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will

have a wider range of use than the older sorts.

 

Pumpkins:—The old Large Cheese, and the newer Quaker Pie, are

as prolific, hardy and fine in quality and sweetness as any.

 

Potato:—Bovee is a good early garden sort, but without the best

of culture is very small. Irish Cobbler is a good early white. Green

Mountain is a universal favorite for main crop in the East—a sure

yielder and heavy-crop potato of excellent quality. Uncle Sam is the

best quality potato I ever grew. Baked, they taste almost as rich as

chestnuts.

 

Radish:—I do not care to say much about radishes; I do not like

them. They are, however, universal favorites. They come round, half-long, long and tapering; white, red, white-tipped, crimson, rose,

yellow-brown and black; and from the size of a button to over a foot

long by fifteen inches in circumference—the latter being the new

Chinese or Celestial. So you can imagine what a revel of varieties the

seedsmen may indulge in. I have tried many—and cut my own list down to

two, Rapid-red (probably an improvement of the old standard, Scarlet

Button), and Crimson Globe (or Giant), a big, rapid, healthy grower of

good quality, and one that does not get “corky.” A little land-plaster,

or gypsum, worked into the soil at time of planting, will add to both

appearance and quality in radishes.

 

Spinach:—The best variety of spinach is Swiss Chard Beet (see

below). If you want the real sort, use Long Season, which will give you

cuttings long after other sorts have run to seed. New Zealand will

stand more heat than any other sort. Victoria is a newer variety, for

which the claim of best quality is made. In my own trial I could not

notice very much difference. It has, however, thicker and “savoyed”

leaves.

 

Salsify:—This is, to my taste, the most delicious of all root

vegetables. It will not do well in soil not deep and finely pulverized,

but a row or two for home use can be had by digging and fining before

sowing the seed. It is worth extra work. Mammoth Sandwich is the best

variety.

 

Squash:—Of this fine vegetable there are no better sorts for

the home garden than the little Delicata, and Fordhook. Vegetable

Marrow is a fine English sort that does well in almost all localities.

The best of the newer large-vined sorts is The Delicious. It is of

finer quality than the well known Hubbard. For earliest use, try a few

plants of White or Yellow Bush Scalloped. They are not so good in

quality as either Delicata or Fordhook, which are ready within a week

or so later. The latter are also excellent keepers and can be had, by

starting plants early and by careful storing, almost from June to June.

 

Tomato:—If you have a really hated enemy, give him a dozen seed

catalogues and ask him to select for you the best four tomatoes. But

unless you want to become criminally involved, send his doctor around

the next morning. A few years ago I tried over forty kinds. A good many

have been introduced since, some of which I have tried. I am prepared

to make the following statements: Earliana is the earliest quality

tomato, for light warm soils, that I have ever grown; Chalk’s Jewel,

the earliest for heavier soils (Bonny Best Early resembles it);

Matchless is a splendid main-crop sort; Ponderosa is the biggest and

best quality—but it likes to split. There is one more sort, which I

have tried one year only, so do not accept my opinion as conclusive. It

is the result of a cross between Ponderosa and Dwarf Champion—one of

the strongest-growing sorts. It is called Dwarf Giant. The fruits are

tremendous in size and in quality unsurpassed by any. The vine is very

healthy, strong and stocky. I believe this new tomato will become the

standard main crop for the home garden. By all means try it. And that

is a good deal to say for a novelty in its second year!

 

Turnip:—The earliest turnip of good quality is the White Milan.

There are several others of the white-fleshed sorts, but I have never

found them equal in quality for table to the yellow sorts. Of these,

Golden Ball (or Orange Jelly) is the best quality. Petrowski is a

different and distinct sort, of very early maturity and of especially

fine quality. If you have room for but one sort in your home garden,

plant this for early, and a month later for main crop.

 

Do not fail to try some of this year’s novelties. Half the fun of

gardening is in the experimenting. But when you are testing out the new

things in comparison with the old, just take a few plants of the latter

and give them the same extra care and attention. Very often the

reputation of a novelty is built upon the fact that in growing it on

trial the gardener has given it unusual care and the best soil and

location at his command. Be fair to the standards—and very often they

will surprise you fully as much as the novelties.

CHAPTER XIII

INSECTS AND DISEASES AND METHODS OF FIGHTING THEM

 

I use the term “methods of fighting” rather than the more usual one,

“remedies,” because by both experience and study I am more and more

convinced that so long as the commercial fields of agriculture remain

in the present absolutely unorganized condition, and so long as the

gardener—home or otherwise—who cares to be neglectful and thus become

a breeder of all sorts of plant pests, is allowed so to do—just so

long we can achieve no remedy worth the name. When speaking of a remedy

in this connection we very frequently are putting the cart before the

horse, and refer to some means of prevention. Prevention is not only

the best, but often the only cure. This the gardener should always

remember.

 

This subject of plant enemies has not yet received the attention from

scientific investigators which other branches of horticulture have, and

it is altogether somewhat complicated.

 

Before taking up the various insects and diseases the following

analysis and list will enable the reader to get a general comprehension

of the whole matter.

