1884.] 
THE AMERICAN GARDEN. 
3 
A PSOHTABLE GAEDEN. 
As an iUnstration of how much a small 
piece of ground can be made to produce, my 
summer’s experience may be of interest' 
My garden plat, of alittle less thau one-quar¬ 
ter of an acre, is a rich, black loam. Its glory 
were two Mammoth Squash vines, which 
produced eleven Squashes, of weight as fol¬ 
lows : The largest, 142 pouuds; the next, 
82 2 pounds; two weighed 130:% pounds; 
two others 9112 pounds; one, 61 pounds; 
two, SII 4 pounds ; and two small ones, not 
matured, 26 poimds. Total weight of the 
eleven, 615 pouuds. 
The remainder of the crops were sixty-ftve 
bushels Early Rose aud Beauty of Hebron 
Potatoes, thirty-five bushels Turnips, aud 
some two dozen or more Hubbard Squashes 
which, at our regular mai-ket prices, would 
have brought the following amounts : 
. 65 busli. Potatoes, at 60 cts. 
MiimmotU Squashes. 15.00 
35 hush. Tuinips, at 25 cts. 8,75 
Hubbard Squashes. . 5.00 
Total..■f 61.25 
Cost of production: 
Seed.S5 00 
Labor. 0 25 
-11.25 
Net profit.$ 50.00 
Being a profit of two hundred dollars per 
acre, and tliis without extra manure or 
better cultivation than is given to ordinary 
field crops. As the ground in this case was 
a formerly unoccupied waste spot of no 
value whatever, no charge is made for the 
■land. M. A. Ayers. 
SCAB nr POTATOES. 
Extensive experiments with remedies for 
Potato scab have long since convinced us of 
the efficacy of some special commercial fer¬ 
tilizers, and although the cause of scab is not 
positively known, its destructions can in 
most cases be entirely prevented. Recent 
experiments in this regard, made by Dr. 
Hemy Stewart, Hackensack, N. J., fully cor¬ 
roborate our own experience. 
The Doctor writes: 
“I have just been digging some of my 
Potatoes (Early Rose), and send you sam¬ 
ple^. The clean large one is a fair specimen 
of some rows manured with the Mapes Po¬ 
tato Manure, eighty feet of row manured with 
the fertilizer produced one barrel, two and 
a half bushels. As the rows were three feet 
apart, the yield is equal to one hundred and 
eighty ban-els, or foiu- hundred and fifty bush¬ 
els per acre. The other Potato, shown in om- 
illustration, engraved from a photograph, is 
a fair specimen of those grown with cow and 
hen manure, yielding a barrel of fan- Pota¬ 
toes to three hundred feet of row, equal to 
a hundred and twenty bushels per acre. A 
large quantity, quite a half of this part of 
the crop, was completely destroyed by wire j 
worms, and not more than half those saved 
would be fit for sale. Not a Potato, of those j 
grown with the fertilizer alone, is touched 
by the worms enough to hurt it. I used ten ] 
loads of manure to a quarter of an acre and | 
fifty pouuds of the fertilizer to one-eighth of 
an acre.” 
Strong as this testimony is, we do not wish 
to convey the idea to our readers that wo 
believe Mapes’s Potato Manure, or any other 
fertilizer we are acquainted with, to be an j 
infallible specific against scab. There may | 
be certain conditions in some soils and sea¬ 
sons which defy or counterbalance its anti¬ 
scab properties to some extent. Yet we 
have never observed an instance in which, 
when properly applied, it was not produc¬ 
tive of decided benefit. The results of 
recent experiments made at the ‘'Rural 
Grounds,” whore 1.048 bushels of Potatoes 
per acre were grown with an application of 
600 pounds Mapes’s Potato Manure, while 
immauured ground under the same cultiva¬ 
tion produced but an average of 200 bush¬ 
els per aero, are especially notable in this 
regard. 
SCABBY POTATO GROWN WITH ANIMAL MANURE. 
DAITGEES OF OANinElD VEGETABLES AND 
FEUITS. 
