Evening star., 1915-04-11

son Is well enough
Plant at Once adv need that
for Early Crops. mn s a., atvs's Ase nc
feared from now on; besides which, it
Is mistake to wait until May to plant
the seeds that are to produce the early
spring crops. Seeds of beets. carrots
kohl-rabi, early cabbages. etc, may be
sown at any time now for the earliest
crops: Sow the seeds in the ground
they are to occupy. Carrots and beets
should be sown in shallow drills about
a foot apart. covering the seeds an
inch Deep If beet seed are soaked
overnight in water that is barely luke
warm termination will be greatly for
warded. AS the plants push above the
ground, thin them out to stand about
three inches apart in the rows. When
again, leaving the plant six inches
apart in the rows. The young, tender
beet plants removed in the thinning
out process may be boiled and eaten
as greens. and they are mighty good
that way, if there are enough of them.
Onion seed should be sown as soon
as possible. The soil for these must
be made as fine as possible and must
be highly enriched with well rotted,
crumbly manure; COW manure is best,
thing that requires manure. Sow the
seed thinly in drills six inches to a
foot apart, according to the variety.
AS the shoots appear and attain the
height of an inch or SO, thin them out,
thinning again when they are three or
four inches high, until the final thin
ming leaves the onions about three
inches apart in the rows. For the large
varieties four or even five inches is
better. Keep the ground well worked;
weed by hand. so as to keep every
tiniest weed out of the onion bed. and
maintain a fine dust mulch. By fol-
lowing these instructions onions may
be grown in one year from seed, even
the big. sweet Spanish or Bermuda
onions. Otherwise the gardener will
restricts his choice of varieties.
Sow lettuce, endive, romaine and
other salads right away, making the
seed bed fine and free from clods or
Jumps. AS the plants attain some size,
practice tying up the leaves. using bits
Of raff1a, so as to blanch the inner
leaves of the heads. The tying must be
done carefully, so as not to injure the
plants, but the trouble will be more
than paid for by the crisp. tender well
blanched salads to be produced in this
manner.
any time from now on. The ground
is in fine condition
Now Is Time for for working; in
Early Potatoes. wou1d not not hurt hurt
things a bit. The snow of last Sat
urday disappeared SO quickly that it left
little additional moisture in the soil.
and the warm, dry winds have further
dried things out. The spring rains
will come, however. never fear. and the
potatoes as well as other crops that are
in the ground when the rains do arrive
will get all the benefit.
Potatoes planted on ground where
green. growing rye has been turned
under make the best crops. II the
rye hasn't been sowed, however, and
therefore isn't available, manure the
ground fairly literally with old.
strawy manure before plowing, or turn
the manure under in the rows after
first plowing.
Cut the seed potatoes so that each
piece will have one eye, and plant two
pieces to each hill. Some planters drop
three or four pieces, but this is waste
full and does not bring additional yields
Before the seed potatoes are cut they
should be soaked for at least an hour
or SO in a solution of one part of for
malin or formaldehyde to ten parts Of
water. In late years various fungous
diseases of potatoes have been i'm
ported into the United States, such
as scab. dry rot and various forms of
these diseases, and the formalin or
formaldehyde treatment is necessary to
insure that the potato crop will not be
infected.
Cover the pieces with three to five
inches of soil, placing the bills about
a foot to eighteen inches apart. and
the rows eighteen inches to two feet
apart.
BY addressing the Department of
Agriculture gardeners may obtain sew