"Certainly. But can't I leave just one blossom on each plant to see what the fruit is like?" And also leave one entire row blossoming as it will?"

"Yes, that will be all right. The reason for pinching off the blossoms the first year is to save the strength of the young plant. Otherwise it all goes to fruit forming. It pays to do this, because the second year you will have a good yield. Remember that strawberries which flourish in certain localities may fail utterly in others. That is why you and I are experimenting with this new berry. I am going to give you five plants of Marshall, five of Nick Ohmer, and five of Brandywine. Remember, shorten back the roots three inches before you plant. I shall be around to see your strawberry bed. Remember to cultivate after every rain, and in between times, too."

"Thank you, and good-bye," said the boy.

Myron set his plants after the following fashion: he dug trenches along the cord lines previously marked out. Then the roots were shortened. To plant, hold the plant against one side of the trench just as Myron did, as illustrated in one of the pictures. Then push the earth in from the other side and press firmly in place. The plants should sit so that their crowns are even with the top of the ground. When Mr. Mills came to see that bed he found two or three plants badly placed. Care must be taken in the placing. The days after planting were very hot so Myron covered the plants with straw to protect them from the heat.

As the season advanced the little plants sent out runners. These were immediately cut off. If they had not been, they would have become entangled and thus formed what is called a matted row. Some people cultivate strawberries this way. But Myron's way, the hill culture, while it means constant attention, is perhaps a better method.

One day, old Mr. Mills took Myron on a little trip with him to a farm where a man was cultivating berries by the matted row method and doing it in a very slovenly way.

"It taught me a lesson," the boy told his mother that evening, "that lazy methods are pretty bad."

Once or twice that season he sprinkled wood ashes on the ground of the bed. Just a little should be sprinkled on, as one sprinkles salt on a potato. Soil gives food to a plant. This food is nitrogen in various forms, potash and phosphorus. Sometimes we help the soil supply one or more of these chemicals. The wood ash adds a little extra potash which is very good for the strawberry.

It turned out after a second year that the new variety gave very small and flavourless berries. So the old gentleman and Myron wasted no more space on that variety.

The second year Myron obtained excellent results. From some of his plants he got one quart of berries each, during the season. That was good, but no better than a strawberry plant should do under good cultivation.

As far as his lettuce and radish went there was nothing new or startling in his experience. He tried this little trick of lettuce sowing with some success: Instead of sprinkling the seed in the drill, he placed each seed separately and four inches apart. By this method one need not transplant to get good heads. He tried the Black Tennis Ball seed. This forms a good head.

Did you ever try the Icicle radish? Myron recommends it. It is long and white and so gets its name. Along with the radish he planted parsley. This is a good way to do as these vegetables do not interfere one with the other.

"Grow any more lettuce and radish?" exclaimed Myron's father one evening in the village store, "not while I have a boy who can do it as Myron can. He beats me all right. And I am glad."



IX

JACK'S ALL-ROUND GARDEN

Just as soon as the ground was workable Jack set his coldframe. He chose a southern exposure, back of the barn, so that the frame should sit up against the stone foundation of the I. Constructing a wall to form an embankment. II. Cleaning the grounds and making a lawn. III. Planting of trees. IV. Preparation and planting of the flower garden. V. Cleaning and mending the road. building. First he dug down about a foot deep. As he dug, he knocked up the lumps and picked out the stone. Then he went to the barn and got a barrow load of horse manure, not fresh, but old, rotted manure. This he very carefully mixed in with the soil already made fine.

"Now I shall put the frame on. Come, Elizabeth, and give me a lift with this." After some tugging the frame was set.

"I thought frames were usually sunk in the ground," commented Elizabeth.

"I shall do that this fall and make a real hotbed out of it. You see this spring I just want to give my seeds a little extra start. That's why I made the soil so rich and so deep. Now I am going to bank the frame about with manure. Then I shall put dirt over that. You see I get some extra heat that way. Just see the fine slope of the glass. I guess Old Sun will get caught all right."

Jack busily banked the frame, spanking the fertilizer down hard with the back of his spade. He sloped it up some four inches along the sides and front.

"Now I am going to make drills for my seed. In the first partition I shall plant lettuce and tomato; then pepper and onion go in, and the third is for flower seed." Jack bent over the frame, and began to scratch lengthwise of the beds with the edge of his trowel. Red-faced from bending over, and hot from his former exertion, his trouser knees covered with earth and manure, he stood off and looked at his work.

"I'm precious glad Elizabeth has gone, for if those aren't the worst, crookedest old rows I ever saw."

And so they were. They were all distances apart, of different depths and entirely untidy-looking.

Jack picked up his rake and again raked the little beds over, so that no trace of his poor work was left. Then he found a board which stretched across the frame widthwise, so that he could kneel upon this and work to advantage in the bed. He next whittled out two little pointed sticks to act as stakes, and tying to these a piece of cord just the right length for the drills, he was ready for work. With one stake stuck in the bed at the upper end, the other at the lower, the cord between gave Jack a good string line for the drill. Then, with the end of a small round stick held close against the taut line, the drill was made. So he continued making drills at distances of four inches apart.

Pouring out some lettuce seed in his hand, Jack began to sprinkle it rather unevenly in the first little drill. Elizabeth, having returned, stood by watching and shaking her head. "I didn't know you were here. You make me nervous," began Jack.

"I feel more nervous than you possibly can, for you are wasting seed and sowing in a poor way. See, here you have a little pile of seed, and there you have none," and Elizabeth bent eagerly over the bed.

"Well, if you think you can do better, just try this next drill." Jack straightened up, and gave way to Elizabeth.

"Wait a minute," and Elizabeth ran into the house. Soon she came out with some small seed envelopes in her hand. From the bag of lettuce seed—for Jack had bought his seed by bulk—Elizabeth poured some into a small envelope. Then by shaking the envelope she carefully and sparingly sowed the lettuce in the drill.

"I say, that is good!" said Jack admiringly. "Now I'll do some myself."

"I should think you would wish only one more row; then have a row, or perhaps two, to transplant in. For I believe you'll have to prick out the plants before the garden is ready."

"You talk like the real thing, Elizabeth. What do you mean by pricking out?"

"Why, pricking is just lifting out the seedlings with a pointed stick from one row to another, or from a box or hotbed into the outside garden. What else are you going to plant, Jack?"

"I thought I'd put in—say two rows of tomatoes, one row of onions, and one of peppers. In the third partition I'd start asters. I just love asters. So I've made up my mind to make a kind of specialty of these."

"That's fine! May I help?"

"You certainly may, for you are a help."

Elizabeth chuckled away to herself, for Jack evidently was not questioning where she got her knowledge. "It seems to me," she rather timidly suggested, "that it would look more shipshape to label these rows, and put in little sticks where each row begins and ends."

"Well now, that is a fine suggestion." So Jack stuck in some little sticks he got from the woodshed. Elizabeth did not dare offer some nicely made little markers laid away in her desk for future use. She feared those would call forth questions.

Jack brought out a hammer and tacks. Then writing the names of the seeds on the little envelopes Elizabeth had brought out, he tacked one over each row onto the inside of the frame. They both stood off and admired the work.

Warm days Jack opened the frame, at first only a little, and later, wide open for all day. One night he forgot to close it, and a slight frost made a sorry looking set of seedlings next morning. He lost every single plant except a few little asters, which were protected by the inner partition of the frame. These seedlings he watered at intervals all day. This was at Elizabeth's suggestion. By this treatment these were saved. So Jack, sadder and wiser, started over again.

When the lettuce plants had four little leaves Jack, with Elizabeth's help, transplanted some into the drills left for them. When they were larger yet, they transplanted the lettuce to the real garden. This is the way they did it. In the first place the children chose a cloudy day for the work. A cloudy day is far better than a bright sunny one because bright sun is too strong for little lettuces which have been disturbed from their places and put into new ones.

To transplant, dig up a number of plants and plenty of earth with them. Use a trowel for this work, gently lifting plants and earth. A drill may be made; or, perhaps better yet, make holes with the dibber. Pour a little water into the hole. Then gently separate a plant taking as much soil with it as you can keep on its roots. Place the little plant in the hole or drill, and cover the roots with soil. With the fingers press the soil firmly about the plant. Water the earth, not the leaves of the plant. Next day, and for several days, cover the transplanted plants with strawberry baskets. These are far better than newspaper coverings, because light and air freely come through the crevices of the basket. The newspaper makes a covering too tight and close for the tender lettuces. Between plants the children left six inches.

