Garden Suggestions 
cind 
Queries 
The Ve6 etable Garden 
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CONDUCTED BY F. F. ROCKWELL 
Author of Home Vegetable Gardening and Gardening 
Indoors and Under Glass 
Winter Activities 
OST of us who have even the 
smallest sort of a garden and 
place to look after find all we can possibly 
attend to to do in the spring months. 
Therefore, it is a wise and profitable 
course to take advantage of every warm 
day that comes along during January and 
February and get the few outside jobs 
which can be done at this season of the 
year cleaned up. Of these jobs the most 
important are spraying and pruning. 
Fruit growing during the last two gen¬ 
erations has undergone quite a change. 
Formerly everyone who had a piece of 
ground the size of a door yard or larger 
set out a few fruit trees and enjoyed the 
apples, plumbs, peaches and cherries, 
which, except for an occasional “off sea¬ 
son,” grew about as easily and abundantly 
as grass by the roadside. Then with the 
coming of the peach “yellows,” the San 
Jose scale, and a score of insects and dis¬ 
eases, fruit trees died out or were cut 
down, and only the commercial growers 
succeeded in getting any crops of fruit. 
Now, however, not only can we grow 
better fruit than ever before, but the man 
with a small place and only a few trees 
can produce high quality fruit that will 
pay him a hundred times over for all the 
work he spends at it. But unless he is 
willing to prune and spray intelligently, 
he cannot expect any satisfactory results. 
The apparatus for home spraying is 
simple: A small hand compressed air 
sprayer (which you should have not only 
for winter spraying but a hundred and one 
other purposes which will make its ,use 
necessary almost every week in the year) 
and an extension rod or bamboo pole with 
which to reach the higher branches. 
There are several types of nozzles, but one 
so constructed that it will not clog easily 
and will throw the spray in a fine mist 
should be selected; the type known as 
“goose-neck” is most convenient to use, as 
a simple turn of the wrist will take the 
place of several steps in turning the spray 
from one side of a branch to the other. 
In all spraying, it is important to know 
first of all just what you are going after 
and what to use. The most common in¬ 
sects which can be reached by the winter 
or “dormant” sprays are the San Jose 
scale, which when numerous clusters in 
colonies which form a crust or scaly ap¬ 
pearance on the bark, though the indi¬ 
vidual specimens are only about the size 
of a pin-head with a slightly raised center 
(if you have noticed minute red-edged 
spots on your apples or.pears when har¬ 
vesting last fall, your trees are sure to be 
infested with the scale) ; the oyster-shell 
scale, which is considerably larger, the 
scale or shell being in the shape of an 
oyster-shell about an eighth of an inch in 
length, under which careful inspection 
will reveal during the winter small whitish 
eggs; and the scurfy scale, also about an 
eighth of an inch long and pear-shaped, 
under which may be found eggs of a 
purplish color. To attack these you may 
use your choice of two forms of spray, 
one of the “miscible” or water-soluble oils, 
or lime-sulphur wash. Both are now put 
up in commercial preparations, so that the 
Pruning may be done any lime between mid-winter 
and early spring 
only thing necessary to do to use them is 
to mix them with water. 
The so-caiied “dormant” sprays, if used 
at winter strength, must be applied before 
the buds open in the spring. The ad¬ 
vantage of winter spraying, besides the 
economizing of time effected, is that a 
much stronger solution can be used, and, 
tnere being no foliage in the way, the 
trees may be covered more thoroughly. 
Winter Pruning 
LONG with the spraying, adequate 
pruning is equally important. This 
should be done also any time between 
mid-winter and the time the buds swell 
in the spring. Very little equipment is 
needed: a small pruning saw (which will 
cost you from sixty cents to two dollars, 
according to the type and size), a good 
stout knife and a pair of pruning shears. 
If you have much of this work to do, 
apples, peaches, pears, cherries, cur¬ 
rants, quinces, gooseberries, grapes— 
these should all be put into shape before 
the rush of spring work begins. Apples, 
pears and cherries will not need much 
attention if the trees have been well looked 
after in the past. Cut out any dead, 
broken or rubbing branches and cut off 
all suckers or sprouts. Peaches, where a 
strong growth of wood has been made, will 
require a little more severe treatment. 
They are more apt than the other sorts to 
overset and plenty of air and sunlight is 
absolutely necessary in order to secure 
good size and color. 
Currants and gooseberries, especially 
the latter, should be quite severely pruned, 
but take out only wood that is over three 
years old, or new growth where it is too 
thick, as the best fruit is borne on two 
and three-year-old wood. The greatest 
enemy of gooseberries is mildew, and in 
order to prevent this it is necessary to 
have plenty of light and air reach every 
part of the plant. All branches which 
droop over and touch the ground should 
be cut off, and any which cross each other 
or rub together. Keep the gooseberries 
cut to a single stem, or two at the most. 
Grapes require comparatively severe 
pruning. Where they have not been 
trained to a trellis by a regular system of 
pruning—that is, where the vine or vines, 
have been trained against a wall, house or 
over an arbor—the laterals should be cut 
back to within a few buds of the trunk. 
Always in pruning keep an eye open 
for “black-knot” or diseased bark of any 
kind, and cut it out. Also pick any 
dried-up fruit or “mummies” which may 
still cling to the branches and burn them. 
Any cavities or holes should be dug out 
clean and filled with cement as soon as the 
weather gets warm enough for it to “set” 
without danger of freezing in the process. 
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