60 
House & Garden 
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B 
ETTER GARDENS” is the keynote in 1918, just 
as ‘‘More Gardens” a year ago created millions of 
new ones. To get the best results from your gar¬ 
den you must have the highest quality of seeds obtain¬ 
able. While the cost of the seeds in your garden is the 
smallest cost, it is really the most important. Every 
packet of Henderson’s seeds has behind it the accumu¬ 
lated experience of 71 years of successful seed raising 
and selling. Use Henderson s Tested Seeds this year and 
get the fullest results from your garden. 
“Everything for the Garden” is the title of our annual 
catalogue. It is really a book of 192 pages, 16 colored 
plates and over 1,000 half-tones direct from photographs. 
It is a library of everything worth while for the gardener, 
farmer or lover of flowers. 
An Unusual Offer 
To obtain for our annual catalogue, “Everything for 
the Garden,” described above, the largest possible dis¬ 
tribution, we make the following unusual offer: To 
everyone who will mail us 1 0c we will send the cata¬ 
logue and our ‘ Henderson Specialty Collection. In 
addition, we will send without extra charge our Booklet, 
“Better Gardens.” 
After all, it is the actual results which count, and to 
demonstrate the superiority of Henderson’s Tested Seeds 
we have made up this Henderson Collection, consisting 
of one packet of each of the following six great special¬ 
ties: Ponderosa Tomato, Big Boston Lettuce, White 
Tipped Scarlet Radish, Henderson’s Invincible Asters, 
Brilliant Mixture Poppies and Giant Waved Spencer 
Sweet Peas, all enclosed in a coupon envelope which, 
when emptied and returned, will be accepted as 25c cash 
payment on any order 
of seeds, plants or bulbs 
amounting to $1.00 or 
over. Make this year a 
“better garden” year. 
Peter Henderson & Company, 
35-57 Cortlandt Street, N. Y. C. 
I enclose herewith 10c, for which send 
catalogue, “Everything for the Garden,” 
and complete cultural directions, “Hend¬ 
erson’s Specialty Collection,” in coupon 
envelope, and booklet, “Better Gardens” 
as advertised in House &c Garden. 
Name 
Address 
Peter Henderson & Co. 
35-37 GORTLANDT ST. 
NEW YORK CITY 
Giving the Garden a Running Start 
(Continued from page 26) 
have ample time to mature before fall, a dollar a bag or so, makes an excellent 
Another is that the weaklings are dis- material in which to start seeds. A half 
carded before the plants are put in to two-thirds of the mixture, should be 
their permanent positions; and they humus, the heavier the garden soil the 
have such a good start that insects and more humus being required. This will 
dry weather have less effect on them give a soil not only very porous, but 
than when they are started from seed, very light, the advantage of the latter 
In starting your own plants, more- characteristic being that it will not form 
over, you know exactly what you are a crust on the surface as ordinary soil 
getting. In buying promiscuously you will do. This would prevent a large per- 
are taking a big chance. In last year’s centage of the seeds from ever coming up, 
unprecedented demand for vegetable even though they may germinate proper- 
plants, I know of some gardeners who ly. The humus-soil, on the contrary, 
set out the “very thrifty pepper plants” is of such a nature that the surface 
they had obtained, only to have them cannot cohere, and as soon as the little 
develop into beautiful scarlet salvias! seeds sprout they come up through it 
You may be enough of a gardener not without having to “push” at all. As a 
to be taken in that way, but no gard- result, every good seed counts, and there 
ener can tell the pedigree or even the are no misshapen or twisted plants to 
exact variety by looking at a young be discarded. Such a soil, too, makes 
plant. transplanting very much easier; the little 
Even if you have not the equipment particles of soil separate readily and 
ready now for starting your own plants, cling to the foots as the plants are taken 
it is possible to get ready for this out. Furthermore, the roots are not 
spring’s work if you begin at once, broken as they would have to be in get- 
Building a hotbed or a small greenhouse ting the seedlings out of a heavy soil, 
in the old-fashioned way with hammer , _ , 
and saw was a time consuming job, 1116 » eet *-r!ea 
and practically out of the question for Next, there is the problem of prepar- 
this time of the year. The first green- ing what, out of doors, we would call the 
house I ever built—a little affair, 10' “seed-bed.” It is not enough just to 
x 12', of homemade sash bars and old have good soil. It must be so placed 
photographers’ plates—was put up in that any surplus water, which will pass 
February, but only ignorance and the readily through such a soil as described 