Jack raised Boston lettuce. He not only had enough for his mother all summer long, but sold some, too. The way he happened to sell it was merely an accident. Not far from the village was a large summer hotel. One day the proprietor had driven around to the house to see Jack's father on business. As the men were talking Jack and Elizabeth came from the garden with two fine heads of lettuce.

"Have you any more lettuce than what you can use yourself?" asked the proprietor, after feeling of the heads of lettuce and admiring the good firm centres. "Yes," replied Jack, "I have now, and shall have all along, more than we can use. You see I keep making sowings every ten days in the coldframe, and transplanting."

"I'll take all the extra lettuce you have at five cents a head. That is what I pay all summer long for it. To-morrow bring me up what you can."

"Thank you, sir. Ten heads will walk up to-morrow."

"The first time I've ever heard of heads walking," laughed Jack's father, well pleased with his lad.

But we are away ahead of the story, for we have planted and sold lettuce before Jack has had a chance to really make his garden. The soil in the backyard was very poor, so Jack decided to cultivate only a strip twenty feet long and eight feet wide. He dug out all the soil to the depth of two feet. His father lent him the use of a horse and wagon, and gave him from the barns whatever fertilizer he needed. The digging was a long, tedious piece of work. It was hard, too; but the boy kept at it. Any piece of land can be used if a boy has a mind to work hard over it.

Some of the poorest of the soil was carted off, then into the top of the remaining soil he mixed the old manure. Then into the garden space six inches of manure was spread, and over this was filled in the old top soil and fertilizer, that mixture which he had previously prepared. About one foot of this was put in. Jack's father lent him the horse again and the services of a man. They drove to the Longmeadow Farm and got a load of top soil. Old Mr. Mills said he would give the soil if Jack could answer three garden questions correctly.

"All right," said the boy, "you'll probably knock me over, for I don't know much about gardening, but I'm trying hard."

"Question number one: suppose your backyard had been clay soil—what would you have done with it then?"

"I should have mixed in sand, using about one-quarter the amount of sand as I had of clay."

"Good! Question number two: suppose you had no sand—what then?"

"I'd have used ashes; old clinkers I guess would be best. Everyone has ashes."

"Question number three: what is the object of mixing sand or coal ashes or clinkers with clay."

"The reason is to break up the clay. Clay bakes hard, becomes sticky, and little air or light gets into it. Ash or sand breaks it up. I think that's about all I know about this."

"The soil is yours, young man, I shall be around to see your garden some day. Remember good gardening means working your muscles hard."

"Thank you, Mr. Mills. By the way my arms and legs ache, I guess I know about muscles."

"And remember too," continued Mr. Mills, "that certain vegetables are very closely related and will intermingle. For example, do not plant different kinds of corn close together. The pollen from one kind will fertilize another kind and so you get a crossing which results in a mongrel sort of corn. Melons and cucumbers will do the same thing. And so care must be taken in order that this sort of intermingling does not take place. You see, Jack, that there are many things a real good gardener has to consider. Gardening is not only a matter of soil preparation but it is also a matter of understanding plants and their relations one to the other."

So the good soil was put on and Jack was ready for business. Straight across the back was planted a row of sunflowers. Sunflower seeds belong under the head of large seeds, and should be planted one inch deep and one foot apart. Two seeds were placed in together. This is a safe plan, because if one fails to come up, the other doubtless will come up. If both appear, when the plants get about three inches high, pull out the weaker one.

Then the boy planted a second row two feet from the first one. The first row was planted close up to the fence. Jack found out that this was a mistake. Always leave all about the garden a space of a foot or so, in order that one may walk about freely and get at the rear row of plants without trouble. Again, do not plant too close to a fence, unless the planting be some vine or climbing plant, which you desire to have cover the fence.

Next the aster plants were transplanted. This was done after the same manner as the lettuce. They were placed about one foot apart each way. These were put across the entire spot just as the sunflowers had been. Thirty-two little aster plants were set out and still Jack had a number left over. It is amazing the amount of aster plants one can raise from a little packet of seeds. "I'm going to sell the rest of these aster plants," he declared. And he did. The boy tramped about until he found a lady desiring the plants, to whom he sold 50 little plants for $1 and set them out for 50 cents.

The rest of the garden space was used for the onions, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes and radish.

The onions transplanted from the coldframe gave fine early onions with a mild flavour.

When Jack was making furrows for the sunflower seed Jay came along and leaned over the fence. "Jack," he drawled, "you look like a kangaroo all humped over making that furrow. Why don't you use your hoe right?"

"I thought I was using it right. Come in here and show me how, will you?"

So Jay jumped the fence and picked up the hoe. "Stand this way! Straddle the furrow with your back in the direction you are going to hoe; or else stand on the left side of the furrow facing it. Grasp the handle of the hoe in the right hand near the upper end. The back of your hand should be up. Now the left hand should be a foot or more below the other hand. And see the back of my hand. It is toward the left and my thumb points down the handle, just so with the rake handle."

All summer long the boy worked or cultivated his piece of land. He kept hoeing and weeding constantly.

One of the August pieces of work was to fix the hotbed for winter. Now the frame was taken up and the pit dug deeper—about two feet this time. Previous to this a great pile of manure had been heaped up near by. Jack had sprinkled it with hot water to start fermentation. Steam rising from the heap was proof of this, and it may be used at this time.

Then the manure was put into the pit. An eighteen-inch bed of it was made and firmly tramped down. At first the temperature of this was over one hundred degrees. When it dropped to ninety-five degrees soil was put on. The temperature was taken by means of a thermometer buried in the manure. The frame was placed after two inches of soil had been put in; then four more inches went on. The surface of the soil was made to slope at the same angle as the glass. All about the frame was banked, again, manure covered with earth and leaf matter.

Jack transplanted violet plants into one compartment. These were good violets and were placed four inches apart. In the second bed he sowed foxglove, pansy and stock. The third was left for radish and lettuce, a bit later.

Elizabeth helped him sew together several thicknesses of straw matting as covering for the winter nights. They had decided that newspapers next the glass, then the mats, and finally a rubber blanket, would be protection sufficient.

But Jack's hotbed work is quite another story. However, I can tell you that the next winter he added two other frames to this one.



X

ALBERT AND JAY'S DRAINAGE PROBLEM.

The problem of draining which Albert and Jay had to consider, was perhaps the biggest piece of work that was done all that spring. In the first place, it should have been done in the fall. That is the time to do such work, for if put off until spring it delays greatly the spring planting.

It was a wet spring, too. The boys, rather impatient of waiting, started digging one day, but it ended in disaster. The ground was soft and wet and hence very heavy to handle. This piece of land was one hundred feet wide or deep. It had a frontage of one hundred and fifty feet. A slope rose up in front of it, which accounted for the water being drained onto this land. The water naturally would have run off the land into a brook at the back. But in about the centre was a hollow, and beyond that the ground rose a little, and then dropped toward the brook. The depression made a kind of drain hole and the water settled there all the spring through.

This strip of land of the boys was not by any means the entire piece of land, which was much larger, but the boys' father had given them this largely to try their mettle. He felt so certain they could not do it that he said they might have all they needed from a pile of drain pipe he intended to use himself on a piece of wet land the next fall. "I shall have all my drain pipe left to me," he said to the boys' mother one night. She smiled, for the boys had talked matters over a bit with her.

Myron's strawberry bed was all made, Jack's garden-filling work done, George's ploughing and planting finished, before the boys could lay the drain.

"It's no use," said Albert, "I'm ready to give up."

"Now Savage, there's to be no quitting. I'd be ashamed of you, at least we can surprise father."

"All right, Jay, I'm with you."

Finally the day came when The Chief and the boys started work. A drain pipe should be laid ordinarily anywhere from twenty inches to three feet deep. One may dig or plough to make the trench. It is wise to dig as narrow a trench as possible and so lift as little soil as possible. Then, too, the bed of the drain should slope gradually from the upper or highest point to the lowest. The drop in level should be about four inches per hundred feet. So the boys had to consider just this. This is the way they "sighted" to get the drop in level. They drove a stake into the ground at some twenty feet from the place where the drain was to begin. Previously a cord had been stretched from one end of the centre of the field to the other end. Since the centre of the field seemed to be the place for the deposit of water the drain was to go directly through the centre.

If you ever have a piece of draining to do the problem may not be so simple as this. You may find several natural drainage areas. Then you must lay drains through these. Or instead of separate drains make side ones which empty into a main drain.

Going back again to the "sighting" for the drain bed level—the boys have driven a stake into the ground. It stands five feet above the ground level. If a tree had been in line with the drain line this might have been used and saved driving the stakes. Across the stake, at right angles to it, a board with a perfectly straight edge was nailed. This board was about four feet long, one end pointed at the drain line. At the other end Jay placed his eye looking across this to where Albert had driven stakes.

