FARM GARDENING WITH HINTS ON CHEAP MANURING TEXT

heap a rough shed is erected to turn the rain. The top of the flue or ventilator is closed with straw in really cold weather. The spot must be a dry one. The New Jersey sweet potato house is a stone building, say 16 x 18 feet on the inside, with walls 10 feet high, and a good roof. The building is half under ground, and the earth is banked up around it. There is a passage way through the centre, and the bins for the sweet potatoes are 6 to 8 feet square and 8 to 10 feet deep. There is a door on the south side, with window above, and a stove is placed inside the building, for use when required. The walls are plastered, and the under side of the roof is also covered with lath and plaster, and the place is thoroughly weather-proof. A house of this kind will afford storage room for 3,000 or more bushels of sweet potatoes, and will keep them in excellent condition, if all details receive proper attention. The requirements for successful storage are that the tubers shall not be too hot, nor too cold, nor too wet, and that sudden changes of temperature shall be avoided. The sweet potato crop may be said to vary from 100 to 150 bushels per acre, under ordinary management, with higher results under good conditions. CHAPTER V. SASHES AND BEDDING PLANTS. [Illustration] The cost of a hot-bed sash, glazed and painted, is somewhere about $2; and such a sash can be made to earn its cost every year. The farmer who has, say, a pair of sashes for hot-bed work and another pair for cold-frame work, can turn them to very good account in the early spring, not only in starting such bedding plants as may be required in his own operations, but in producing plants for his neighbors. It costs but little more to grow 1,000 than 100 cabbage, tomato or egg plants, and the surplus above the home requirement can be converted into dollars. =The Hot Bed.=--The hot-bed is merely a board-lined pit, containing fermenting manure, with a few inches of soil on the manure, and covered by a sash. The ordinary sash is about 3 x 6 feet. A board shutter, the exact size of the sash, or a mat of straw, completes the outfit. The depth of manure, depending on the purpose in view, should be from 1 to 2 feet, the depth of soil from 3 to 6 inches, and the distance from soil to glass about 4 inches at the start. As the manure ferments the soil will sink. =The Cold Frame.=--The cold frame is merely a piece of rich, mellow soil, enclosed by boards and covered with glass. There is no bottom heat of any kind, but it is a great deal warmer than the open soil, and serves a variety of purposes. In the hot-bed, made in February or March (in the latitude of Philadelphia), all tender things may be started. The usual seeds sown here at that date on heat are cabbage, cauliflower, radish, lettuce, onions, etc., followed by tomato, pepper, celery, egg plant, etc., including flower seeds, if desired. The cold frame is used through the winter for lettuce, onions, carrots, corn salad, spinach, etc., and in spring for the reception of the things started on heat, when the time arrives for transplanting and hardening them. Properly-managed sashes will do a great deal toward the production of early market crops, and profits not infrequently depend upon the item of earliness. The one thing for inexperienced persons to learn about sashes and their uses is the imperative necessity of free ventilation whenever the sun shines on the glass. CHAPTER VI. THE STRAWBERRY. In addition to the several vegetables enumerated in the preceding pages, there is one of the small fruits that has taken such a prominent place in what may be termed farm horticulture as to deserve mention here. It is the strawberry. This berry is, perhaps, the most popular small fruit in America, and because of its perishable character, is one that requires strictly local production. It cannot be shipped long distances without loss of character and flavor, and hence the local grower will never be crowded out of his own market. The culture of the strawberry is simple and easy. There are many ways of setting out plants, and the after-treatment also differs widely. There will always be controversy concerning the respective merits of the hill system and the matted row system. Each cultivator must decide for himself which is the better. For the farmer, whose acres are many and whose duties are pressing, there is, perhaps, no better way than to set strawberries in rows 4 feet apart, with plants 2 feet apart in the row, and to allow the plants to run together in the rows, giving sufficient attention to keep the alleys well stirred and the whole bed clear of weeds. To set an acre will require about 5,000 plants. The winter covering of litter should be raked into the walks or alleys as soon as winter is over and allowed to remain there as a mulch for keeping the soil cool and damp and for the purpose of keeping the berries clean. [Illustration: New Twice-Bearing French Strawberry "Mammoth Perpetual." For Description, see "Johnson & Stokes' Garden and Farm Manual."] As soon as the crop is off, the bed should be plowed, turning strawberries and litter under, and