Norwich bulletin., 1913-09-13

the scrap heap. Sweet corn has grown rather small and inclined to be tough CT than usual. But it has made a crop and about as big a crop as usual, too, counting the ears by the dozen or hun dred. Potatoes were planted in rather low and wet ground. They've done quite as well as the average. Onions are a small yield but the handsomest and most even in size l remember. Winter squash give promise of the biggest crop, area for area, that l ever raised. TOmatoeS,-a1s set in rather wet ground,-are maturing slowly, but almost all which do ripen are perfect in shape and siZe,-pretty as pictures, and the vines are loaded.
 Also and moreover, Madame Nature has winked her eye at me from one garden patch, with so large and in structive a nictitatiOn that 1 can't help feeling a little grateful to her, despite her stinginess in the sending of rain.
 She has taught me a lesson in the matter of mulching a lesson so plain and unmistakable that the wayfaring farmer though a fool, couldn't help understanding it.
 You see, my main beet bed didn't look quite right in early spring. The
 
 the tiny shoots so feeble that l feared l was going to have a short crop. As l had a little seed left l soWed it Tn another part of the garden. There was enough to drill in three rows each about a hundred and fifty feet long. But the strip of available land was narrow. so l put the rows scant eighteen inches apart Naturally, we could work between such rows only with hand tools or small garden wheel hoes. On one side, however. we had a cucumber patch. The nearest hills were five feet away from the beets. Until the cucumber vines began to run, we were able to keep that patch thoroughly worked with horse tools; ;- Planet Jr., cultivator, Bradley garden harrow, horseshoe. etc. Thus it came about that one side of one outer row of beets was kept mellow and fine for at least four inches deep. The other side of that row and of course the re- ma1nIng two rows had to be content with what the dou6&%zwheel hoe and like man pushed tools could do. No weeds were allowed to grow in any of the rows. The two hand-rows had a line and continuous dust mulch all the time. But that row next the cucumber patch had, on one side, four-inch deep dirt mulch all the time You'll note that there's a diff ference between a dust" mulch per haps half-an-inch thick, and a dirt
 We'll, that row of beets next the dirt" mulch is today ready to pull Its tops are at least three times as big as those of the other rows The beets themselves are more than three times as numerous, by count, and a good deal more than three times as big, on the average. They are also sweeter and tenderer. shall be able n Ia fully ten times as much as l shall get for both the other rows.
 Remember that the soil is the same the seed the same, the manner of sow ing the same, the seasonal influences the same. The only difference between the one row and the two others is that the one had a deep dirt mulch kept on one side of 1t through the hot sum- mer, while the others had merely a dust mulch on both sides
 Now, if one-half a dirt" mulch is worth ten times as much as whole dust mulch, such a season as this, isn't it reasonable to suppose that tt will be worth trying in an ordinary season?
 Or, considering that we never know Tn May or June what the weather of July and August is going to be, may it not be worth while to keep up the dirt" mulch as an insurance against drouthy contingencies?
 There may be soils in which the 'dust" mulch is effective. If yours is of that sort, you must have found it out by this time and the lesson of my beet-patCh is not for you. Certainly there are soils in which a dust mulch is of no avail, for mine is of that character, if yours resembles mine. then, perhaps my experience may prove helpful to you
 You will notice that l have called it a dirt" mulch. That is to distinguish it from the phrase dust mulch
 If you want to call it intensive cul- 1 tVation,' you will be using just as correct a term.
 Anyway, l wish that every farmer who thinks scratching the top of the ground is adequate cultivation for ordinary crops might be able to see those three rows of beets now, before we pull 'em.
 I should have had more and better beets out of two rows. spaced three 1 feet apart, than 1 shall now get from three rows, eighteen inches apart Be cause, in the former case, could have got in between them. with horse tools, 1 and kept the dirt everlastingly chewed l up four or five inches deep.
 THE FARMER