One stake had been driven into the ground at the beginning where the drain was to be dug; another at the extreme end or outlet of the drain. Albert stood at the first stake and ran a little piece of paper slowly up and down the stake until Jay raised his hand. This meant that the paper was on the same line with the sighting board. Then Albert ran to the other stake and did the same. The difference in these two points gives the difference in level of the ground. Albert measured from the ground to his mark on the first stake, and, doing the same in the case of the other stake, found the difference to be eight inches. This was too great a drop. Then the boys drove two stakes in between these others and did the same work of level finding. From stake 1 to 2, or for the first twenty-five feet there was no difference in level. For the first fifty feet there was four inches drop; for the next twenty-five feet, five inches rise; and the last twenty-five feet, six inches drop. They marked all this on the stakes in order to make sure they got the level right. The bed must, you see, drop one inch for every twenty-five feet. For the first fifty feet of the line the drop was just twice too much; then came the abrupt rise and drop.

Albert ploughed a furrow straight along the line and ploughed back again. Then he reploughed. The boys then began to dig, making a ditch three feet deep right through the land. In order to get the right level they used a home-made device and plumb-line which can be made as follows: Nail the ends of two six-inch boards ten feet long, so as to make a right angle; then across the open end of the triangle, nail another six-inch board having the lower edge about a foot from the ends of the boards. Cut off the ends of the boards on a level, so that they will rest evenly on the ground. Next drive a nail into the apex of the triangle, and to it tie a line long enough so that when the triangle is stood on its legs, the plumb-bob, which you will tie on the other end of it, will almost reach the ground.

The centre must next be determined. To do it, set the triangle up on its legs on a level place and when the plumb-line comes to rest, mark the place. A lead-pencil mark will do, but as it is liable to become obliterated by the dirt, a saw mark is more permanent.

Now you know what the grade of the bottom of your ditch will be. Reproduce this on a level place by means of a board with a large enough block under one end to give the right pitch; put the triangle on this and when the plumb-line comes to a rest, mark the place on the cross piece. Reverse the ends of the triangle to get a similar mark on the other side of the centre or level mark. This makes a level by which a fairly accurate grade can be made.

The tile pipes were laid upon a bed of gravel. This prevents the clogging up of the loosely put together joints. To fit tiles place the small end of one into the large end of the next, and so on. Over the end of the last tile, which emptied into the brook, they wired a bit of rather fine-meshed chicken wire.

Then the trench was filled in. By test Albert had found the soil of this land acid. Lime was to be put on it. Now lime must be in a crumbling state for this purpose. So after they had bought the lime they dumped it in a heap on a corner of the plot. After it had become air slaked, or reduced to a powder by the action of air upon it, it was spread over the lot. This and considerable fertilizer was ploughed in. The boys then had an ideal sort of planting soil for almost anything. The drain actually worked.

Now some boy may ask, suppose a fellow has no tile and cannot afford to buy any. In such a case there are two alternatives or choices. A wooden trough may be made by nailing together boards six inches wide. Then make a gravel bed and tip this trough over on it peak up. The wooden drain, however, is likely to rot. The other way is to put a double row of stones right through the centre of the bed slope. These stones—perfectly flat ones—should be placed on end with a foot between the rows. In this space put small stones.

The chief thing to remember in the drainage problem is that one wants a gradual flow of water from inlet to outlet. Any boy can fix his wet, soggy garden spot even though he has no tiles. Stones can be found surely, and, if no gravel beds are near, all the little brothers and sisters can pick small stones.

The boys had decided on planting what they called a general vegetable garden—corn, pumpkins, beans (bush), melons, tomatoes, beets and carrots. This combination of vegetables was a happy choice as they all can well wait until rather late for planting. The boys used the planting table that Peter had worked out.



Many times boys and girls are bothered by the word "hill". I have seen boys make nice little heaps of earth and then make a hole in the top of these like a crater in a volcano. Down into this crater they poke seeds. Now a hill merely means a place. This place is not to be heaped up above the level of the ground. Place five seeds to the hill. Do not, of course, make a little pile of these seeds but lay them on the ground with a little space between seeds, say an inch. When planting beans place the eye of each bean down against the ground. The bean stands up on edge.

The pumpkins were planted in between the hills of corn. This is just the place to plant pumpkin or squash because there is opportunity sufficient for the vines to run. Remember not to plant these two together.

Soon after the pumpkins began to come up the boys noticed one morning that the leaves had been eaten. Some were completely riddled, looking like lace work. Digging about the ground Albert found a black and white striped beetle. Its name is the Striped Beetle. The boys killed these in the course of three days. They bought five cents' worth of white hellebore, which is a powder, and sprinkled it on the ground in a circle about the stems of the young plants. They made the circles some six inches from the plant stalk. Doing this at night, the evening dews prevented the scattering about of the powder. They put this on for three nights. Afterwards sand was sprinkled lightly over the hills and at the end of the runners. This makes a discouraging sort of prospect for the beetle who is hunting for something good to eat, not sand to walk over. If instead of sand they had used lime it would have been better. For the lime is quite likely to form a sticky mass on the legs of the insect pest. The moisture from dew or rainwater helps this along, while sand is far more likely to drop off the victim's legs. The Chief felt sure that besides the beetles there were slugs in the garden. Slugs are very likely to bother. They appear early in the season, feed chiefly at night and after rains, and lay eggs throughout the summer and autumn. These eggs are laid in the ground and in rubbish heaps.

The treatment suggested above and started just as soon as there are signs of slugs, will work. The boys treated their melons in the same way and had no further trouble with beetles and slugs.

The tomato plants were started inside. They were transplanted into strawberry baskets. These are excellent to use, because in transplanting to the ground the little strawberry baskets may be knocked apart without disturbing the plant nearly so much as if it were planted in a compact box. Be sure to line the basket with paper before filling with earth. When the plants began to straggle about and bend over stakes were driven into the ground and the plants tied to these.

Jay used hoops and made a sort of cage for the separate plants. He drove four stakes into the ground at distances of eighteen inches from the stalk and in a circular form. Then slipping hoops over the plant he nailed these hoops to the stakes. Some plants had two hoops about them, some three; it all depends on the size and needs of the plant. Only keep this in mind; that the object in staking tomatoes is not only to keep the plant erect, and the fruit off of the ground, but to allow plenty of light and air to get at all parts of the plant.

The bean culture resulted in a little private contest between Albert and Jay. That winter The Chief had given the boys a talk on inoculation of soil. One day while they were working on their land Jay suggested that they separate the bean section of their garden, having a bean plot at one end and another of the same size at the extreme other end; that one of them should inoculate the soil of his plot and the other should not. These plots being so far removed would not be in danger of soil washing one from the other. Albert, who rather scorned inoculation of soil, willingly agreed to make the experiment, stipulating that he have the uninoculated plot.

By inoculation of the soil is meant introducing into the soil a germ. This germ makes it possible that the nitrogen already in the soil be given to the plant in such a form that it may be absorbed, and absorbed in greater quantities than it otherwise could be.

Jay sent to the nearest State Agricultural Experiment Station, asking for the soil. This was sent free of charge. It was a soil, fine in texture and brown in appearance. According to the directions sent with it Jay spread it evenly over the top of his bean patch. A piece of land for inoculation should be prepared all ready for planting; then the inoculated soil is merely put over this, as frosting on a cake. After this the seeds are planted. They planted bush limas. Of course they had to plant the same kind of bean for the sake of the experiment.

Beans are not hard to cultivate. They should be kept free from weeds and the soil well stirred up. Albert, fearful of his beans becoming affected by spots or anthracnose, sprayed them from the start. This disease is likely to affect beans about July. So in order to get ahead of the inoculated crop the boy did what he later found there was no need of. To be sure beans are liable to this trouble, but it is not a surety. It is never likely to appear unless the weather be very moist. This summer happened to be a dry one.

The spray he used was the Bordeaux mixture. His father offered to supply him with the mixture if he would do mixing for both. So he used this receipt: Dissolve six pounds of copper sulphate in six gallons of water. It is an excellent plan to crush up this chemical in a mortar and put this powder into a bag. Hang the bag up so it just touches the surface of the water. Add twenty-five gallons of water to this. To four pounds of slaked lime add twenty-five gallons of water. Then add this solution to the other.

The boy's father had a spraying machine. So Albert used this. I have known boys to use a corn broom to spray with. Dip this in the spraying mixture and shake over the foliage. The only spraying rule Albert used was to keep the foliage covered with the mixture; this does not mean many applications.

