The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-11-30
GARDEN
AND HOUSEHOLD
FARM,
BY S. A. COOK.

In Farm and Garden - December
Work.
1t is only a question Of wet or dry
weather the amount of work that can
be done both in garden and field this
closing month Of the year. Here in
the South snow and frost presents lit
tie or no obstacle to outdoor work i'm
December. There is very little i'm the
way of planting or sowing Of seeds
that can be done. OF course below the
latitude of Savannah there is consider
able that could be done in this way if
perchance such work has not been more
appropriately done in the previous
month or even in october.
Those hardy and half-hardy crops
the truck farm that ordinarily pass
through the average winter of South
Georgia or North Florida without any
serious injury should be we'll under
way by Dec. 1. 1t is only
where circumstances have caused
this work to be delayed or not fully
completed will it be necessary to do
much if anything in the way Of SOW
ing spinach or English peas, or beets,
sowing or setting onions or straWber-
ries, cabbages or other salad crops.
This work usually should be completed
by the last of November. With the as
surance of a good market for the
product the trucker may be encour-
aged to put in a larger area Of these
crops to come in as a succession TO the
earlier established ones 1t may be
that some of these have failed from
one cause or another-insect or blight,
or from failure of seeds to germinate-
a very common cause of failure now
adays and sad to say constantly in
creasing.
A little more, perhaps than the or
binary farmer should the trucker as
sure himself of the quality of his seeds
before called on TO start his crop. one
serious failure from a neglect to do
this very reasonable thing should be
taken as an experience" for a life
time. 1t is extremely discouraging to
the most hopeful trucker to discover
towards the close of November That
the seeds he had sOwn in confidence
some weeks earlier had failed to give
him even half a stand, that there were
only little cumps of plants here and
there. the result of what might be
termed reckless sowing in case first
considerab bly, disspiriting to have
crop fail from this cause at any season,
but il is rather more so when 1t hap
pens with the fall sowing from the fact
that the lost time can not be made
I'D quite so readily as it may in the
spring. In the spring the air and SOIL
ternperature is steadily increasing and
a nisadventure with the first sowing
is not so serious as ii is when such
occurs in the fall when the tempera-
ture of soil and air is steadily declln-
ing after oct. Is. There is more COM
pensation for delay at the one time
than the other.
In either case the danger should be
guarded against. The only way to do
this is to buy the seeds enough in adj
vance of planting to allow of them be-
ing well tested. A shallow box or
boxes should be provided for the spe-
cial purpose Into these a hundred
seeds of each kind to be planted
should be carefully sown and the num-
Der that terminate be noted. 1t would
prevent many delays and disappoint-
ments to know the quality of the
seeds one is using.
December work consists chiefly in
blowing and manuring the soil for the
early spring planting. All stubble land
and all land at all clayey should be
turned over so as to give it the ben
efts of the freezes that may occur
during December and January, and
also to allow of the vegetable matter
becoming rotted as much as possible
before planting time. The land need
not be flushed, but merely laid off at
proper distances and bedded out. II
much land is to be gone over it need
not be bedded out fully at first, but
merely listed uo. This leaves it in
futed condition for the best action
of freezing and it will dry out much
faster after hard rains as the time ar
rives for putting in the February and
March crops. AS much as possible of
this preliminary work of soil prepar-
alton should be done in December ana
on through January, if weather per
mits. The more done in December
the better, for there is no telling how
wet and cold January and February
may be.
Land rough drafted in December is
very readily prepared for planting in
early spring Much good work can be
done in December.