House cr 
Garden 
48 
THE WAR GARDEN DEPARTMENT 
With the approach of the planting season coH cro p s . The war garden zeal of last season must 
who can to raise Ins or her bit of the Purely «ftiUor»o» 0 c ‘ , greater experience on the part of the 
be repeated in 1018, with that increasedleffe^tnessw^heome^erg^^ magazin ^ t0 attaining 
gardeners. Each month we will devote this Page, as “ 1 , ra i s i ng vegetables and other food crops 
ttrtus «■— Ho °" 
D. R. EDSON 
F EBRUARY, with its winds and snows, seems a 
time when there is little that can be done in con¬ 
nection with gardening matters. The work that 
is undertaken this month, however, determines to a 
large extent the success of the whole season s garden¬ 
ing activities—and this is more true in 1918 than 
usually. Preparedness in advance is the secret of suc¬ 
cess in gardening, even in normal times when there 
are ample supplies of seeds and implements of all 
kinds which can be obtained promptly. This year, 
when seeds and fertilizers are short, and manufac¬ 
turers are behind on their orders, preparedness as- 
sumes an even more important role. Make a special 
point, therefore, of doing all preparatory work now. 
One of the most important factors 
in having a good garden and a gar¬ 
den of big yields is to get it planted | 
early, with a good supply of all the | 
vegetables which can be started | 
under glass, thus cutting down the | 
time required for the first crops to | 
be ready for use, and permitting the 
sowing of succession crops and win- | 
ter crops to the best advantage. If 
you have the facilities for starting 
your own plants, by all means grow | f 
them yourself; not only because this 
will mean a considerable saving, but 
because you can grow for yourself j 
better plants, in nine cases out of 
ten, than if you waited until plant¬ 
ing time to buy them. Start them | 
early; then if you fail with the first * 
sowing, you still have time to sow 
again. Moreover, we have had an 
earlier and harder winter this year 
than for several years, and the 
chances are that we will have a cor¬ 
respondingly earlier spring than we 
have had for several years. 
The First Things to Sow 
The first things to sow are cab¬ 
bage, cauliflower, beets, lettuce, 
onions and kohlrabi. These should 
be sown from February until early 
March, according to your facilities 
for starting them and the climate in 
your locality. Follow these in two or 
three weeks with celery and tomatoes, 
egg-plant and peppers, which should 
be given a temperature some ten de¬ 
grees higher, as they will not make 
satisfactory growth without abund¬ 
ant heat and, if once checked in their 
growth by too low a temperature, 
take a long time to get over it. The 
details of how to prepare the soil, 
sowing, watering and so forth are 
given on page 26. 
Although this is going to be a war year, and we 
will need all the food we can possibly produce, there 
is no good reason for entirely omitting flowers from 
the program. The starting of a few dozen plants 
of the best known annuals and biennials and peren¬ 
nials, such as ageratum, sweet alyssum, antirrhinum, 
asters, coleus, cosmos, heliotrope, kochia, lobelia, mari¬ 
golds, petunias, mignonette, phlox, salvias, verbenas, 
or zinnias will take little time and little space in 
addition to that requireckyfor the vegetable plants. 
Even if you feel that you cannot have a separate 
flower garden this year, there is plenty of opportu¬ 
nity to use these plants as borders for the vegetables, 
in out-of-the-way corners, and in regular beds of 
hardy perennials or roses. Let us still have flowers 
that we may combat the mailed fist and the shining 
sword in spirit as well as by force! 
In this connection, why not have a few sweet peas 
this year, better than you ever had them before? 
The one sure way to do it is to start the plants early 
under glass in small paper pots. By doing this, 
you can afford to get the newest and the most rare 
varieties, for every seed may be made to count. The 
pots—which are packed in flats or in the greenhouse 
bench or in a frame—are filled with a little fine 
manure sifted in the bottom, over which rich, light 
soil is placed. The seed may be planted directly m 
the pots, but to make assurance doubly sure sprout 
them first in moist cotton or humus or sifted leaf mo d 
in a flower pot or saucer where each individual seed 
can be watched. The small, round, hard seeds should 
be slightly notched with a sharp knife or cut with a 
file care being taken not to injure the ‘eye . they 
should be watched carefully, and as each seed shows 
signs of coming to life, it may be put into a pot. As 
soon as they are well started, they shou d be grown 
quite cool, and, of course, hardened off thoroughly 
before being set out in the open. 
Along with the flowers you start from seed,, you 
will want new plants of such things as geraniums, 
begonias, Paris daisies, 
heliotrope, snap¬ 
dragons of some par¬ 
ticular color, and of 
such other things as 
you may have kept 
stock plants of through 
the winter. I gave 
suggestions last month 
* as to how to start 
plants of this kind 
The seedling -flat, es¬ 
pecially after germina¬ 
tion, should receive 
plenty of warmth and 
light 
The setting out of 
young tomato plants 
should be attended to 
before they become 
pot-bound 
Get the hotbed ready. 
It is one of your most 
valuable aids in se¬ 
curing early vege¬ 
tables 
into active growth so as to get the new wood from 
which to make the cuttings. While old wood will 
not give satisfactory results, being very slow to 
root and to grow, wood that is too young and soft 
is equally unsatisfactory because it is sure to wilt 
or to rot in the cutting bed or saucer. A simple but 
reliable test of when the wood is in the proper con¬ 
dition to root readily is to bend it, about where you 
expect to take the cuttings, between the thumb and 
forefinger; if it is fairly brittle and snaps like a fresh 
string bean it is about right to use; but if it is so 
old and so soft that it will double up and make a 
bruised instead of a clean break, it is not in the right 
condition. New growth or sprouts, only two or three 
joints in length, cut away from the old branches with 
a bit of “heel”, make good cuttings even when quite 
young. The cuttings, or slips, should be 2 to 4 
long, made with a clean cut, and with lower leaves 
removed and those remaining, if large, cut back so 
as to reduce the leaf surface and evaporation. The 
sand in which to root the cuttings may be placed 
either in a bench or in a flat, or for only a few cut¬ 
tings, in a bulb pan or seed pan 2" to 3' deep. This 
should be underlaid with drainage material to per¬ 
mit the immediate passing off of any surplus water. 
Put the little cuttings in, planting them to half their 
depth in straight rows about as close as they will go 
without crowding each other. Water them frequently 
enough to keep the soil moderately moist, but not wet. 
Shade for a few days from the hot sun to prevent 
wilting. They will begin to strike new roots in two 
to four weeks, when they can be potted up and begin 
their careers as individual plants. 
Reliable Seeds 
Seed stocks of all kinds of vegetables 
were more nearly exhausted last year 
than ever before. Many things were 
cleaned out entirely, and the supplies 
usually carried for a year ahead had to 
be drawn upon. On top of this situa¬ 
tion, last year’s production in many 
things was below normal. And, of the 
seed harvested, some things did not 
fully mature, due to the very late, wet 
spring and the early fall frosts. For 
all these reasons, the planter will have 
to be on his guard against buying poor 
seed this year. Extra care should be 
taken to procure it only from the most 
reliable sources. Seed of your own, left 
over from last year, may or may not be 
good. The only way of being sure of 
vour seeds, whether bought this year 
or saved from last, is to test them. 
(Continued on page 66) 
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