At the close of the bean season Jay had the finer, larger, beans with a better flavour. His yield was one-third greater than Albert's.

"And think, too, how I worked," Albert moaned. "Hereafter I shall not make fun of inoculation."

There is not much more to tell of this garden. The poppies yielded well. These were supported as they grew by stakes, as tomatoes are. Carrots need rather mellow, upland soil. The boys found that their carrots did not do so well as the other vegetables. The soil was a bit heavy and moist for them. They found this out about beets: beets should not be transplanted. Transplanting puts them back. Albert transplanted a few and learned this fact.



XI

GEORGE'S CABBAGE TROUBLES

George had a long task in stone picking. The old slope seemed to be full of stone. George would pick continuously from school to supper time, and next morning declare that new stones had grown in the night.

The ditching was very little work. It meant digging a ditch about two feet deep and then making at either end of this gutter a side ditch at a very severe angle to the main ditch. These side ditches were directed along the sides of the hill for about six feet, and the water thus directed would conduct itself off. Of course the angle was such that the ditch led away from the garden spot.



As the stones were picked off he piled them into the gutter, where this stony bottom also helped the drainage problem.

George was a master hand at ploughing, for he had always done his share of it, so ploughing meant nothing to him. First, you will remember George had one foot of dressing to put on the land. This he ploughed in; and then reploughed. After this the slope was harrowed. You all know that the harrow simply makes fine the soil after the plough has done its work of throwing up the earth. The rake is a kind of harrow. Of course, when the garden plot is large, the rake is impossible, and then the harrow, really a big rake dragged by a horse, must do this work.

It took the boy longer than some of the others to do his work, for George did more work at home than the others. He was probably better informed on farm matters, however. His father was a real farmer; the other boys' fathers farmed, too, but not as a business.

Anticipating the amount of time this preparatory work would take he had not started his cabbage inside. To get an early crop of cabbage, seed must be planted in January or February; then one may start in March. But for the late crop plant in the open in May or June. This is just what George did.

He made furrows straight down his sunny southern slope. These furrows were two feet apart. The seed, of Savoy cabbage, was sprinkled in the furrows. This was done after rain. Cabbage needs much moisture for quick germination. George might have poured water into the furrows and puddled or stirred the earth a bit, if the garden had been small, but his was too large for this, so he took advantage of Nature's watering. When the plants were about two inches above ground they were thinned out to stand two feet apart in the furrow.

Cabbage, you know, is quite likely to become infested by pests. Perhaps the most common of which are lice or aphis and the cabbage worm, a green caterpillar. Therefore it is well to try a little prevention. So all over the ground about the plants sprinkle unslaked lime. Tobacco dust or soot may be used for this purpose, too. Good cultivation also helps prevent these pests.

One row of cabbage began to develop worms. These George picked off, but he found that he could not keep up with them; so The Chief advised him to buy a little pyrethrum powder at the store. This he mixed with five times its bulk of dust. Putting the mixture into an old potato sack he shook it over the infested heads of cabbage.

Except for this drawback the cabbage did well. He lost the infested row of cabbage. For he pulled them all up, spaded the ground over, and sprinkled it with the poison mixture. All the other cabbage heads were sprinkled with it, too. One may easily lose all his cabbage from these worms.

In the fall the cabbages were harvested. This was about the last of October. George pulled them up by the roots. He found some of the heads rather soft, some bursting open. As it does not pay to keep such cabbage over, these were fed to the cattle—a gift, George called it, to pay for the fertilizer.

All the fine solid heads are worth storing. In order to get nice white inner leaves, as the head begins to form break and bend over the outer leaves and those that protect the inner ones. It is a sort of blanching or bleaching process. Two hundred fine firm heads were the result of the work of this boy.

"What are you going to do with all these, I'd like to know?" asked Jack.

"I expect to store a number of them—one hundred and fifty, I should say. I'm going to give away fifty. In the winter I hope to sell about one hundred of my stored ones."

George's way of storing cabbages is a good one. A spot was ploughed in the orchard between the rows of trees. Then the cabbages were piled in a neat pile roots up, one cabbage fitting into the other. All about and over this heap a layer of straw about four inches thick was placed. To hold the pile in place stakes were driven in about its base. To hold the straw, branches were placed over the whole and boards put on last. The straw packing kept the cabbage from freezing. If George's father had had a good tight shed the cabbage could have been stored on shelves in this. The ordinary home cellar is no place for storage of cabbage.

Later in the winter he sold one hundred heads of cabbage to the markets in a near-by city. These he sold at two cents per head. They kept fifty at home.

The boys tried long and hard to find out where the other fifty went. But George would not tell. There was an orphans' home some few miles from the village. It seems that at one time an appeal had been made at the school to the boys and girls to give whatever they could to this home. At that time George had nothing to give. No one knew how badly the boy felt, so as his cabbages grew the lad made a pledge with himself to give one quarter of his cabbage to this home. One evening in late October, George had hitched up an old farm horse, loaded his cabbage in, and had driven over to the home.

The Chief learned of his kindness one December evening, when he visited the matron to see about Christmas gifts for the children. She told him that one evening in the fall a bashful lad had brought a load of cabbage to her, but would not tell his name. As the man walked home he thought of the really splendid ending of George's cabbage experiment. After all a garden reaches its real work when some of its product is given to those who are in need.

"Now I see," said The Chief out loud, as he walked past George's house on his homeward way, "why George made out of his garden so much less than the others. I never could understand why he lost the prize. I am glad there are boys who care less for money than for other things."



XII

PETER, POTATOES, AND PROFIT

Peter had a mile to go to his garden, which was on his grandfather's farm. This farm land, you will remember, was especially good.

The ploughing, fertilizing and harrowing were done for Peter. The soil was just the sort potatoes thrive on, a sandy loam. After the furrows had been made about six inches deep and two feet apart, Peter put a sprinkling of chemical fertilizer into the bottom of each furrow. This was sprinkled on as one puts salt on potato before eating it. Over this he placed some dirt so the fertilizer would not burn the potato.

Early the morning of planting Peter cut his seed potatoes. The date was the 1st of April, not a bit too soon to get in early potatoes.

The seed potatoes chosen were fair, smooth specimens of good size. These he cut so that only one eye was left to a piece of potato the size of a hen's egg. These pieces were dropped into the furrows at distances of fifteen inches apart and four inches deep. After covering, the man went over the potato patch with a harrow. A boy might use a rake for this work, but as Peter's patch was a small part of his grandfather's field the harrowing of the whole was done by the man.

When the little potato plants were well up Peter sprayed them with Paris green. This was wise because he thus got ahead of the potato bug. Some one may like to know how to mix up Paris green. The proportion used was one tablespoonful to a pail of water. This was put on with a watering pot every two weeks, thus Peter kept his potatoes quite free from bugs.

Although the rest of the potato patch was cultivated by the horse, Peter used the hoe. He could not plough, for Peter was a rather small boy for his age and not very muscular. The secret of potato culture is to cultivate well and keep the bugs down.

He dug his potatoes about the middle of June. From the one quarter acre his grandfather had lent him for his garden Peter dug seven bushels of potatoes. At the time new potatoes were selling for $1.25 per bushel. His father bought three bushels and the other four were sold in the city to Philip's mother and friends.

The constant working of the soil for potato culture gets it into a fine mellow condition exactly right for celery. Peter's grandfather suggested that the boy put this in, and so have another crop, a fall one.

Although this soil had been well fertilized in the spring for the potatoes this was yet not sufficient for celery culture. Celery ought to be started either indoors in flats, or in a hothouse or seed bed late in February—transplanted to other flats, and again finally to the open ground.

To prepare for the celery trenches were dug three feet apart and one foot wide. The earth thrown out in trench digging was piled between the ditches to be used later in banking up the celery. These trenches were six inches deep. In the bottom of the trench was put some enriched manure. This was of different materials. Peter used well-rotted barnyard dressing, a little hen manure, and about the same quantity of chemical fertilizer. Hen manure is rich, so he did not use the bulk of that. Over this was put an inch of soil.

Celery plants should be set about six inches apart in the trench. First cut them back; that is, cut off about one quarter of the root and one-third of the top. This cutting back increases the spread of root-growth later and decreases the amount of respiration of water from the leaves. The top alone grows more stocky and bulky.

Firm the plants well. That is, press the soil firmly about the roots and stalk. When the plant has received its growth it must be blanched. This process not only whitens celery, but also takes the bitter taste out of it. This may be done in various ways, but Peter used the earth process. He tied the bunches up together with bits of raffia. This was done merely to keep the earth from pressing in between the stalks. Then the earth which had been left in between the trenches was drawn up with the hoe about the stalks until only the top leaves poked out above. Do not do all this banking at once. Take several days at it. Boards may be placed along the sides of the banked celery hills.

