The Huttig news., 1908-02-29
Copyright, 1907, by Joseph 3. Bowles)

| when they got under the shade of
| their own shingle and fig-tree, so to
speak.
The next morning, before the amor
| GUS sun could get in his deadly blight
| ing work on the cabbages, l inserted
| couple of shingles apiece to each
| plant and the sun disappointedly went
| to work on other sections of the gar
| den. / 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 bright green
| color, appeared in the offing and with
| him came nlyriads 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
I
| growing vegetable gladdened the eye
l consulted a gardening oracle and he
| told me to spray them with salt wa
ter. l 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
| I 70 DIV
| one of those worms which would look
| like he had lost all interest in his job
| revive almost Immediately under
saltwater spray, and go to eating cab
bage as energetically as starved
! highway COW. | soon saw that the
| saltwater treatment only made them
more frisky and ravenous than ever,
! so / 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 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.
| 1 realized instantly that I had been
/
way of killing the hornibus cussicus
except with club. / found a 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 I 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 well and seemed
anxious to please. But the weeds
grew strong and thick, and although l
cut them down diligently, they came
on undiscouraged and threatened to
swamp our garden If something was
not done to rout them. 1t was here,
like whats-his-name of old, that l
| jumped into the breach, or rather the
breeches, and performed a prodigy of
valor.
| 1t was easy to be 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 I finally &C
complished by roofing them out from
the bottom with long-handled hoe,
and wheeling them away in a wheel
barrow that had locomotor ataxia in
it's wheel and almost made me bow
legged trying to follow it's gyrations.
l 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 a vigilant use of the hoe l
kept the weeds and grass away from
the garden all the rest of the time
| until fall.
| The secret of successful gardening
|
the endless grind of detail work. Just
a 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
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 it
besides.
| Another well-known wrinkle in CUR.
| dening is to plant a little at 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