Canned goods occupy aheady so important 
a place among the industries of our eormtry, I 
and are of so much vital importance to man- 
ufaetm-ers as ■well as producers in many 
sections, that anything that threatens to 
diminish their popularity deserves careful 
investigation. 
Two cases of iroisoning from the use of , 
such goods have reeentlj’' come under our j 
personal observation. In one case, canned 1 
Peaches, eaten by a strong, healthy boy, | 
produced severe pain, vomiting and diar- \ 
rhoea; in the other, canned Beans poisoned j 
an entire family, a nursing baby even being i 
affected through its mother’s milk. The ; 
symptoms were exactly those of poisoning 
from some zinc or copper salts, and serious i 
i-esults might have followed but for the j 
timely assistance of a physician. In both j 
instances the cans were purchased in small j 
country stores, where they had probably ■ 
been standing on the shelves for a consider¬ 
able length of time. : 
There can be no doubt that the long eon- | 
tact of fi-uit acids with the metals of which | 
the solder is composed will gi-adually pro¬ 
duce poisonous salts which, although gen¬ 
erally in too small quantities to produce 
immediately apparent hai-m, are not with¬ 
out injurious effects upon the health and 
constitution of those eatmg them. And the 
longer and warmer the goods are kept the 
gi-eater becomes the danger. 
Manufacturers should lose no time to find 
some moans for sealing the cans hei-meti- 
cally without the use of substances which 
endanger the lives of their customers; or 
laws should be passed to make it obligatory 
that the year in which the goods are put up 
bo plaijily and indelibly stamped on each 
can. This much, it seems, the people have 
surely a right to demand as a matter of self¬ 
protection. 
A EELIABLE SWEET POTATO. 
THE EARLY GOLDEN. 
Growmg Sweet Potatoes very extensively 
for northern markets, and being particularly 
desirous of securing an early variet}-, I pur¬ 
chased in spring, 1881, one pound of Jiarly 
Golden tubers, and bedded them late in April. 
The summer was very dry, yet I raised a 
bushel of Potatoes. The following February 
I bedded them, planted on a quarter of an 
acre of very poor laud, manm-ed with fifty 
pounds of Kainite, and dug, in October, 
sixty bushels of large Potatoes, many of 
them weighing three to four poimds. lu 
Pebmarj', of last year, I bedded twelve 
bushels, but owing to the cold and wet 
spring many rotted in the bed; neverthe¬ 
less, I planted over three acres. We have 
had the most disastrous drought I ever 
knew, and while other varieties of Sweet 
Potatoes were nearly ruined by the heat and 
hot winds, my Goldens kept on growing. 
About the first of August, when other varie¬ 
ties were only of the size of hen’s eggs, I dug 
Goldens of one and of one and a half pounds 
in weight. I am satisfied there is no better 
and more reliable Sweet Potato in the South. 
J. H. PO'WE. 
A NEW METHOD OF WATEE-MELON 
CULTDEE. 
A correspondent of the Sural New-Yorker 
describes the following method by which 
an extraordinary crop of Water-melons was 
raised: Holes were dug ten feet apart each 
way, eighteen inches square and fifteen 
inches deep. These holes were filled with well- 
rotted manure, which was thoroughly incor¬ 
porated with the soil. A low, flat hill was 
then made and seed planted. When the 
■vines were large enough to begin to run, the 
whole surface was covered to the depth of a 
foot or fifteen Inches with wheat-straw. 
The straw was placed close up around the 
vines. No cultivation whatever was given 
afterward; no weeds or gi-ass gi-ew. The 
vines spread over the straw, and the Melons 
matured clean and nice. The yield was 
abundant, and the experiment an entire 
success. This is surel 3 ' worth trying next 
year. 
VALUE OF MANDEE. 
“ Much has been said of the extent of the 
commerce of England, ■with its flags dotting 
every sea, but the entire value of all her 
shipping is not equal to the value of the 
manure applied to the land in any single 
year.” So says Secretary Russell. 