Peter having heard of the self-blanching kinds told his grandfather that he would plant this kind to obviate blanching. But there were two drawbacks. In the first place, he had waited too late to start seed. And secondly, these varieties, too, should be bleached to take out the bitter taste. So Peter bought young celery plants from his grandfather. He paid $1 for two hundred small plants. Later in November he sold these to the same market where his potatoes had gone. Fifty bunches he sold to his father. These were left protected in the ground for use when needed. The rest he sold in the city. From his celery he made $1.80. In all the lad made $9.55. This was a pretty good sum to make. So Peter's saying of "potatoes and profit" actually worked out.



XIII

PHILIP'S BACKYARD

On a beautiful Saturday in late April one might have seen The Chief and his boys boarding the train for the city. It was the day set apart for helping Philip.

The boy had cleared up the yard ready for work. You will remember shrubs were to be planted, a walk and cement pond made, and a little gardening done. The shrubs were planted as the school trees were. One must be careful to dig the hole large enough to receive the roots of the shrub. If old shrubs are transplanted be sure to cut out all the old wood, and also cut the top back severely; that is, reduce it to one-third its former size.

It was great fun to make the little pond. Such a pond may be used for fish or for water plants or for both. Do not make too large a one, unless you have a very large yard. The smaller ones are easier to care for, and more pleasing in appearance.

First stake off the outside limits for the pond. Philip's was to be four feet by two and one-half feet. Dig down three feet. Fill in the bottom of the pond up to fifteen inches of the top with large stones. Then in between and over these put small stones so that you have filled in about six to eight inches of the cavity. Now it is time to mix cement. Mix only a little at a time. Get a board about two feet square. With a trowel put on the board one part of Portland cement to three parts of sand. Have a watering pot full of water at hand. Add water enough each time to the cement and sand to make a soft but not running mass. If it be possible for you to have small stones to put in, it will improve the mortar you are mixing. These stones should not be larger than one inch in size. Add four parts of these to the mixture.

Now over the bottom of the pond put on the paste about three inches thick. Fill in with the trowel and smooth it off with the back of this same tool. The sides are the next job. Put a board slantwise against the bottom of the pond so there is a space between the board and the side you are to plaster. Drop the mortar down into this space and press the board against the sides. This firms the mortar. Keep up this work all around the sides of the pond.

Another way to do this work is to make a box that will fit approximately into the pond, but that gives a space all around over three inches from the sides. Then the mortar may be dropped in. After three days knock out the box and you have the inside all right. If you wet the sides and bottom of the box the mortar will cling to it less.

If the mortar looks rather rough after you finish, mix cement with water, take a whisk broom and with this brush the paste all over the bottom and sides of the pond. All around the ground by the pond, mortar for about six inches. This prevents the breaking in of the edges.

Albert and George, who worked on this job, did the mortaring the first way. The pond was left unfilled for a week to dry thoroughly. Then after placing two inches of sand in the bottom it was filled with water. Philip bought two pond lily roots. He tied stones with string on the roots of the plants to keep them down: otherwise they would have bobbed up and floated on the surface of the water. Some one gave him two water hyacinths.

In the middle of the yard a round bed was made. To do this take a cord and tie a stake at either end. The cord should be whatever length you have decided shall be the radius of the circle. The radius of a circle, you remember, is the distance from the centre to the circumference.

Now drive one of the stakes into the ground at the exact centre. Grasp in your hand the other stake and swing a circle with it. The stake will scratch a well-defined line so that you have the outline of the circle, the boundary of the bed.

Jay spaded down to about six inches all along the outlines of bed. After that the bed itself was spaded. Philip insisted on outlining it with brick which had been given him. Some children use whitewashed stones, some use shells. Either plan gives a spotty effect. The idea fails of being artistic. A neat cutting of the turf and a slight heaping up of a round bed toward the centre gives after all a far more pleasing effect. Try to keep as near to Nature's own plan as you can. Shells belong on the seashore or in a collection; keep stones for road making, wall building, cement work and curbs; bricks are for foundations and buildings. Rarely use things for what they were not intended. It is better usually to border a bed with low-growing flowers. Ageratum, candytuft and dwarf nasturtiums are good for the purpose.

Along a walk to an old outhouse they planted asters on one side and four o'clocks on the other. Asters, as all boys and girls know, are better if started inside early. Then they may be transplanted to the outside. In his way one gets a bit ahead of the season.

But Philip was obliged to plant seed for both. So he planted it in a drill as one plants lettuce. Later the little seedlings were thinned out to stand six inches apart. This thinning was done when the plants were four inches high. Four o'clocks need lots of room as they grow bushy.

Plants in narrow strips are quite likely to drop over their limits. To keep these in bounds Philip later built a fence. For this he used stakes driven into the ground at intervals of every four feet. To these he nailed strips of railing. Sometimes cords are used instead of railings.

An old fence was all about the yard and an old unused outbuilding in the rear. These were both unsightly in appearance, so they had to be hidden. Vines were used for this purpose.

About six inches from the fence a furrow was made four inches deep. Climbing nasturtium seeds were dropped into this furrow at distances of every four inches. The seeds had been soaked over night. This was because the ground was very dry and the weather was now quite settled and warm. If the ground is wet and the weather cold, never soak seed. It just adds to the general soggy condition to do this.



Morning-glory seeds were planted along the end of the fence by the outbuilding and all around it. After these climbing things began to grow the pretty effect of the vines was amazing.

Many times one has to train vines so they will grow where one wishes. In such cases drive small stakes into the ground back of where the vine is planted. Tie a cord or string to the stake and carry this up to where you wish the vine to go. The string may be attached in the best way, according to the place. If it is to an old building, drive a nail into the side, roof or peak of this. Some people make latticed trellises. These may be made from laths.

A neighbour gave Philip some canna bulbs which he planted in an old sieve filled with rich dirt. Canna bulbs look much like sweet potatoes. Usually a bit of stalk is left on the bulb. Leave this in planting above ground for about one-half inch. Dig a hole large enough to place the canna bulb and deep enough so the stalk comes above the ground. Place one big, fat bulb, or two or three little chaps in one spot. Leave about one foot between plantings.

In the fall after frost cut off the stalks about two inches above the ground, dig up the bulbs, shake all dirt off, and put into a box with a little thoroughly dry dirt until spring. Leave this box where it is dark and cool.

It would have been far better had Philip planted the cannas either in the round bed or against the fence as a screen. As a general rule the planting in tubs, kettles, kegs and similar receptacles is not only inartistic, but gives the plant very confined and cramped quarters. When possible plant right out in the ground. Window boxes and roof gardening in boxes is "another story."

The cost of Philip's flower garden was 25 cents. He bought five-cent packages of each of the flower seeds. The cannas cost nothing. The shrubs were $1, the cement 70 cents, and the water-lily roots 50 cents. So the total cost for changing an ugly yard to a mass of flowers was $2.46.

Philip's clearing up seemed to be catching for the girl across the street started in with her work. For ten cents she bought a collection of flower seed. These seed were planted in three-foot beds. The beds were banked up or supported by strips of board. This same girl planted flowers in two old kettles and set one upon an empty cask and the other on an old drain tile. But she later decided very wisely that this was not after all so very pretty. Kettles are better for potato boiling than for flowers.

But such a good time as she had all summer in her own green, pleasant backyard! And so had Philip, too! "Just a few cents and some hard work will change your backyard into something beautiful," Philip was heard to say one day to a group of city boys.



XIV

THE CORN CONTEST

Each boy was to take a certain number of hills of corn in his father's corn patch. He was to select his seed corn after a few suggestions given him by The Chief. These hills of selected corn were to be cared for by the boy himself, but it was perfectly legitimate that the soil be prepared for him, since most of the boys were to plant in their fathers' cornfields.

In the growing of corn the first matter for a boy or girl to consider is the selection of the seed. Corn should be selected carefully by the individual stalk; that is, choose ears from stalks bearing an ear or ears at, or a little below, the middle of the stalk.

The stalk itself should be thick and free from suckers or any evidence of disease. The ear should be cylindrical. The kernels should be deep setting, uniform and compact. Then the cob should not be too large. Look at some samples. See how some ears have too large a cob, others too small, while still others show a right amount of cob.

The butt and tip of the ear should be well filled out. Look for a perfect ear. The kernels are uniform in size, in even rows, with only a slight space between rows. See the tip and butt. Very little space is lost at the butt. You have seen ears where the butt was all space.