sweet corn or other quick crop at once planted. This will insure the gathering of two crops in two years; otherwise a strawberry crop means a two-years' use of the soil. The setting out of a new strawberry bed every spring is good practice; and it is altogether advisable for farmers to occasionally introduce new varieties of strawberries on their farms, to replace old or enfeebled sorts. The profits of strawberry culture are quite large, the gross receipts not infrequently running to $250 per acre. New boxes and crates are advisable, and are distinctly profitable. INDEX. Page. Asparagus 27 Bacteria 15, 19 Barnyard manure 10 Beans 33 Bedding plants 119 Beets 39 Bordeaux mixture 63 Borecole 91 Cabbage 42 Cantaloupe 97 Carrot 49 Celery 75 Citron 97 Cold frame 120 Crimson clover 20 Corn worm 55 Corrosive sublimate 64 Cucumber 85 Egg plant 88 Glass 119 Green manuring 19, 21, 22 Horseradish 56 Hot bed 119 Humus 14 Irrigation 17, 18, 62, 125 Kale 91 Kerosene emulsion 97 Legumes 19 Lettuce 92 Lime 9 Location, choice of 24 Marketing 24 Manure, storage 11 Manure, value of 13, 19 Melon louse 97 Melons 94 Mushrooms 99 Muskmelons 97 Onions 101 Oyster plant 58 Parsnip 57 Peas 108 Potato 59 Potato blight 63 Potato scab 63 Potato rot 63 Preservatives of manure 12 Pumpkin 65 Radish 110 Rhubarb 110 Ruta baga 72 Salsify 58 Salt 31 Sashes 119 Soil inoculation 36 Spinach 112 Squash 65 Strawberry 121 Swedes 72 Sweet potato 114 Tomatoes 66 Turnip 71 Waste products 17 Water cress 84 Whale-oil soap 97 Wood ashes 17 =Everybody Should Read our New Book= =IRRIGATION BY CHEAP MODERN METHODS= =Double the Crops--Water will do it. Strictly up-to-date. Fully Illustrated.= =Tells you just what you want to know in just the way you want to be told.= There is something here for every farmer and gardener. That thing is a sufficient water-supply. Irrigation makes deserts to rejoice and gardens to blossom. Nature often withholds needed moisture at critical times. Millions of dollars are lost annually through the uncertainties of the weather. After reading this work you will be surprised at the cheapness and practicability of irrigation, which will double the production at an expense of from $10 to $1,000, just according to what you want to spend, while it reduces soil culture to an exact science and enables the tiller of the soil to work on schedule time. For terms on which this book can be had, see our "Garden and Farm Manual," which is sent free to all who write for it. Compiled and published by =JOHNSON & STOKES= =..SEED GROWERS AND MERCHANTS..= =217 and 219 Market Street Philadelphia, Pa.= [Illustration: The Largest Seed Warehouse in the East Nos. 217 and 219 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pa.] Floracroft Seed Gardens and Trial Grounds In order to get the best results from our efforts, and make sure that customers shall receive from us the best seeds that the world produces, we have for many years maintained and carried on extensive trials at our Floracroft Seed Gardens and Trial Grounds, located about nine miles from our city warehouses. All operations are under the personal direction and management of one of our firm, who resides there. Here are planted each season, for thorough trial, samples of all "Novelties" offered by other seedsmen both in this country and Europe, as well as anything which may be sent us, claimed to be new and superior, by our amateur or market garden customers. By this means we are enabled to satisfy ourselves of the true character and value of any novelty before it can find a place in our catalogue. Many acres are also devoted to the production of pedigree stock seed, from which the seeds we offer are grown. We plant the best seeds obtainable; then go over the crop, plant by plant, carefully "rogueing" and destroying the inferior and selecting and saving only the best. This stock seed from selected plants is sent to be grown on our farms in localities where the conditions of soil and climate are best adapted to the perfect development of the particular variety. It is the product of such stock seed only that we offer for sale. Here are also located our Seed Testing Houses, where a sample of every lot of seed, whether grown by ourselves or grown for us under contract, is thoroughly tested, in mother earth, for vitality and purity of stock, and only those of satisfactory quality and germinating power are sold. In fact, we leave no stone unturned to gain and hold the confidence of all customers and secure them from disappointment. =JOHNSON & STOKES= =..SEEDSMEN..= =217 and 219 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pa.= [Illustration] That grow into dollars for the professional market gardener will also grow the choicest vegetables and flowers in the Home Garden. =Our Garden and Farm Manual Tells All About Them= _It is Sent Free to Seed Buyers_ =Johnson & Stokes 217 and 219 Market Street PHILADELPHIA, PA=. Transcriber's Note * Obvious punctuation and spelling errors repaired. * Footnote moved to the end of the appropriate paragraph. * Notes moved to the end of the appropriate section. * Text enclosed between equal signs was in bold face in the original (=bold=).