166 
THE 
WHY 
SEEDS DO NOT GEBMINATN. 
We luiow that in every 
development can begin, and tl at when 
SEASONABLE HINTS. 
The. ideal garden with rows upon rows 
of all the delicious vegetables of mid¬ 
summer, and not a weed anywhere, pie- 
sents a oharming view indeed. But, alas, 
how few of us have come near our ideals? 
Instead of choice vegetables, there arc. 
rank weeds, and where order and beauty 
should reign, desolation stares at us in too 
many family gardens, caused, in most cases, 
by simply having undertaken too much. 
It is now a fitting season to consider how 
much more satisfactoiy and profitable it 
might have been to have planted only half 
or one-quarter of the area, and till it weli, 
than to scatter the available labor over the 
entire groimd, and do nothing to perfection. 
Discouraging as a neglected gardeii ap¬ 
pears, it is not beyond redemption, even at 
this late hour, if taken hold of at once. 
Stunted and failing crops, choked by weeds, 
had better be pulled out at once, weeds and 
all, and burned, and the ground plowed or 
spaded up, and re-planted. 
Beans. Beets, Carrots, Corn, Cucumbers, 
Lettuce, Peas, Badishes, Turnips, Cabba.ge^ 
Caulillower, Celery, etc., may still be sown 
or planted, and under good treatment, will 
yield satisfactory crops. 
Sweet Corn i\s a garden crop may be planted 
with profit, at any time, fi-om the first of 
May till September. Wherever there is a 
strip of land for which one has no special 
use and does not know what to put into it, 
Sweet Corn may be planted to advantage. 
If there should be more than can be used 
fresh, it may be dried for winter, when it is 
sure to be appreciated. And if the ears 
should not mature sutticieutly for use, the 
stalks make valuable fodder, or serve an ex¬ 
cellent purpose for winter-mulching .Sinn- 
ach. Strawberries, etc. Plant some Sweet 
Corn every week 1 
Cummhera require only five to six weeks 
from the planting of the seed till the first 
fruits become fit for use. nierefore seed 
planted early in .July will generally produce 
a full crop. Ground fi'Oin which e.’irly Peas 
have been removed affords an excellent 
place for a row of Cncurnbers, and thej- suc¬ 
ceed in drills as well as in hills. In either 
case some well-decomjjosed stable manure, 
or a good commercial “comjjlete fertilizer" 
should be worked in along tlie I’osvs. 
This manuring in the hill, though all 
wrong, theoretically, woi-ks like a charm 
with Cucumbei-s, and so long as fai-mers can 
grow 200,000 pickles per a(;rc in this W!iy, 
they will probably continue to manure in the 
hill. With so rapidly growing plants as Cu¬ 
cumbers, an im|)ortant object to he accom¬ 
plished is to stimulate growth from the start 
as much as jmssible, so as to enable early 
cultivation. After the vines commence to eariaB.similiiteltsfoodaiidclianc-c ihc 
run they will soon cover the ground so much ." ■ „ - . i. 
as to make cultivation impossible. 
The roots of the plants extenri about as far, 
horizontally, as the vines do, forming a eom- 
jdete net-work below the surface, so that, 
even before the vines touch each other, the 
roots of one hill are fec<ling upon the ma¬ 
nure ill the other hills near at hand. 
—■ ^ q’tie shallower seeds cah be planted, and 
have the necessary moisture and heat, the 
better they will germinate. But to have the 
necessary heat and moisture, it is necessary 
to have a certain amount of earth above 
them. Hence the advantage in compacting 
the earth above seeds*, you lessen the 
distance the plant has to push upward to the 
li<rht and also secure the necessary heat and 
moisture better. If the soil is placed loosely 
about the seed the necessary moisture and 
iieiit is lacking, because of the too free cir¬ 
culation of air about the seed, which dispels 
botli moisture and heat. 
A'rain, I Iiave already stated that thepl.ant 
cannot assimilate food until its foliage 
reaches tlie surface. But it should gather 
food from the soil before that time, that the 
roots and stem may be full of crude sap to 
bo changed in the lcave.s at the earliest pos¬ 
sible moment. The roots which feed the 
very young plant are exceedingly small, 
scarcely noticeable by the naked eye; and 
thc.se roots must come in immediate contact 
witii the moist, warm soil, or they cannot 
feed the plant, and the dry air will kill them. 
The way to bring them in immediate contact 
with the soil, is to bring the soil to them by 
pi essing it about the seed. And when plants 
are thinned out, be c.aref ul to press the earth 
firmly down about those which remain. 
It is a fact th.at all flat seeds germinate 
better when planted on edge, especially 
vine seeds, and where com])lete germination 
is very desirable it will inw to go to 
the trouble of putting the seeds on edge 
when planting them. .Jonx 31. Stahl. 
must be 
fore deveiup>"‘''“-- • follow 
these influences do act, 
These natural V U S 
and air. All must set to work, and .ill must 
exirinsullieient quantity. 
im-, the otiiers cannot make a seed „io . 