There is still another sort of corn. It might be called mongrel. Any one can raise such corn. Good care shows in corn as good breeding does in boys and girls.

One more point the boys were told to consider in selecting seed ears, that was the relation of the circumference of the ear to its length. An ear should have a fairly large circumference at the base and taper toward the tip. To estimate relation of circumference to length, which should be as three is to four, measure the ear one-third the distance from butt to tip. So if the ear is eight inches long the circumference should be about six inches.

All the boys but Jack and Myron tested their seed corn to be sure of its vitality. Peter went a little further than the other boys. He not only tested for general vitality, but he tested for vitality among the ears he had selected as good seed ears. This he did in the following manner: He chose twenty-five ears, and used four kernels from each ear. First a soup plate was filled with sand. This was moistened by dropping a little water on the sand. Sand must not be too wet for this work. He partitioned off the sand-bed into rows with cardboard between them. On the cardboards was marked over each row of four kernels the number of the ear from which they came. The sand was moistened each day. Peter worked out from this the best ears for quick germination.

The next point to be considered in corn culture is that of the soil. Soil for corn should be mellow and fine. If it has vegetable matter or humus in it, then its value as a corn-growing soil is increased. Fertilize well and plough, or if the plot is small, spade. You ought to have surely eight inches of good, mellow soil. In planting corn place five kernels in a hill. You will remember that a hill means a place. For corn which grows high make the hills four feet apart; while for the low growing varieties place three feet apart. Cover the early varieties with one inch of soil; the later varieties with one-half inch.

As the corn shoots begin to appear every boy should appear with his hoe or cultivator, for one secret of good gardening is constant cultivation or stirring of the soil. Water, as you know, rises in the ground and coming to the surface evaporates. Now the point is to keep the moisture in the ground for the plant's food supply. So if one keeps stirring the soil he makes a layer of earth which stops the water as it rises. We call this a mulch.

When the shoots are six inches high choose the three finest little corn seedlings in the group of five. Pull the others out. The reason for putting in five kernels in the first place, instead of three, is that some may not come up. And, too, some that do come up may be poor and sickly.

Myron did a very stupid thing. At least he called it stupid. Some one sent him a packet of seed popcorn. Myron thought it would be pretty interesting to raise some and supply the club with popcorn at its meetings all the next winter. Now Myron did not know that from the corn tassels the pollen when ripe or dry blows all over the corn field. This pollen falls on the silk of corn plants anywhere in the field. The pollen fertilizes the plant and the ear of corn sets and grows. Because the pollen being light is blown to such distances and because different kinds of corn can interpollinate, is reason enough for not planting different varieties of corn in one patch.

Myron's popcorn and sweet corn fertilized each other and he got a corn which was a cross between the sweet corn and popcorn. He learned a lesson of pollination, but at the expense of the corn crop.

One may plant early and late corn in the same patch but otherwise he should stick to one kind of corn.

The boys in the fall were to submit twelve of the finest ears they had raised. These were to be scored or sized up as follows:

NAME OF CONTESTANT VARIETY OF DATES OF PLANTING CORN .................. .............. ................. - (1) Ear: A. Trueness to type 10 B. Shape 10 20 - - (2) Filling of: A. Tip 10 B. Butt 10 20 - - (3) Kernels: A. Shape 6 B. Arrangement of cob 12 C. Depth 6 D. Colour 6 30 - - (4) Measurements of ear: A. Length 10 B. Circumference 10 20 - - (5) Proportion of Corn to Cob: 10 10 - - Total 100

This score card needs a little explanation. Take up (1) Ear, first. All the twelve ears presented ought to be much alike; that is, like the type or parent ear you are striving to produce again. So if, out of twelve specimens, six were fine ears and the other six were rather poor, then surely ten credits or points could not be given. The shape of an ear should in general be tapering, well rounded a little below the centre, and tapering not too abruptly toward the tip.

The second point is the Filling of the Tip and Butt. The tip should be filled with even, regularly arranged kernels. It should not be too pointed nor too blunt. The butts should be covered over with kernels except where a deep, clean-cut depression is left. Here, as in the tips, the shape has to be considered, for flattened and blunted butts are bad form.

As to Kernels, they should be uniform and well-shaped, not only on the single cob, but in all the specimens. The furrows must be uniform, regular, and with only a slight space between. To determine depth cut a square inch right out of an ear. All kernels should be of one colour. If a red kernel is in with the white then there has been an intermixing. All kernels on all ears ought to have the colour of those of the type form.

Not only should there be a proper proportion between Length of Ear and Circumference, but an ear may be too long. The usual length of ears is from eight to twelve inches, according to variety.

We have spoken of cob-relation before. This cannot be determined accurately by your eye but must be done by weight; so shell the corn, weighing the ear first. Now weigh the cob. The difference is weight of corn. Divide the weight of the corn by the weight of the ear. This gives per cent. of corn. For the exhibit the boys afterward used half their samples submitted and reckoned per cent. on this. The proper percentage of corn to cob should be 86 or 87 per cent. You can easily find out if you come up to standard.

Myron brought in some corn merely to show his mistake but of course did not submit any.

Jack, you will remember, did not test his corn and results showed this. Out of his twelve samples there were two good ears. The others showed many changes. The poorly filled tips, irregular rows, and wide space between rows—all these scored against Jack. George's corn was thrown out because black kernels were found here and there in with the others.

Albert's and Jay's Peep-o-day came out in fine shape. But Peter's Country Gentleman after all had the record. Philip dropped out of the race because he went on a summer vacation. So for a slight amount Peter took over Philip's corn hills.

That fall the boys made very careful selection of seed corn.

"After all," Myron said one night at club meeting, "although Peter's corn was the only really fine specimen, I think some of the rest of us got fully as much out of the corn contest."

"So do I," added Jack; "and I, for one, shall test corn after this."

"I think our corn was pretty good," Albert went on in a half-injured way; "but we are going to beat that record next year. We shall rotate our crop, planting our corn where the beans were this season. That's a thing fellows ought to know; that it's a mighty good thing to rotate crops."

"What's that?" asked Philip.

"Rotating crops means not always planting the same crop on the same piece of land, but changing every two or three years. It happens that beans are very good to plant before corn. They do not take from the soil, The Chief says, what the corn needs. So a piece of soil planted to beans gets in shape for corn planting another year. It would not be well to plant corn on a certain piece of land more than two successive years. Then something else should be planted on this land and the corn put somewhere else."

"Good!" said The Chief. "Some day we shall discuss rotation of crops more fully. There are no end of topics for us to work over this next winter."



XV

THE GIRLS' SECRET WORK

The girls were each to raise something special at their own home and then each was to have a share in a big garden. Katharine, who had quite a lovely yard, was to give the space for the general garden. This was largely because Katharine's home was on the river road, a bit out of the village and near none of the boys' places, for the girls wished to keep the knowledge of their work from the boys as long as possible. Helena lived next house to George and the land she might have used for this big garden would have bordered George's corn patch. So that, of course, would never do.

The garden while formal was ornamental. The girls were all to work on the staking out and preparation. But each girl was then to take a section of it and plant and care for that.

Katharine was to take the centre portion of grass and cannas. Now a grass plot is very pleasing in a garden. It is restful to the eye and is much more harmonious with the other colours in a garden than a mass of brilliant blossoms. Cannas have some height, a delicate splash of colour in the blossom and so work in well. It is always well to put some tall-growing plant in the centre. The effect is that of working up to a climax. One should not immediately jump from very low flowers in the beds to a few tall ones in the centre. This is ludicrous. Make the gradation gradual from low to high.

This garden of the girls may seem almost to violate this principle. Not so, for the nasturtiums merely acted as a border. Then all around the garden were the zinnias, poppies and marigolds a step up to the cannas. One may buy tall or rather low growing cannas. These latter grow about four feet high. They chose these low ones with yellow and orange in the blossom to harmonize with the yellow and orange of the nasturtiums.

Note the proportional amount of grass space in the girls' garden. Observe too that it is the centre of interest.

The nasturtium border was Elizabeth's. Zinnias were chosen by Helena, and Katharine was to help in this work. Eloise loving the mignonette had asked for it, poppies were Josephine's and marigold was for Dee. Ethel wanted the border of sweet alyssum although it represented a long strip to work.



If you think over this garden with its brilliant poppy colour, the heavy yellow of the marigold, the lighter colour effect of yellow in the nasturtium, the dark red zinnia—quite a splash of colour, was it not? In order to have great masses of brilliant colour in the same garden one must break them in some way. There are two possibilities that are good: first, paths between beds, and second, borders of white or inconspicuously coloured plants. Sweet alyssum is good for this purpose and so too is mignonette. Mignonette has such a small and modest little flower that one thinks always of mignonette in terms of green. The mignonette was massed at the entrance of the garden for pleasing and subdued effect.

