Home Vegetable Gardening - F. F. Rockwell (nice books to read .txt) 📗
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have a wider range of use than the older sorts.
Pumpkins:—The old Large Cheese, and the newer Quaker Pie, are
as prolific, hardy and fine in quality and sweetness as any.
Potato:—Bovee is a good early garden sort, but without the best
of culture is very small. Irish Cobbler is a good early white. Green
Mountain is a universal favorite for main crop in the East—a sure
yielder and heavy-crop potato of excellent quality. Uncle Sam is the
best quality potato I ever grew. Baked, they taste almost as rich as
chestnuts.
Radish:—I do not care to say much about radishes; I do not like
them. They are, however, universal favorites. They come round, half-long, long and tapering; white, red, white-tipped, crimson, rose,
yellow-brown and black; and from the size of a button to over a foot
long by fifteen inches in circumference—the latter being the new
Chinese or Celestial. So you can imagine what a revel of varieties the
seedsmen may indulge in. I have tried many—and cut my own list down to
two, Rapid-red (probably an improvement of the old standard, Scarlet
Button), and Crimson Globe (or Giant), a big, rapid, healthy grower of
good quality, and one that does not get “corky.” A little land-plaster,
or gypsum, worked into the soil at time of planting, will add to both
appearance and quality in radishes.
Spinach:—The best variety of spinach is Swiss Chard Beet (see
below). If you want the real sort, use Long Season, which will give you
cuttings long after other sorts have run to seed. New Zealand will
stand more heat than any other sort. Victoria is a newer variety, for
which the claim of best quality is made. In my own trial I could not
notice very much difference. It has, however, thicker and “savoyed”
leaves.
Salsify:—This is, to my taste, the most delicious of all root
vegetables. It will not do well in soil not deep and finely pulverized,
but a row or two for home use can be had by digging and fining before
sowing the seed. It is worth extra work. Mammoth Sandwich is the best
variety.
Squash:—Of this fine vegetable there are no better sorts for
the home garden than the little Delicata, and Fordhook. Vegetable
Marrow is a fine English sort that does well in almost all localities.
The best of the newer large-vined sorts is The Delicious. It is of
finer quality than the well known Hubbard. For earliest use, try a few
plants of White or Yellow Bush Scalloped. They are not so good in
quality as either Delicata or Fordhook, which are ready within a week
or so later. The latter are also excellent keepers and can be had, by
starting plants early and by careful storing, almost from June to June.
Tomato:—If you have a really hated enemy, give him a dozen seed
catalogues and ask him to select for you the best four tomatoes. But
unless you want to become criminally involved, send his doctor around
the next morning. A few years ago I tried over forty kinds. A good many
have been introduced since, some of which I have tried. I am prepared
to make the following statements: Earliana is the earliest quality
tomato, for light warm soils, that I have ever grown; Chalk’s Jewel,
the earliest for heavier soils (Bonny Best Early resembles it);
Matchless is a splendid main-crop sort; Ponderosa is the biggest and
best quality—but it likes to split. There is one more sort, which I
have tried one year only, so do not accept my opinion as conclusive. It
is the result of a cross between Ponderosa and Dwarf Champion—one of
the strongest-growing sorts. It is called Dwarf Giant. The fruits are
tremendous in size and in quality unsurpassed by any. The vine is very
healthy, strong and stocky. I believe this new tomato will become the
standard main crop for the home garden. By all means try it. And that
is a good deal to say for a novelty in its second year!
Turnip:—The earliest turnip of good quality is the White Milan.
There are several others of the white-fleshed sorts, but I have never
found them equal in quality for table to the yellow sorts. Of these,
Golden Ball (or Orange Jelly) is the best quality. Petrowski is a
different and distinct sort, of very early maturity and of especially
fine quality. If you have room for but one sort in your home garden,
plant this for early, and a month later for main crop.
Do not fail to try some of this year’s novelties. Half the fun of
gardening is in the experimenting. But when you are testing out the new
things in comparison with the old, just take a few plants of the latter
and give them the same extra care and attention. Very often the
reputation of a novelty is built upon the fact that in growing it on
trial the gardener has given it unusual care and the best soil and
location at his command. Be fair to the standards—and very often they
will surprise you fully as much as the novelties.
INSECTS AND DISEASES AND METHODS OF FIGHTING THEM
I use the term “methods of fighting” rather than the more usual one,
“remedies,” because by both experience and study I am more and more
convinced that so long as the commercial fields of agriculture remain
in the present absolutely unorganized condition, and so long as the
gardener—home or otherwise—who cares to be neglectful and thus become
a breeder of all sorts of plant pests, is allowed so to do—just so
long we can achieve no remedy worth the name. When speaking of a remedy
in this connection we very frequently are putting the cart before the
horse, and refer to some means of prevention. Prevention is not only
the best, but often the only cure. This the gardener should always
remember.
This subject of plant enemies has not yet received the attention from
scientific investigators which other branches of horticulture have, and
it is altogether somewhat complicated.
Before taking up the various insects and diseases the following
analysis and list will enable the reader to get a general comprehension
of the whole matter.