enthusiasm of youth led me to do it. above, will drain off readily. For this, 
With the modern ready-made and and for other reasons which will be ap- 
standardized construction of hotbeds parent later, it is usually best to Use 
and cold-frames, however, and sectional “flats” or shallow boxes to start the 
small greenhouses in complete units, seeds in, instead of putting the soil 
the building of a frame or a small directly in the hotbed or the greenhouse 
greenhouse is a matter of hours where bench. Large flower pots are often 
it used to take days. A hotbed or used, especially for the smaller quanti- 
frame against a house where heat from ties of seeds. The flats or seed boxes 
the cellar or the heating plant in the are 2" to 3" deep. They may be made 
cellar can be utilized, can be put up with little trouble or expense from any 
very quickly. The most recent devel- light boxes of convenient size, such as 
opment is heated frames, having their those in which crackers or canned goods 
own heating system in a separate out- come, and which may be had from the 
side compartment. They may be set grocer’s for a nickel or so apiece. These, 
up at any time, temporarily, if neces- cut up into sections 2" or so deep, and 
sary on a layer of manure on the frozen bottomed with the same material, will 
ground. be what are wanted. The bottoms, how- 
One of your problems in starting to ever must not be tight. The dry wood 
build frames or greenhouses at this time will swell as soon as it becomes wet, and 
of the year, of course, is to get soil, the joints will become nearly watertight. 
Most greenhouses and commercial gar- So to provide for the escape of any sur- 
deners carry a large supply on hand, and plus w'ater that may pass down through 
you should have no trouble in securing the soil, the bottom boards should be 
the few bushels likely to be required J4" or so apart; or the bottom should 
for your needs. have a number of holes bored in it. 
As each of these flats will be large 
Success With Seeds enough for the starting of several seed- 
What are the essentials of success in lings, you will not need many of them, 
starting seeds? But as you may also want to use them 
The first, probably, is the personal for transplanting, as described later, and 
equation. If you are willing to devote as they will hold but two to six dozen 
daily attention to your seeds—a few plants when transplanted, you will need 
minutes a day at first, but a half hour or considerably more of them for that pur- 
so, on an average, after they! are started pose. The flats for transplanting should 
■—that is the first consideration. If you be 3" deep; and it is well to make up 
are not, then it will be better to stop be- now all you are likely to need, 
fore you begin, and save yourself the Whether the soil is put in flats, or 
labor and the disappointment which directly in the frames or beds, it should 
neglected plants will certainly bring. have under it a layer of some coarse, 
The first thing to provide, after you porous material which will serve to 
have a place in which to start your make the drainage still more quick and 
seeds, is soil of the right kind. A very certain. Small broken cinders, from 
light, porous soil is necessary. Many which the fine ashes have been sifted, 
gardeners make the mistake of using or sphagnum moss (which can be ob- 
ordinary garden soil for seed starting tained from any greenhouse or general 
under glass. Their assumption is that seedsman) are good for this purpose, 
if seeds will grow in it in the garden, Excelsior will do, but it has the disad- 
they should grow in it in the green- vantage of being non-absorbent, while 
house or the hotbed. In the first place, the other materials mentioned will take 
a very large proportion of seeds do not up and hold a large amount of water, 
grow in it in the garden, only a small which will go back to the soil as it is 
proportion of the seeds sown coming required. A layer of the drainage ma- 
up, under average conditions; and in terial about a third of the depth of the 
the second place, conditions in the box or bench should be put in before 
frames or greenhouse are very different the soil. In the hotbed, where the soil 
from those outdoors. In a well prepared is placed over the fermenting manure, 
garden surplus water has much more of the latter, of course, takes up any sur- 
a chance to drain away than it has in a plus water passing through the soil, 
flat or a frame; and the days are longer 
and sunnier when planting is done in ** l in S ant * Planting 
the open than during February and In filling the flats with soil care 
Matfh. A mixture of clean garden soil should be taken to press it in firmly, 
and “humus,” which can be bought for {Continued on page 62) 
