en¬ 
rich the soil and to prevent its freezing 
hard. A mulch of leaves on top of this 
will be of still further advantage. In the 
spring the leaves may be taken out and 
composted, and the manure, which will be 
in fine condition, forked in. See to it also 
that a supply of earth and compost is put 
aside for use in starting early plants next 
spring. A barrel of each in the cellar, 
ready for flats in February or March, may 
mean a great deal to next summer’s gar¬ 
den. 
Frames in active use should be watered 
and ventilated more and more sparingly as 
the days grow shorter and colder. The 
use of double-glass sash has greatly in¬ 
creased the efficiency and the pleasure to 
be had from frame gardening. The double 
layer of glass, which takes the place of a 
mat or shutter, admits the light, while 
keeping out the cold. 