In staking out a garden it is well first to put heavy stakes, like the ones the boys made, in each of the four corners of the entire plot and put a string around. This strings off the outline of the entire garden. Sight along the lines as Jay and Albert did to be sure the lines are straight. In sloping land true up with great care. On a level bit of land sighting is easy.

Next if there is a main path string that off using twine, stakes and always sighting. If the garden is a large one of many small plots the next thing to do is to string lengthwise the entire garden, measuring off plots and paths. Then widthwise measure off paths. The side paths give you the width-boundary of the plots. But the paths have cords through portions of them. So put stakes in the corners of the plots. Cut the cord in the centres of cross paths and tie to stakes. If carefully done each plot is marked off shipshape.

In general make the main paths four feet wide, plot paths or side paths eighteen inches. Plots with widths about one-third of the lengths are right. This did not hold true for this garden since the beds were long narrow strips. In such cases the width should be a comfortable one to lean over and work across.

In staking such a garden plot as the girls' it is well to first line off with stakes and cord the entire outline of the garden. Then next string off main paths and intermediate ones. It is very easy then to string off the beds, for the path boundaries have done most of the work for you.

The girls planted all their seeds except poppy and grass seed in drills just as one plants lettuce and radish. This is a far easier way to plant since as the little seedlings come up one can easily distinguish the nice even row of little plants from weeds. They decided later that it would have been easier if the poppy had come up in drills. For it came up in little tufts here and there. And, sad to say, the poppy does not stand transplanting.

In making drills take two stakes and a string. To either end of the string tie a stake. The length of the string after tying should be the length of the drill one wishes to make. This will be usually either the length or width of the bed. This, then, is your line for the drill making.

Another thing the girls did which makes garden measurements easy is the following: mark off on the rake or hoe handle three feet. One of these feet measure off into inches. This saves carrying a measuring rod into the garden. The marking should be done on the edge of the handle and not on either the under or upper surface of it. If garden stakes are made one foot in length they can be used in measuring.

Nasturtium culture needs some explanation. Nasturtiums are the most accommodating of flowers. They will live on almost any soil. The seeds are large and so are very easy for little girls to handle. They may be placed two seeds together six inches apart in the furrow. If the soil is very dry and the weather very warm, soak the seeds over night. Plant the seeds about one inch deep, cover over the soil and firm it well. It is easy enough to keep the nasturtium bed weeded for the seedlings are large and not to be mistaken. Keep the flowers well picked all summer and you will have numberless blooms.

Sweet alyssum is a charming border plant. This, too, grows in almost any soil. It is well to sow the seed in a box indoors. Transplant when the little seedlings are two inches high. But alyssum may be sown right outdoors in the garden plot. Sprinkle the seeds along in the drill. After the seedlings come up and are about an inch high thin out until the seedlings stand six to twelve inches apart.

Marigolds are very gay sort of flowers. Many do not like them on account of their disagreeable odour. But a strong point about these flowers is this: they bloom and bloom, and then they bloom again. There are three kinds of marigolds one might plant. These are the African, French and dwarf. They differ in height and also bushiness. The African varieties must be thinned out to stand fifteen inches apart, the French ten inches and the dwarf six inches. These seeds are dry, dead looking chaps, but are not so small that they cannot be handled separately and placed carefully in the drill. Plant them nearer together than they are to stand later. For instance, put the African five inches apart, the French five inches, too, and the dwarf three inches. Then you have extras, so if some do not come up your garden is not crippled.

Mignonette, again, is accommodating and will grow in almost any kind of soil. These seeds are small and may be sprinkled along in the drill. Later thin out so the plants stand from six to twelve inches apart. In choosing mignonette seed remember that there is a great difference in mignonette. Some is very sweet, some is not: some have large sturdy spikes, while others have rather small spikes. It pays to buy good seed.

Poppy is a trifle more particular about the soil it grows in. It requires a rather rich, sandy loam. Again remember that poppies never stand transplanting. Poppy may be planted broadcast or in drills. The tall growing varieties should finally stand eighteen inches apart and the smaller ones nine inches. In order that poppies may blossom freely you should never let a seed capsule form. For you see that if one wishes bloom, one must not let the strength of a plant go to any other work except blossom making.

Zinnias are satisfactory just as marigolds are. To be sure they are not a very graceful flower. But what of that? We need all kinds of flowers. When you buy the little packets of seed you usually get a mixture of colour.

In order to have just the colour one wishes, seed must be bought from the seedsman by the ounce. The girls wanted dark red zinnia. One ounce planted this space. It is not as expensive to buy seed this way. A number of people may club together for seed.

Helena's method of planting zinnia was to sow the seeds in a drill. Later she thinned her seedlings so that they stood eight inches apart in the row.

Cornflowers or bachelor's buttons are lovely too. They are far lovelier if bought by bulk so one may have the one colour, that lovely blue. These seeds may be planted in drills two seeds every six inches apart. Later thin to twelve inches apart.

Most people start cannas from the bulb. When one does this, plant a good sized bulb and leave about an inch of stalk above ground. If the bulbs are smaller use two to a hole or planting. If cannas are started from seed follow this direction: File holes in the canna seed. The reason for this is that the outer crust is tough and filing helps the young plant to get out. These seeds should be soaked in warm water for a day. Plant in pots. When the plants are six to eight inches tall transplant to the garden. Cannas should stand two to six feet apart. It depends on variety, whether tall or dwarfed, how far apart to place them.

When the flower garden was first started the question arose: "Shall we plant annuals, biennials or perennials."

"For my part," said Josephine, "I don't know at all what these words mean."

Katharine got a dictionary and soon she and Eloise had these botanical terms worked out as follows:

A perennial is a plant which lives year after year in the soil. It usually blossoms its second season. Trees and shrubs are hardy perennials.

A biennial is sown one year, blossoms the next and then dies. Biennials should be covered lightly with straw or leaves through the winter.

An annual blossoms and dies its first season. But some annuals sow themselves and so come up again the next season.

The girls worked out a table of planting by months which Ethel called the plant time-table.

Besides the garden which the girls all had together each one did something to improve things at home.

THE FLOWER TIME-TABLE - NAME SOWING TIME BLOSSOMING TIME - Ageratum May June-October Aster May Until frost Balsam May June-September Calendula May June-October Cal. Poppy May August Candytuft May June-September Coreopsis May June-August Cornflower April June Cosmos May August-September Four o'clock May July-August Foxglove May June Gaillardia May July-October Helianthus May August-September Hollyhocks August August Iceland Poppy May June-September Larkspur May June-July Marigold May Until frost Mignonette May Until frost Morning-glory May July-August Petunia May July-September Phlox May July-October Scabiosa May July-August Stock May June-July Sunflower April July-September -

Ethel and Dee set up a sundial in Ethel's own backyard. The directions that follow will help other girls and boys in setting up theirs. Sun-time and clock-time are not quite the same. There are four days in the year when, if you work out the sun-shadow time, your dial will be almost accurate. This is because on these days the sun-time and the clock-time practically coincide. These dates are April 15th, June 15th, September 1st, and December 24th.

Before you go outdoors draw on the platform of the sundial a straight line from angle B of the gnomon to the front edge of the platform.

Set the dial out in direct sunlight. The shadow cast must fall right on the straight line which you previously drew. When the shadow and the line coincide, mark the extreme end of the line XII. This stands for twelve o'clock. Now screw the sundial in this position to the column you have made for it to rest upon. At one o'clock mark where the shadow points, and keep on with this for every hour.

You remember the gnomon angle was the number of degrees corresponding to the degrees in latitude of your special place. Poughkeepsie boys and girls will be interested to know that if a sundial be brought to them from Rome, it will be right for them. And if New York City boys and girls could get one from Florence, they would find it accurate for their own use. These girls lived near Poughkeepsie.

Elizabeth planted a border of nasturtium, sunflower and zinnia along her sidewalk. It cost eight cents for seed to plant these two by ten feet strips.

Helena made a bed of different kinds of flowers right back of her father's field. The garden was thirteen and one-half feet square. The edges her father helped her sod, this making a terrace effect. Nine little flower beds were marked off with paths between. In the beds were asters, celosia, balsam, nasturtiums, marigold, zinnia, carnation, schizanthus, sweet peas, dahlias, gladiolus, candytuft, lilies, scabiosa, stocks, salvia, snapdragon, phlox, mignonette, four o'clocks and petunias. Helena's mother worked with her in the garden as did one of the boys across the street. He was not a club member but was hoping to be one the next year. And so Leston worked with Helena all summer long. He finally won his place in The Chief's club.

