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Show m Wfaier Interesting Pointers on Gardening Garden-ing for the City Man or Suburbanite. WHAT TO PLANT AND WHEN Advice by an Expert on Agricultural Matters Care of the Garden Raising Sweet Pas Hot Weather Pointers. By PROF. JOHN WlLLARD BOLTE. Every man with available land should make some kind of a garden on it. About one man in three who could have a nice little garden plot in (lie city has one. Almost everybody in the suburbs has both lawn, flowers and a vegetable garden. The fascination of this delightful pastime is amply demonstrated by the fact that so many people make gardens gar-dens every year and yet the majority of these gardens are failures to a greater or less degree. They start out beautifully, with -the warm', fresh mellow earth turned over from its winter's rest, and the little delicate seedlings following the warm rains. The first crops, small things like radishes and lettuce, develop fairly-well fairly-well and the gardener puts in his late crops with great expectations. When the 'hot, dry weather of late June and early July arrives the plants begin to shrink and shrivel. They turn brown and ent?r into a kind of dormant state, neither advancing nor retreating, worthless as food providers provid-ers and certainly unhandsome to view TM,i ....tu . i:.: A 1113 U1HUI 1U,Y OUUlliltl lUHUIUUll knocks out the most satisfactory crops, corn, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, cucum-bers, etc. The worst of It is that the same thing happens to the same gardens, gar-dens, year after year, and the best of it Is that it need not happen at all if the gardener will use his head as much as his back, and use both of them a good deal. The two great causes of garden failures are lack of proper cultivation and lack of available plant food. In a humid climate it should never be necessary nec-essary to water the garden IT the soil is in proper condition to hold the natural nat-ural rainfall. It needs to be plowed deeply, cultivated finely, firmed down w-ell to make capillary connection between be-tween the soil water below i the plant roots above, and then the surface sur-face must be hoed, and hoed and hoed. Never let up on the hoeing. A single weed will evaporate many times its own weight In valuable soil water every day. If you permit the top soil to bake or a crust to form, direct means Is established for the soil water to evaporate and It will leave the soil as rapidly as it would an open dish and possibly more rap-ldily. rap-ldily. Do your best to keep your garden gar-den covered with an Inch of fine, dry dust all the summer through. The roots will go deep and the plants will get all the water there Is. Next, fertility: A garden must contain con-tain plant food and the best plant food Is rotten vegetable matter. Make a compost heap In some out-of-the-way corner or In a large box. Here throw your stable manure, grass clippings, clip-pings, leaves, waste vegetables, hen manure, in fact, anything that will rot Keep it moist and keep flies away from it. Grass sod is an excellent excel-lent foundation for a compost heap and It is extensively used by florists. Use plenty of tha compost on yesur garden, plowing it under, and be careful care-ful not to put In too much straw, as that will dry out the soil. The compost com-post will increase the water-holding capacity of the soil, it will permit of better ventilation; It furnishes plant food of all kinds. It lightens a heavy soil and stiffens a sandy one. If you wish to brace up weak plants and force them this summer, fill a barrel half full of manure and cover with water. The liquid resulting result-ing is the finest kind of quick acting fertilizer. Pour It about the plants to be forced, and the effect will be Immediately perceptible. |