Hence, unless the seed is so defective that 
its o-rowth is impossible, its failure is own » 
to the lack of one or more of these natural 
influences. . 
The back of these influences isveryiic- 
quentlyduc to a mistake in covering the 
seeds. The seeds may be covered too deep 
or not deep enough; but the former is much 
the more likely to be the case. This is a 
hardm.attcr to regulate; for soils vary in 
their power to take or to hold heat and moist¬ 
ure. Some soils will be heated to a dejitli 
of three inches more quickly than other soils 
will be heated to a depth of two inches. 
One kind of soil will dry to the depth of one 
inch as quickly as another soil will dry one- 
fourth of an inch. Hence we must consider 
the character of the soil, and jilant dillcr- 
ently if the soil is sandy or loamy, from 
wliat we would were it clayey. 
I am of opinion that in two cases out 
of three the failure of seeds to germinate is 
owing to their being planted too deej). An 
experimenter sowed 125 Onion seeds each at 
the following depths: one-halt, one, one and 
one-half, and two and one-half inches. The 
one-half inch depth gave 100 plants; one 
inch, 90 plants; one and one-half inches, 00 
plants; and two and one-half inches, 12 
plants. The soil was moistened during the 
experiment, else one inch depth would prob 
.ably have given the best results. 
Experiments with difierent soils, 25 seeds 
in each bed, gave results as follows: liglit 
sand, one inch deep, 23 plants; one-halt inch 
deep, 20 plants; one and one-half inches 
deep, 10 jjlants; two and one-half inches 
deep, four plants. Clay soil, one-halt inch 
deep, 23 jilants; one inch, 21 jilants; one 
and one-half inches, 10 plants; two and one- 
halt inches, none. 3hicky loam and black 
sand gave most plants at one-half inch depth. 
.Sweet Corn covered one-halt inch deep will 
germinate in 9.5 cases out of 100; covered 
five inches deei), will germinate in five laises 
out of a hundred; between these depths an 
inverse ratio of geianination will he kciit up 
—the more depth the fewer plants. 
IVhen the seeils tire planted too deep tliey 
have not enough warmth, llie heat of the 
sun not having penetrated to tliat depth; or 
they nitty liiek moisture or inr. Agtiin, the 
|)ltint will he exhtm-ted hefore it reaclies the 
surface. The hulk of the seed is pltinl food 
to nourish the plant, not only till it forms 
roots to suck up sustenancit, hut till its foli- 
age exptmds above the ground, for it is only 
when the light tiets upon its leaves that it 
ertil into the vegettihle matter. It is this 
plant food whidi giviis Peas, IJeaiis, Wheat 
C'orii, Oats, ete., their value .as food for man 
'•‘"'I Now if the plant has too far to 
go to reach the sui-face, its food will he 
exhausted before its leaves get above 
gioiiiid, and it must die,. Tills 
qneiitly oeeursin the field. 
very fre- 
SAWDUST ON POTATOES. 
Somewhere I have seen it recommended 
that Siiwdust be put in the hill with Potatoes 
u'hen iilanted, in order to keep the seed 
moist in a dry time. It will probably keep 
tlie seed moist, but it will do more; that I 
know from experience. It will make an ex¬ 
cellent retreat for the white grub. Last se.a- 
son 1 examined a Potato field on a part of 
wliitdi sawdust had been used as above. On 
this section, tliere were wliite grubs almost 
beyond number, while on the other portion 
there were eompar.ativcly none. When a 
hill of Potatoes was thrown open with the 
fork,.it seemed almost alive with the grubs; 
as tlie liired man said, “The patch is white 
with tliem," and it was true. In five hills 
ajiart from each other 1 found about 30 
grubs. IV'itli this number and more in al¬ 
most every hill in the sawdust section of the 
field, the ground would have appeared 
“white," indeed, could the contents of the 
hills liaveall been exposed at the same time. 
Of course, it might not do to aver that the 
sawilust was the sole cause of the presence 
of till! grubs, hut there tliey wore where the 
sawdust was, ami, 1 might say, only there. 
At any rate I sliould quite as soon run the 
risk attendant uimn dry weather, without 
the sawdust, ns to take it with the sawdust 
and tile grubs. 
It maybe further said, that the Potatoes 
in this field were very scabby, perhaps more 
so wliere l.lie sawdust was not used. Wlicther 
file scab is caused by a iiarasitlc, fungous 
growth or by the wire worm, in this instance 
nearly every Potato had one or more wire 
worms In the nninerous and apparently fresh 
cavities in its surf’aee. J. VV. H- 