 

Plant enemies are of two kinds—(1) insects, and (2) diseases. The

former are of two kinds, (a) insects which chew or eat the leaves or

fruit; (b) insects which suck the juices therefrom. The diseases also

are of two kinds—(a) those which result from the attack of some

fungus, or germ; (b) those which attack the whole organism of the plant

and are termed “constitutional.” Concerning these latter practically

nothing is known.

 

It will be seen at once, of course, that the remedy to be used must

depend upon the nature of the enemy to be fought. We can therefore

reduce the matter to a simple classification, as follows:

 

PLANT ENEMIES

 

Insects Class

 

Eating a

Sucking b

 

Diseases

 

Parasitical c

Constitutional d

 

REMEDIES

 

Mechanical Number

Covered boxes……….. 1

Collars…………….. 2

Cards………………. 3

 

Destructive

Hand-picking………… 4

Kerosene emulsion……. 5

Whale-oil soap………. 6

Miscible oils……….. 7

Tobacco dust………… 8

Carbolic acid emulsion.. 9

Corrosive sublimate…. 10

Bordeaux mixture……. 11

 

Poisonous

Paris green………… 12

Arsenate of lead……. 13

Hellebore………….. 14

 

It will be of some assistance, particularly as regards quick reference,

to give the following table, which shows at a glance the method of

fighting any enemy, the presence of which is known or anticipated.

 

While this may seem quite a formidable list, in

practice many of these pests will not appear, and

under ordinary circumstances the following six

remedies out of those mentioned will suffice to keep

them all in check, if used in time: Covered boxes,

hand-picking, kerosene emulsion, tobacco dust, Bordeaux

mixture, arsenate of lead.

 

ENEMY | ATTACKING | CLASS | REMEDY

––––––—|–––––––––-|––—|––-

Aphis (Plant-lice) | Cabbage and other plants, | b | 5,8,6

| especially under glass | |

Asparagus-beetle | Asparagus | a | 13, 12

Asparagus rust | Asparagus | c | 11

Black-rot | Cabbage and the cabbage | d | 10

| group | |

Borers | Squash | b | 4

Caterpillars | Cabbage group | a |12, 14, 4

Caterpillars | Tomato | a | 4

Club-root | Cabbage group | c | see text

Cucumber-beetle | Cucumber and vines | a | 1, 11, 8

(Striped beetle) | | |

Cucumber-wilt | Cucumber and vines | c | 11

Cucumber-blight | Cucumber, muskmelon, | c | 11

| cabbage | |

Cutworm | Cabbage, tomato, onion | a |2,4,12,13

Flea-beetle | Potato, turnip, radish | a | 11, 5

Potato-beetle | Potato and eggplant | a |12, 13, 4

Potato-blight | Potato | c | 11

Potato-scab | Potato (tubers) | c | 10

Root-maggot | Radish, onion, cabbage, | a | 4, 3, 9

| melons | |

Squash-bug | Squash, pumpkin | b |4,8,12,5

White-fly | Plants; cucumber, tomato | b | 6, 5, 8

White-grub | Plants | a | 4

 

However, that the home gardener may be prepared to meet any

contingency, I shall take up in brief detail the plant enemies

mentioned and the remedies suggested.

 

Aphis:—The small, soft green plant-lice. They seldom attack

healthy growing plants in the field, but are hard to keep off under

glass. If once established it will take several applications to get rid

of them. Use kerosene or soap emulsion, or tobacco dust. There are also

several trademarked preparations that are good. Aphine, which may be

had of any seed house, has proved very effective in my own work, and it

is the pleasantest to use that I have so far found.

 

Asparagus-beetle:—This pest will give little trouble on cleanly

cultivated patches. Thorough work with arsenate of lead (1 to 25) will

take care of it.

 

Black-rot:—This affects the cabbage group, preventing heading,

by falling of the leaves. In clean, thoroughly limed soil, with proper

rotations, it is not likely to appear. The seed may be soaked, in cases

where the disease has appeared previously, for fifteen minutes in a

pint of water in which one of the corrosive sublimate tablets which are

sold at drug stores is dissolved.

 

Borers:—This borer is a flattish, white grub, which penetrates

the main stem of squash or other vines near the ground and seems to sap

the strength of the plant, even when the vines have attained a length

of ten feet or more. His presence is first made evident by the wilting

of the leaves during the noonday heat. Coal ashes mixed with the manure

in the hill, is claimed to be a preventative. Another is to plant some

early squash between the hills prepared for the winter crop, and not to

plant the latter until as late as possible. The early squash vines,

which act as a trap, are pulled and burned.

 

Last season almost half the vines in one of my pieces were attacked

after many of the squashes were large enough to eat. With a little

practice I was able to locate the borer’s exact position, shown by a

spot in the stalk where the flesh was soft, and of a slightly different

color. With a thin, sharp knife-blade the vines were carefully slit

lengthwise on this spot, the borer extracted and killed and the vines

in almost every instance speedily recovered. Another method is to root

the vines by heaping moist earth over several of the leaf joints, when

the vines have attained sufficient length.

 

Cabbage-caterpillar:—This small green worm, which hatches upon

the leaves and in the forming heads of cabbage and other vegetables of

the cabbage group, comes from the eggs laid by the

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