278 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
April, 1911 
A MEDIAEVAL CONDITION 
Telephone Service- 
Universal or Limited? 
T ELEPHONE users make more 
local than long distance calls 
yet to each user comes the vital 
demand for distant communication. 
No individual can escape this 
necessity. It comes to all and can¬ 
not be foreseen. 
No community can afford to 
surround itself with a sound-proof 
Chinese Wall and risk telephone 
isolation. 
No American State would be 
willing to make its boundary line 
an impenetrable barrier, to prevent 
telephone communication with the 
world outside. 
Each telephone subscriber, each 
community, each State demands to 
be the center of a talking circle 
which shall be large enough to 
include all possible needs of 
inter-communication. 
In response to this universal 
demand the Bell Telephone System 
is clearing the way for universal 
service. 
cultivating with the idea of merely keep¬ 
ing the garden free from weeds: this 
should be of secondary importance only. 
Cultivate because cultivation makes things 
grow! Remember that plant food must be 
available before it does your plants one iota 
of good. Every time you stir the soil you 
help to change stored-up plant food into 
available plant food; you cook a meal for 
the things in your garden. More than that, 
it breaks up the little soil tubes through 
which water escapes from the garden into 
the air, and thus keeps the moisture where 
it will help feed your plants—for every 
grain of food they get must first be dis¬ 
solved in water. Read the tool article on 
page 254, and the Garden Department, for 
further hints in regard to early cultiva¬ 
tion. 
I have been speaking about the garden of 
vegetables; but most of the principles in¬ 
volved apply as well to the making of the 
flower garden. Flower seeds are generally 
much smaller than vegetable seeds ; and in 
sowing be careful to cover them with very 
finely sifted soil, and plant where they will 
not be washed out by heavy rains. It is 
a good plan to have a seed-bed especially 
prepared, in which to start the seed, 
short rows, only a few inches apart. 
When they are well up, thin out; and later 
transplant on a cloudy day. Don’t let them 
stay too long in the seed-bed, or they will 
send down long, thick main roots, known 
as tap-roots, and then will not readily 
stand the operation of being moved and re¬ 
planted. 
[Next month’s continuation of this arti¬ 
cle will take up further details of the 
dozver garden, also the matter of special 
cultivation for vegetables and the cam¬ 
paign against plant enemies . — Editor.] 
Grass Seed Mixtures and How 
to Use Them 
(Continued from page 251) 
Kentucky blue grass, wood meadow 
grass, various-leaved fescue and crested 
dog’s tail. Use thirty-five per cent, of the 
first two and fifteen per cent, of the last 
two. 
For conditions that require a quick¬ 
growing grass, and something that will 
bind and make a holding upon slopes under 
difficult conditions, the following is recom¬ 
mended : Kentucky blue grass, 30 per 
cent.; R. I. bent, thirty per cent.; creeping 
bent, twenty-five per cent.; sheep fescue, 
ten per cent., and white clover, five per 
cent. This is one of the places where white 
clover is an essential. Under these condi¬ 
tions it fulfils its mission perfectly. While 
all the named kinds may not flourish, there 
will be enough to make the work success¬ 
ful. 
The turf on a putting-green must be 
dense and low and tough enough to stand 
a lot of rough usage. A combination of 
Rhode Island bent and creeping bent is 
about the best thing for this purpose. To 
check up, just refer back to your schedule 
and see what it says of these grasses. 
The soil on a putting-green should be of 
a sandy nature. This keeps the grass 
Every "Bell Telephone is the Center of the System 
AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY 
And Associated Companies 
Their reputation needs 
no varnish. Keep them 
in memory and specify Glid- 
den’s Green Label Varnishes 
and White Enamels. They 
flow like oil, set like glass, and last 
like steel. Sold everywhere. The 
Glidden Varnish Co., Cleveland, O.; 
Toronto, Ontario. 
A SUBSTITUTE 
For Bordeaux Mixture 
10-gal. keg making 2,000 to 5,000 gals, spray, delivered 
at any R.R. station in the United States for $12.50. Prompt 
shipments. Every grower of fruits and vegetables should 
have our Report of wonderful results 1910. 
B.G. PRATT CO., Manufacturing Chemists, 
50 CHURCH ST., NEW YORK CITY 
In writing to advertisers please mention House and Garden. 