Eloise decided she would have a window garden and so before all the front windows of the inn, window boxes were placed.

Most of the trouble with the window box is a lack of drainage space. Estimate off the bottom of the box something like this: To every foot bore six holes. This is none too much. The great trouble usually is lack of drainage, or lack of air, or sour soil. Over each drainage hole put a bit of broken pot. Then it is well to put a half-inch of drainage material in the box. Stone, broken pot, sphagnum moss, or hay will do for this. The soil should be good, rich, garden soil. With this one might mix in some sand to help drainage. Window boxes should be watered with care; they should not be flooded.

Eloise had very effective boxes. Vincas trailed over the edges; dwarf cannas were in the back of each box; and red and white geraniums were a glory all summer long.

Josephine's gardening was a little difficult. She had no space at all. The backyard at her house was seeded down and her mother did not wish it spaded up. She had no front yard. Josephine thought and thought for some time, then decided she would just simply have to make a way to have a garden.

So one day she went to the grocery store and bought a soap box for ten cents. This she filled with soil from Eloise's garden. Then she bought a five-cent package of parsley seed. These seeds were soaked over night in warm water, for parsley seeds are slow to germinate.

Then the seeds were planted in neat little rows in her box garden. This garden was most convenient. It stood out near the house in the backyard all summer. It went to the exhibit in the fall. It stayed on the piazza until frost and then went into the kitchen for the winter. Josephine had parsley enough for her mother's table all the year around.



XVI

MORE ABOUT THE GIRLS' WORK.

In late September the girls began agitating the matter of bulb planting for the school grounds and their homes. The boys were rather scornful of it.

"I believe in gardens," said Albert with great finality, "but bulb work seems to me like fancy work. And then too, bulbs are pretty expensive."

"Very well," answered Dee, "we girls are quite able, as you boys know, to work alone. But spading is pretty hard, and I should think some of you would be glad to help."

"I'll help any time," Myron volunteered, "and I promise to bring two of these other chaps whenever you say."

"Thank you, Myron. We'll not bother you boys further now." Off the girls ran to Katharine's home to study bulb catalogues. Katharine's father gave five dollars for bulbs for the school grounds. This he stipulated was for outdoor planting. Elizabeth and Ethel were going to plant outdoors at home. The other girls had each some money for indoor work.

You may all like to know what the girls found out from their search in bulb catalogues. In the first place very good and perfectly reliable information is obtained from the catalogue of any reputable seed house. The girls found out that certain bulbs are better adapted to outside planting, while others do equally well indoors or out. Take tulips first; these are suited to the outdoor conditions. To be sure the florist, whose business it is to raise them inside does so with great success. But boys and girls are more likely to have trouble with inside planting of tulips than of other bulbs. Oftentimes lice cover them when the bulb is first brought up from the cellar. Then when treated with kerosene emulsion or some other insecticide the bud becomes blasted, for the blossom is close under the folded outer leaves, so is in a very precarious position. Then, too, tulip bulbs rot easily and the buds blast easily. So it is wise not to run so many risks but try the kinds of bulbs which are less prone to trouble. The easiest and safest bulbs for children to work with are narcissus (including daffodils, jonquils, Chinese lily bulbs and paper narcissus), and hyacinth.

Hyacinth has one bad habit when planted indoors. This is the tendency to unfold its blossom too soon. So the beautiful hyacinth blossom appears dwarfed and stunted close down near the ground. To avoid this condition do not take the bulb from the dark until the leaves are about an inch to two inches above the earth and until they have spread apart. This gives the blossom a chance to shoot up. Tip the pot over and see if the roots are visible through the drainage hole.

The time to buy bulbs is in late August or early September. After this bulbs through shrinkage depreciate in value; by which value is meant not one in price but in soundness and ability to produce blossoms. Do not buy cheap or cut-rate bulbs. Buy good, big, sound ones.

The Roman hyacinths are excellent for forcing. They are small flowered, quite different from the large sturdy Dutch hyacinths more commonly planted. In choosing hyacinths you have to decide upon the colour and whether you wish double or single varieties. In general most people enjoy single flowers better. If you are to use the hyacinths for outdoor planting or bedding it is perfectly safe just to write for bulbs which are to be bedded. La Grandesse is a beautiful white; King of the Blues speaks for itself and the Sarah Bernhardt is a salmon pink. These do well inside, too. Charles Dickens is a fine rose colour, Prince of Wales, violet, and L'Innocence, a fine white. These are good for inside planting. Some may like the smaller Roman hyacinths, which do splendidly indoors. Very good hyacinths are bought for fifteen cents.

Tulips do especially well outdoors. A capital one for either bedding or indoor forcing is the Isabelle. It is a beautiful red tulip which is bought for five cents. The Summer Beauty, a hardy white tulip, is well worth the ten cents asked for each one. Some of you may like to raise some freaks; then try parrot tulips at about thirty-five cents a dozen. A thing to remember about the indoor planting of tulips is this—tulips, more than other bulbs, are likely to have plant lice, so watch out!

In daffodils you may be sure of the Van Sion. These are worth forty cents a dozen. You can buy daffodils for twenty.

If you wish to lay in a stock of bulbs for water planting choose, of course, Chinese lilies, but try, too, the paper white narcissus. These bulbs cost forty cents a dozen. Buy from the five-and-ten-cent store a glass dish, and gather stones for it. About three weeks before you wish blossoms plant a dozen of these narcissi in the glass dish with the stones as a foundation, and water enough to come up around the base of the bulbs. It is a good plan to set the dish of bulbs in the dark for four or five days.

You can grow hyacinths in water too. For this a special glass is sold, although I have seen children place a bulb in the top of a preserve jar. It works all right. Bulbs must never drop low into water or they decay. These, too, should be placed in the dark for about a week.

Suppose you have a quarter to spend. You can make all kinds of interesting combinations. Three daffodils for ten cents, a hyacinth for ten, and a tulip for five, give you a chance to experiment.

A word more about narcissus. This is a large family, One gets confused sometimes with the names daffodil, jonquil and paper white narcissus. All these are of the family narcissus. The daffodils are the bulbs with large single or double cups. The jonquil has a cluster of small blossoms of from three to six single flowers. The paper white narcissus has four to twelve single blossoms to the flower head.

Ethel and Dee had good lawns at home which their mothers were not willing to have spaded up, but they gave consent to the girls putting crocus bulbs here and there over the lawns. These bulbs should be planted about an inch deep and three inches apart in the group. These were dotted about in clusters of six. The dibble is a good instrument to use in dotting bulbs around the turf. Crocuses are good for indoor planting as well. They may be planted in flats or in indoor boxes. Remember crocuses are of practically no use for cut-flower purposes.

The school tulip bed was made just as Philip's round bed was made. The time to plant depends on the weather. It is always well to get all outdoor planting done before the time of frost. Why? Because you wish to get the bulbs in while the earth is still warm. Bulbs lie in the ground all winter slowly putting out roots, slowly starting to push up toward the light above. For good root forming they need this long time of slow growth. Get the outdoor bulbs in the ground during September.

Before this the ground may be prepared. In all the beds dig down about two feet. Work over the soil well. Make it fine and free from lumps and stones. Ordinary garden soil will be right for these beds. Put no fertilizer in. If your ground is clayey, mix sand with it. Use one-quarter sand in a mixture of this sort. This makes a lighter soil. Clay soil is what we call a heavy soil. Bulbs require light soils.

Now comes planting. Different kinds of bulbs require different depths of soil. Place the tulip bulbs four inches deep, and six inches apart.

Hyacinths were planted by Elizabeth in a strip beside the house. Jack also planted daffodils in a corner sheltered by the house foundation and an old high fence. The daffodils were planted exactly as the tulips, but the hyacinths were planted six inches deep, instead of four.

In buying bulbs for outdoor planting ask for bedding bulbs, while for indoor work buy forcing varieties.

One bright day in October the girls met at Katharine's house to pot their bulbs for winter. Some had made wooden boxes or flats during the winter; others had bought low pots; while still others had the ordinary high pot.

In potting bulbs or any other plant two things are to be kept in mind—first, the soil, and second, the drainage. The soil may be any good garden soil. To a given quantity one may add one-fourth rotted manure and one-fourth sand. This last helps lighten the material, allowing more air to get at the entire mass and making good drainage easier. Mix all this together. If one lacks the well-rotted manure and sand, any good garden soil may be used. Sift the soil until it is perfectly fine.