Plant enemies are of two kinds—(1) insects, and (2) diseases. The
former are of two kinds, (a) insects which chew or eat the leaves or
fruit; (b) insects which suck the juices therefrom. The diseases also
are of two kinds—(a) those which result from the attack of some
fungus, or germ; (b) those which attack the whole organism of the plant
and are termed “constitutional.” Concerning these latter practically
nothing is known.
It will be seen at once, of course, that the remedy to be used must
depend upon the nature of the enemy to be fought. We can therefore
reduce the matter to a simple classification, as follows:
PLANT ENEMIES
Insects Class
Eating a
Sucking b
Diseases
Parasitical c
Constitutional d
REMEDIES
Mechanical Number
Covered boxes……….. 1
Collars…………….. 2
Cards………………. 3
Destructive
Hand-picking………… 4
Kerosene emulsion……. 5
Whale-oil soap………. 6
Miscible oils……….. 7
Tobacco dust………… 8
Carbolic acid emulsion.. 9
Corrosive sublimate…. 10
Bordeaux mixture……. 11
Poisonous
Paris green………… 12
Arsenate of lead……. 13
Hellebore………….. 14
It will be of some assistance, particularly as regards quick reference,
to give the following table, which shows at a glance the method of
fighting any enemy, the presence of which is known or anticipated.
While this may seem quite a formidable list, in
practice many of these pests will not appear, and
under ordinary circumstances the following six
remedies out of those mentioned will suffice to keep
them all in check, if used in time: Covered boxes,
hand-picking, kerosene emulsion, tobacco dust, Bordeaux
mixture, arsenate of lead.
ENEMY | ATTACKING | CLASS | REMEDY
––––––—|–––––––––-|––—|––-
Aphis (Plant-lice) | Cabbage and other plants, | b | 5,8,6
| especially under glass | |
Asparagus-beetle | Asparagus | a | 13, 12
Asparagus rust | Asparagus | c | 11
Black-rot | Cabbage and the cabbage | d | 10
| group | |
Borers | Squash | b | 4
Caterpillars | Cabbage group | a |12, 14, 4
Caterpillars | Tomato | a | 4
Club-root | Cabbage group | c | see text
Cucumber-beetle | Cucumber and vines | a | 1, 11, 8
(Striped beetle) | | |
Cucumber-wilt | Cucumber and vines | c | 11
Cucumber-blight | Cucumber, muskmelon, | c | 11
| cabbage | |
Cutworm | Cabbage, tomato, onion | a |2,4,12,13
Flea-beetle | Potato, turnip, radish | a | 11, 5
Potato-beetle | Potato and eggplant | a |12, 13, 4
Potato-blight | Potato | c | 11
Potato-scab | Potato (tubers) | c | 10
Root-maggot | Radish, onion, cabbage, | a | 4, 3, 9
| melons | |
Squash-bug | Squash, pumpkin | b |4,8,12,5
White-fly | Plants; cucumber, tomato | b | 6, 5, 8
White-grub | Plants | a | 4
However, that the home gardener may be prepared to meet any
contingency, I shall take up in brief detail the plant enemies
mentioned and the remedies suggested.
Aphis:—The small, soft green plant-lice. They seldom attack
healthy growing plants in the field, but are hard to keep off under
glass. If once established it will take several applications to get rid
of them. Use kerosene or soap emulsion, or tobacco dust. There are also
several trademarked preparations that are good. Aphine, which may be
had of any seed house, has proved very effective in my own work, and it
is the pleasantest to use that I have so far found.
Asparagus-beetle:—This pest will give little trouble on cleanly
cultivated patches. Thorough work with arsenate of lead (1 to 25) will
take care of it.
Black-rot:—This affects the cabbage group, preventing heading,
by falling of the leaves. In clean, thoroughly limed soil, with proper
rotations, it is not likely to appear. The seed may be soaked, in cases
where the disease has appeared previously, for fifteen minutes in a
pint of water in which one of the corrosive sublimate tablets which are
sold at drug stores is dissolved.
Borers:—This borer is a flattish, white grub, which penetrates
the main stem of squash or other vines near the ground and seems to sap
the strength of the plant, even when the vines have attained a length
of ten feet or more. His presence is first made evident by the wilting
of the leaves during the noonday heat. Coal ashes mixed with the manure
in the hill, is claimed to be a preventative. Another is to plant some
early squash between the hills prepared for the winter crop, and not to
plant the latter until as late as possible. The early squash vines,
which act as a trap, are pulled and burned.
Last season almost half the vines in one of my pieces were attacked
after many of the squashes were large enough to eat. With a little
practice I was able to locate the borer’s exact position, shown by a
spot in the stalk where the flesh was soft, and of a slightly different
color. With a thin, sharp knife-blade the vines were carefully slit
lengthwise on this spot, the borer extracted and killed and the vines
in almost every instance speedily recovered. Another method is to root
the vines by heaping moist earth over several of the leaf joints, when
the vines have attained sufficient length.
Cabbage-caterpillar:—This small green worm, which hatches upon
the leaves and in the forming heads of cabbage and other vegetables of
the cabbage group, comes from the eggs laid by the
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