Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1908-03-04

AA6 WIN OA CAAO NoUUo6O0, 1ASOItOU
couple of shingles apiece to each
plant and the sun disappointedly went
to work on other sections of the gar
den. I watered the cabbages some
more, and by evening they were GER
tainly on the mend. But, alas! for the
rarity of Christian charity,--a long,
low, rakish worm of a bright green
color, appeared in the offing, and with
him came myriads of his tribe. The
scientific name of this pest is the
hornicus cussicus, and his common
name, the cabbage-worm. Each worm
sports from 10 to 107 horns, big and
little, and when these lads are very
small you can scarcely tell them from
the cabbages, so alike are both in col
or. But they grow at a fearsome rate,
and as they grow, your cabbages are
devoured with sickening rapidity, leav-
ing mere stripped stems where once
the broad and succulent leaves of the
growing vegetable gladdened the eye
| consulted gardening oracle and he
told me to spray them with salt wa
ter. I did this for awhile and the
worms actually thrOve on it. After
long, hot night, nothing seemed to
give them such snap and nerve as to
get refreshing saltwater bath such
as l used to give them. have seen
one of those worms which would look
like he had lost all interest in his job
revive almost Immediately under a
saltwater spray, and go to eating cab
bage as theoretically as starved
| highway COW. l soon saw that the
! saltwater treatment only made them
more frisky and ravenous than ever,
so l sent for book which gave direc-
lions for exterminating them. This
| book recommended Dr. Killem's insect
! powder. This stuff was scattered
| over them with a sort of a blow-gun,
and a good deal of it got up your nose
and made you sneeze. But the worms
! fairly dotted on it.
l realized instantly that I had been
the victim of fraud. There is no
way of killing the hornibus cussicus
except with club. I found small
baseball bat in the smOkehOuse, left
| there by some small boy, and with
this weapon sailed out and fell on
the cabbage-worms and wreaked great
slaughter upon them. But it was too
late; they had about gotten away
with the cabbage crop. But just as a
guide for future gardeners l want to
say that the only way to get rid of
these brutes is to take club and
maui them to death.
We planted radishes of two or three
varieties, lettuce, swiss chard, beans,
| peas, sweet corn, beets, tomatoes,
turnips, spinach, and some other va
rieties of vegetables, and for the most
part they came up we'll and seemed
anxious to please. But the weeds
grew strong and thick, and although I
cut them down diligently, they came
on undiscouraged and threatened to
swamp our garden if something was
not done to rout them. It was here,
like whats-his-name of old, that !
jumped into the breach, or rather the
breeches, and performed a prodigy of
! valor.
1t was easy to oe seen that cutting
them down only increased their
strength and number. The only re.
sort was to dig them out bodily and
carry them away. This finally ac-
complished by roofing them out from
the bottom with a long-handled hoe,
and wheeling them away in a wheel.
barrow that had locomotor ataxia in
its wheel and almost made me bow.
legged trying to follow its gyrations
was compelled to remove several
tons of soil in taking away the weeds
but at last the job was finished After
that the garden looked immense
Cecile could come out in her "glad
rags and gather vegetables, and as
for the baby, she preferred it as a
playground to the lawn around the
house. BY vigilant use of the hoe ]
kept the weeds and grass away from
the garden all the rest of the time
until fall.
The secret of successful gardening
is not so much in intellect as it is in
the endless grind of detail work. Just
hard, remorseless whacking away
with hoe morning and evening, stir.
ring up the earth along the lines OF
your rows of vegetables, letting the
sun and moisture III at the roots. and
keeping the grass away from the beds
But sometimes the grass is a good
scheme. For instance, when you have
a lettuce bed that is growing fast, let
the grass grow up in the rows and it
will retard the lettuce growth some,
and keep it from going to seed too
soon. In this way you can have let.
tuce all summer from one bed, and
the grass, overshadowing the lettuce,
will have the effect of blanching il
besides.
Another well-known wrinkle in g;,r.
dening is to plant a little at a time of
your vegetables, and thus have fresh
lettuce, beans, radishes, beets, peas,
corn, ETC., all the time. You can hoe
over a bed where one vegetable has
grown and put in other seed, also, and
it is really wonderful how much can
be raised from small space of ground
by careful attention to detail, and q
liberal use of the hoe.
| don't think there is anything In
the world more touching than the
pride woman takes in a successful
garden that her husband has raised.
You would almost imagine that she
had done the work herself. To get the
full benefit Of this, just trail her
while she shows the garden to Wis